Aiming for a cure: A medical research non profit strategic planning template
Simon Sinek is wrong!
Non profit strategic planning template helps organizations that are aiming for a cure.
If you don’t know, Simon Sinek’s most famous insight is “begin with your why” (1).
He says most people don’t know their why. Everyone knows what they do, fewer know how they do what they do, but very few truly know why they do what they do.
But for people working in medical research Sinek’s What, How, and Why hierarchy is in the wrong order.
Most people engaged in medical research, whether as a researcher or a disease foundation that supports research, know their why. They want to do research that matters. They are aiming for a cure.
The what and how are more difficult in medical research.
Achieving a cure is a long and complex process. What complicates matters is the fact that at least in academia, there is an incentive to aim for goals that are less than achieving a cure.
Publishing papers is a metric of success. Publishing papers is an indicator that the work you have done has advanced the knowledge of the field.
Advancing knowledge is necessary, but it is not sufficient to ultimately achieving cures. Sometimes advancing knowledge does very little to move a field forward.
In this sense, publishing papers is a false peak.
In this article, you will learn how to be more clear about your what and how.
The focus is on non profit medical research.
The ‘what’ and ‘how’ of non profit medical research, while often overlapping, are not the same as those working in industry.
By the end of this article, you will have insight into:
The characteristics of high performance medical research
The value of having a comprehensive strategy
The ways in which a non profit strategic plan and a consortium project plan are similar.
The types of problems solved by strategic planning and consortium projects.
A template for non profit strategic planning and building consortium projects.
Aiming for a cure
If you are aiming for a cure, in addition to excellent science, your research efforts should be defined by three characteristics:
It's part of a comprehensive strategy.
extensive collaboration and
It is supported by ongoing successful fundraising.
Of these three characteristics, having a comprehensive strategy is the key.
Extensive collaboration and ongoing successful fundraising are essential to achieve the scale of impact that leads to cures. Building up these characteristics are core features of a successful strategy.
A comprehensive research strategy is about more than just choosing your research topics.
It is knowing what to do to move from research findings to a cure.
Reasons why you should have a comprehensive strategy
Donors donate, funders fund.
Stakeholders are likely to engage.
Building a movement that can achieve breakthroughs
Building a strategy and a consortium project are similar.
One thing that I have come to realize is that in the life sciences the design of a research strategy and design of a consortium project are highly similar.
Both are about change.
Both involve being uncertain and uncomfortable with the potential future.
Both are about how breakthroughs happen.
Both are about designing something that will appeal to a diverse group of stakeholders.
Roger Martin on strategy: where are you going to play, how are you going to win, what capabilities do you need to have and what systems do you need to put into place (2).
This structure by Roger Martin maps nicely onto consortium project proposals: Background and objectives, Impact, and implementation plan.
This is why in my practice I move easily between efforts as a non profit strategic planning consultant and helping researchers respond to Horizon Europe calls for funding.
A consortium project is a strategy with a more specific plan attached.
The most successful consortium projects use their consortium project plan more as a strategic plan than a locked-in step-by-step project plan.
Cascading waterfall projects are for when you have a degree of certainty. Not certainty that the project is a success but rather certainty as to what you need to do.
A clinical trial is a good example. It may fail to meet the goals set for the study but the steps that need to happen are very clear.
The same is true for drug development once you move past the proof of principle phase. There are set milestones that every drug development effort needs to meet.
Many clinical trials are like a consortium, with different centers and disciplines involved. However, I am not referring to those types of consortium projects.
The type of consortium projects I am referring to are those that set out to address difficult and challenging problems.
Problems that remain problems year after year because making progress on them requires the aligned effort and more importantly the collaborative thinking of a wide community of stakeholders.
These problems include things like:
implementation of precision medicine
Moving away from animal models in favor of in vitro models.
Making sense of the integration of multiple types of omics data.
organizing and making use of real-world registry data
Moving towards approaches to cure disease and not just managing symptoms.
Repurposing existing therapies
Tackling rare diseases
Applying engineered cell therapy to solid tumors.
preparing for and managing fast-moving pandemics
Implementing digital health solutions.
sustainably managing chronic diseases and the diseases of aging.
A quick review of these problems reveals that they are all complex and difficult to solve. How long have we been promised that digital health is the near-term future of medicine? What about precision medicine?
They all require more than just a project plan. They require a strategy.
Strategy is an integrated set of choices that align a critical mass enabling them to work together to solve problems or achieve a goal.
Consortium projects are multi-stakeholder collaborations put together to solve problems that cannot be solved working individually or in small-scale collaborations.
When you put these two definitions close together, it becomes apparent that creating a strategic plan and creating a consortium project are very similar processes.
This parallel was not apparent to me until someone for whom I was helping to build a consortium referred me to another organization that needed help renewing their strategic plan.
That went well and I have put together a framework that you can use as a non profit medical research strategic planning template.
The SIXTHscenario non profit medical research strategic planning template
This framework is made up of six elements.
Stakeholder perspectives
This is about understanding the problem from the viewpoint of multiple different stakeholders. It is also about appreciating what different types of stakeholders value the most.
Finding a way to deliver value to multiple different types of stakeholders is a driving principle for a good nonprofit medical research strategy.
This is achieved by engaging stakeholders in thinking with you about the strategy or the consortium project.
Impact orientation
Instead of aiming for false peak metrics like publishing papers, a good research strategy aims to achieve impact.
Impact is the long-term change or transformation you want to achieve. Finding a cure is a long-term impact, so it's more useful to focus on the impacts that will lead up to the cure.
The value of identifying the impact you want to have is that you can work backwards. What are the outcomes that need to happen to achieve your desired impact?
Then the question is how can your research be shaped, enhanced and positioned to accelerate the achievement of those outcomes?
This question leads back to the research activities you want to be focused on.
In this way you build up a pathway to impact that makes the impact you have clear.
This is a better way to decide what you should be working on compared to what will get me my next publication.
Exponential achievement
There are many elements you can include in a strategic plan that fuel exponential achievement.
One of the best examples is structuring datasets around a known standard and producing a clear data dictionary.
These activities make datasets reusable. The effort and funding that went into the production of the dataset can be returned many times over with additional analyses.
More importantly, datasets are the fuel for collaboration, which leads to more achievement and more funding.
As this virtuous cycle continues, you can see how this will build collaboration and increase fundraising.
Then you and those you collaborate with will achieve the outcomes that will lead to the impact you aim to have and ultimately a cure.
Activity type
A good research strategy is not just about the type of research you will do or provide.
It is about other activities that help to expand impact.
Here is where you think about what you will be doing to drive outcomes.
For a consortium project, these are the tasks and the work packages.
For an organization that supports research, these are the strategic initiatives or the funding rounds you will conduct.
How
This is how you will do what you do.
A strategic plan or a consortium project plan that is vague and nonspecific risks never getting started.
The key is to balance short iterative delivery steps with the broader objectives.
SCENARIO
The scenario element involves thinking about the future and developing six future scenarios.
Four of them are scenarios about the two biggest uncertainties you face and how they might turn out in the future.
The last two sections should cover the consequences of not implementing your strategic plan or consortium project. This should include the potential outcomes if things remain unchanged, as well as the potential outcomes if the situation deteriorates.
It is a good idea to put some numbers behind the scenarios if possible.
The scenarios are useful to inform you about risks and what it will take to achieve the impact you intend.
They will be a source of inspiration and form the basis of your vision, mission, purpose and values.
How to use this template
This is a guide. You can address each of the elements in a stepwise manner, but they are best arranged in different ways.
For example, begin with the scenarios.
These are the topics of various workshops or small group dialogue sessions and they are the framework for your strategic plan.
To help you work on your strategic plan, I have created a set of 42 questions to answer as part of the process.
This can also be used to consider your current strategy as well.
It's a good basis for developing a consortium project.
You can get the list of questions by subscribing to the impact newsletter.
Want to accelerate your path to greater impact?
Are you a disease foundation, a research group, or a consortium ready to improve your research strategy, engage more stakeholders, and increase your fundraising?
If that's you, let's talk.
We've worked with leading disease foundations, researchers, and consortia to help them realize the benefits of strategic planning to expand the impact of their research.
The first step in our process is to schedule an Impact Strategy call.
During this call, we'll explore your goals, how to create an effective strategic plan, and review funding opportunities.
We are able to accept three new clients this year. Schedule Impact Strategy Call
Or send an email directly to me: scottwagers@biosciconsulting.com
References
Start with Why by Simon Sinek https://a.co/d/3fskb6z
Three Quick Way to Improve Your Strategy-Making, Roger Martin, Havard Business Review https://hbr.org/2014/05/three-quick-ways-to-improve-your-strategy-making-2
