Important Project Management knowledge areas for successful delivery of projects in Pharmaceutical Industry

In current business environment, the delivery of business outcomes is dependent upon the success of projects and this is the way how project management strategies drive organizational success. Project management is an art as well as science. It is an art because of soft skills including problem solving, leadership, proper communication and managing expectations while it is science because it consists of a systematic approach which uses a standard methodology. The art of project management can be developed through experience and practice. In current business environment of constant change and increasing complexity, Project management is equally divided between art and science and a successful project manager utilizes both the skill sets to effectively manage the projects. It has been evident from literature support and other sources that application of Project Management skills and knowledge has been focussed on industries like Infrastructure, IT, Communications and Defence but there is lack of information supporting use of Project Management in Pharmaceutical Industry. As a Pharma Project Management professional, my interest was in identifying the $ PMBOK’s knowledge areas and Pharma specific knowledge areas which are important for successful delivery of projects in Pharmaceutical Industry. To analyze this, I distributed an anonymous questionnaire online to a group of pharmaceutical project management professionals. This paper describes some of the key points of the research data obtained.