Get the Most Out of What You Have
Optimizing effect when opportunities exceed capacity.
If you work with process, standards, and technology, the opportunities today are almost endless.
Improve how we work. Streamline. Standardize. CDISC. ICH M11 protocols. Use R and pharmaverse. AI. Automation.
And don’t forget — you still need to maintain and support what you already have.
At the same time, capacity and resources are always limited. Whether you have a lot or a little, there is
always a ceiling. And for good reasons, trial portfolio work is often prioritized first.
It is easy to chase everything.
To overstretch.
To go after the fancy, the bright, the shiny.
To prioritize the influential or the loudest voices.
Here are our thoughts on how to approach this situation.
Step 1: Optimize Value — While Protecting Your MVPs
Some things must be done simply to keep the lights on.
Your Minimum Viable “Products.” Operations. Maintenance. Support.
Can you challenge what that minimum really is? Yes.
Can you push it lower? Probably.
But some work must be done — regardless.
Once that baseline is secured, the key question becomes:
How do you maximize the realized value of the remaining effort?
Step 2: Optimize the Efficiency of Your Efforts — and Turn Value into Reality
A) Solve the Right Problem
The classic 80/20 rule applies.
Spend the right 20% of effort to generate 80% of the value.
In practice, this means being disciplined when identifying the real problem or the true opportunity —
and staying disciplined when designing the fundamentals of the solution.
Focus hard. Be ruthless.
Don’t solve the wrong problem really well.
B) Actual Change — Not Gadgets
No solution — whether technology, standards, or process — creates value unless it leads to
real change in how work is done.
A solution is not “done” when it is designed or delivered.
It is done when people actually work differently — and keep doing so.
Too often, we build a fantastic gadget that cannot be used.
Or is not used.
Because the design was fundamentally wrong.
Or it did not fit the real working process.
Or the change was never driven through validation, process updates, training, change management, and support.
A gadget that works wonders in theory but is not used in reality delivers zero value.
C) Serial, Not Parallel
Individuals and organizations can only handle a limited number of parallel tasks.
When we overstretch — driven by over-ambition or over-optimism — we try to do everything at once.
This kills efficiency and multiplies overhead.
Smaller, sequential developments deliver more impact with the same resources.
They also release value earlier — in manageable steps.
Earlier value means higher adoption.
And higher adoption means higher realized impact.
D) Right Person, Right Task
Yes, personal development and growth matter — and we can all do better here.
But delivery also requires using people’s strengths and accommodating their weaknesses.
Doubling down on individual and organizational strengths is one of the most powerful ways
to improve efficiency and outcomes.
Choosing initiatives based on the skills you actually have available is not wrong.
The goal is to optimize realized value from the capacity you have.
A high-value idea that cannot be efficiently delivered is not an efficient choice.
The Hard Part
This all sounds simple. Almost obvious.
But it is rarely easy.
Most organizations face a long list of highly valid needs, opportunities, and business cases —
each backed by different stakeholders.
Being truly disciplined is hard.
Saying no is hard.
Stopping or decommissioning things is hard.
Doing less than you think you can is hard.
Settling for “good enough” and fit-for-purpose is hard.
Not starting everything at once is hard.
And resisting the shiny, the fashionable, and what everyone else seems to be doing —
that is hard too.
But very often, the right thing to do is simple.
It is just rarely easy.