The Best and Less Stressed Project Managers in Clinical Research w/ Becky Thompson

Becky Thompson shares her extensive experience in clinical research and project management, discussing her career journey, the challenges faced in the industry, and the importance of effective communication and team dynamics. She emphasizes the need for clinical trial project managers to adapt to new technologies, manage stress, and continuously learn to stay relevant in a rapidly changing environment. In her interview with John Reites, she also offers valuable advice for early-career professionals on how to navigate their careers in clinical research.

Thank you for joining Inclusion Criteria: a Clinical Research podcast hosted by me, John Reites. This is an inclusive, non-corporate podcast focused on the people and topics that matter to developing treatments for everyone. It’s my personal project intended to support you in your career, connect with industry experts and contribute to the ideas that advance clinical research.

Inclusion Criteria is the clinical research podcast exploring global clinical trials, drug development, and life‑science innovation. We cover everything clinical research to deepen your industry knowledge, further your career and help you stay current on the market responsible for the future of medicine.

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The views and opinions expressed by John Reites and guests are provided for informational purposes only. Nothing discussed constitutes medical, legal, regulatory, or financial advice.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Project managers don't get a day off. They're there from day one to the last day. They're the first standing and the last standing.

SPEAKER_00: 0:05

You have to figure out what can you control and what can't you control and then come up with the best steps forward. But The stress over time, sure, it can wear on you. I love when I have somebody like that on my team because it's fun to watch them flourish and learn and develop. Sometimes we have great line managers who just are fighting for us, and sometimes you don't. That's life, right? You can't usually pick your boss.

SPEAKER_01: 0:27

Thank you for joining Inclusion Criterion, a clinical research podcast hosted by me, John Reitz. This is an inclusive, non-corporate podcast focused on the people and topics that matter to developing treatments for everyone. I'm John Reitz, and I'll see you next time. It's my personal project, intended to support you in your career, connect with industry experts, and contribute to the ideas that advance the industry. Welcome. Becky, thanks for joining. It's great to see you today.

SPEAKER_00: 0:55

Of course. Nice to be here.

SPEAKER_01: 0:57

Who is Becky and what do you do in clinical research?

SPEAKER_00: 1:00

I have been in clinical research for my entire career. I kind of started my career right out of school and got into project leadership, started at the very bottom as a project coordinator. After kind of changing paths in my professional life, I started medical school, decided Yeah, absolutely. So when I started, we were a really small team and it's just grown and grown and grown over the last 18 years. And so I switched five or six years ago, a little bit away from delivering projects to doing more strategy before a project is launched.

SPEAKER_01: 2:06

I forgot about the medical school.

SPEAKER_00: 2:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 2:08

Do you, Is there a hint of you that ever regrets that? Or do you feel like when you look back, you're like, the CRO path was for me?

SPEAKER_00: 2:15

Here's what I'll say. And this is advice I give to people all the time whose kids are starting school and they're like, oh, you know, they want to go to med school. I just grew up thinking, I'm going to go to med school. I like biology. There wasn't any counseling for me, career counseling, to really understand what that looked like and what other options there were in health care. Yeah. Just encourage people to ask around, interview, see what it's really like day to day to be a physician or whatever your career is going to be. The only thing I regret is part of me wishes I had finished all four years instead of just the first couple, even if I wasn't going to practice. The short answer, though, I don't regret it. Very happy where I am.

SPEAKER_01: 2:57

I did have to look it up. So for what it's worth, you spent a little over 18 years in clinical research, but also in CROs, right? And so working for a clinical research organization is a wide aperture view of research. It's a challenging work environment. There's a lot of moving parts. But to stick in that space for more than 18 years and not dip your toes in the biopharma or the biotech or provider, vendor, patient recruitment, whatever other worlds there are in life sciences and clinical research that are available to you, sticking in the CRO means that there's something about it that you like or that motivates you. So in a nutshell, what is that? What is the thing about a CRO that makes you continue to be motivated and want to do that type of work every day?

SPEAKER_00: 3:40

It's a good question. And there's a lot of different aspects and ways that could be answered. In part, I really like it because it's allowed me the flexibility to work from home. And a lot of times in pharma, you can't. And so that gave my family and I the freedom to move when we needed to for my spouse's job. And I was able to keep my job. So that's a very basic reason. And there are tons of work from home jobs now. So that's not as much of an issue. But for me, what I like about the CRO is that you get to work with the sponsors and the vendors and have the holistic view across all kinds of products, indications, all phases versus at a, for example, biotech or pharma company, you may be specifically focused on a single asset or development of a single product. And so this This way, every product or project that I've worked on is different. So it keeps it very exciting and entertaining. And there's a lot of opportunity. Because if you said, gosh, I don't want to do oncology anymore. There's places to go. Yeah. And so there's lots of opportunity.

SPEAKER_01: 4:44

Yeah, opportunity. It's a great word. I think that's totally true. I feel like I don't know about for you, but I feel like when I was in my Sierra career and I did 14 and a half years, I didn't get to 18 like you. That's a different trophy. But I feel like I had four different jobs.

SPEAKER_02: 4:59

Yes,

SPEAKER_01: 5:00

that's correct. Because you sort of move around from clinical to project management and again, from the groups you get to run. But I think it is something to keep in mind. I always advise people who are earlier in their career, who are looking at how do I get involved in clinical research? Man, Cirrus is a great opportunity because again, wide aperture, lots to learn, lots of opportunity to move around and try different things. The latter part of your career has been strategy, SME focused, which is great. Most of your career has been really lensed on project management. And so When you look at where you are in your career today versus where you were before, you've obviously learned a lot. You have a lot of advice, input, feedback, life lessons to give to other people that are in project management. How do you shift, though? Meaning... You've done the work for so long and now you're not playing. You have to be the coach and the coach can't get in the game. The coach has to coach. So how do you coach project managers? How do you help them think knowing that you can't jump back in and play?

SPEAKER_00: 6:00

That's actually one of the hardest sort of lessons I've learned is as a project manager, I was in the weeds sometimes, which we can talk more about that because that also doesn't That isn't necessarily the role of the project manager, but I liked having kind of control over a project, every aspect in a way, or at least touching. So it was very hard to transition to not jump in and do rather than guide. And it's, I mean, similar with a lot of, like you said, coaching. It's hard not to just go do the job. Or if I watch, you know, a child struggle to tie their shoe, Part of me wants to just tie the shoe. I'm like, well, if I don't teach them how to do it, then my 18-year-old is going to be wearing Velcro shoes. But it was hard for me personally because it was hard for me to give up control. However, the flip side is hiring people who are good at what they do. And even if they don't have the experience, they want to learn. And so then it's helping teach them the skills they don't yet have. So that I'm like, oh, you're Becky Jr. Go off and do your thing.

SPEAKER_01: 7:01

That's really honest of you. I also, I think Velcro shoes are coming back, actually. I think you've missed the trend there. I think they're back.

SPEAKER_00: 7:09

It's actually the slides with socks. So tennis shoes are definitely out.

SPEAKER_01: 7:14

Yeah, I think in our house we talk about Crocs with socks a little more than I'd like to admit. So it makes sense. I agree. Shifting and really digging into the role of project management is one of the things that I think you have so much expertise in. And actually, project managers have such a functional role in helping to be inclusive, right? To bring everybody around into a study and to make that work. We used to always talk about PMs were the conductors of the orchestra. And the orchestra was filled with all these experts and leaders. And your job was to pull together the best leaders and orchestrate the movements together to help manage the complexity, which was a clinical trial. Project managers don't get a day off. They're there from day one to the last day. They're the first standing and the last standing. I were watching a TikTok and it was called day in the life of a clinical trial manager. What would the video show me?

SPEAKER_00: 8:03

I try to explain this to people because the flip side is when you tell people you work at a CRO in project management, they're like, what's that? You know, it's like they know what project managers. So I have spent kind of a lot of time trying to explain the role to others. The best way I can go about it is, pretend that you're having a dinner party. You find out right before people are arriving that one of your guests is deathly allergic to peanuts and you have a chicken saute with peanut sauce. And then you also discover that your water has been shut off because of maintenance. And you then have to think to yourself, how can I pivot quickly. It's nothing catastrophic. I don't want it to make it sound scary, but it's going into your day thinking, this is what I'm going to accomplish. I love a to-do list. Here's my check. So you're getting dinner ready, you're getting everything set up, and then you're just throwing a curveball. And you have to be able to calmly shift and reassure everybody on your ship or in your orchestra how they can approach it differently to still be successful. So you have to scrap what you had planned and say, well, you know what, guys, we're ordering pizza and that's fine. So it's approaching those challenges with an open mind and kind of learning how to calmly address what comes up day to day. The stories could go on forever and ever and ever. Being a project manager actually sets you up, in my opinion, to successfully pivot to any part of clinical research, because once you've delivered a study, you actually understand how it works. But that does mean getting into what does data management do? what does clinical monitoring do, understanding fundamentally what they do and what keeps them up at night. I was never a CRA. A lot of people do clinical monitoring where they visit sites and look at data. I need to understand what a monitoring visit looks like. So I spent a lot of time with my team and I would actually go with them and see how things were working at the site, what were the issues, what does it look like to do accountability of investigational product. And so that's where we got to a site in Florida. We get there and it's our first visit for this study. We've done things over the phone and come to find out the study nurse had forgotten to give the patients their questionnaires that they were filling out. So she just filled them out for them and told us that was the data. I'll stop there, but then you're kind of on the hook for the error, yet the site told you they did one thing and did something else.

SPEAKER_01: 10:34

That was just a day in life of PM for me. So I think that's really very normal. Having a good perspective of that, it's always been really important in project management, because it's tough. When you coach and you talk about project managers, you know what good looks like, right? When you've been managing projects that long. So when you're looking for project managers that really don't just differentiate, right? I mean, they're a little good at this or a little better than this. They contrast the market, right? Types of people that you say, I've got this problem and they go, hey, like tag me in, Becky, give it to me. I got it. I'll take care of it. When you're looking for those people, what are the things you advise those types of individuals to do to really continue to stand out? and to really lead so they can advance their career maybe a little faster than everybody else.

SPEAKER_00: 11:19

I love when I have somebody like that on my team because it's fun to watch them sort of flourish and learn and develop. But a few things come to mind. I mean, first of all is don't be shy or embarrassed to celebrate your own personal successes. You can't rely on others always. Sometimes we have great line managers who just are fighting for us. And sometimes you don't, that's life, right? You can't usually pick your boss. And so you have to advocate for yourself in a professional way. You know, there's a line between just Becky did this, this, this, look how great I am versus really recognizing success. But my main point Here is as a team, you say my team, because you're supporting an entire team of people, but making sure there's awareness when things do go well. The other thing is make your sponsor counterpart look good. You make them look good. They come back and say, I want her on my next study because she or he prepared me for presenting things to my management. So it's that proactivity and thinking like what's coming next, what could go wrong, you know, embracing the challenges and wins at the same time. The other thing is network. Always, always, always build up a network. And I say that meaningfully. So if you're in project leadership and you want to further your career, I think one of the most important things, and I kind of referenced this earlier, is understanding how your team works. No, you don't have to go learn how to program a database, but you need to understand what keeps your functional leaders up at night. And that way you motivate your team. And then you're all more successful. It's really managing different types of people, different roles and doing doing it well so that at the end of the day, yeah, you're gonna always have hiccups, but I'm gonna say, wow, she was really good. Yeah, if a study had never had a protocol deviation, I'd be really, really, really worried. So just dealing with those things, but being proactive, professional, proficient, Then you start rising.

SPEAKER_01: 13:17

When you think about biopharma specifically, servicing a biopharma, obviously a project manager's job, like you said, is to help them say, I'm going to manage this cog of this greater machine that is the trial. I've got this. My job is to be your counterpart and support that. Good PMs take that approach. But what do you hear from biopharma? When you talk to biopharma, you have clients and people you meet with on a regular basis. What do they say is like the number one and the number two reason that they say they love their PM or they would vouch for their PM. Like what are the specifics that those PMs do? Whereas a lot of other maybe PMs might get up. Yeah, they're, they're

SPEAKER_00: 13:54

good. Yeah. They do their job. Sure. Having built a lot of relationships with my counterparts at clients who would vouch for me and then watching people in my team do it. The number one thing is communication, open and honest communication. If you don't have an answer immediately, You tell them I got your email or I got your phone call. I'm acknowledging it and I will come back to you because one of the most frustrating things for them is they're worried about something. They need an answer. They don't know if you're working on it or not. Eventually, as they get to know you, they're like, I know she'll get me the answer tomorrow. That's fine. But establish that trust, acknowledge their concern. And then the other is be honest. Studies never go perfectly right. Don't spring something on them. six months down the road where you're like well six months ago we used all the monitoring visits in our budget so we're gonna need$500,000. Well, that's not good. Do not surprise them, right? You've got to have open communication and don't be afraid to have difficult conversations with them. They may not react well, but they will trust and respect you if you handle it professionally.

SPEAKER_01: 15:01

Take the flip side of that. So let's say I'm a technology provider, right? My job is a tech provider. I'm a member. I have a lead. I'm a member of a team. I'm there with the data manager and the clinical team. And I'm trying to make sure that the PM at the CRO loves me and is an ambassador and that I try to help make their life easier and better. What do you recommend to those companies to do and do better to make sure that they help their PM and are seen well by the project managers they support when they're working with CROs?

SPEAKER_00: 15:31

As a project lead, you're going to start forming kind of favorite vendors or tech providers, sometimes because of those relationships. Because you know, I'm going to call John and I'm going to get what I need. He's going to deliver. And so... And it's kind of fun being on the flip side because usually I'm on the receiving end. But when you get to sort of partner with your tech vendor, you see that side of it. For me, I might love your product or the technology or whatever service you're providing. I need to be able to explain why it's better than anything. the other choices in a way that makes sense to me and to my management. So you need to really understand in a very small bite size and for nuggets. These are the three reasons why this technology vendor product is better than the others and help me be able to explain that to my management or my sponsor to say that's why we're choosing this tech vendor because they want us to make recommendations. So I need to be able to explain it. And I'm not the expert. I'm not a technology expert. So you have to help me tell the story.

SPEAKER_01: 16:30

That's important. Thank you. There was a movement we used to have. It was called the Project Management Lifestyle. And I think it was this training program that was frankly a little bit more about how do I train stoicism and help cope with stress because project management is a high stress job in every industry. And that includes clinical trials, right? Knowing that, you know, our job, so manage studies that are putting experimental medications in people's bodies. We are doing very complex work every day. So PMs who have to manage that have a stressful role. So how have you managed stress and how do you, essentially manage stress over a long period of time, right? Not a short burst, but year after year. How do you do that?

SPEAKER_00: 17:12

You're absolutely right. But keep in mind that there are highs and lows too, right? It is very stressful. But over time, you kind of learn what is actually important, right? You can't panic about every time a sponsor might escalate or, you be upset or you're off on enrollment. Those are all things that matter, but you have to take the personal feelings out of it, right? It's this is my job and I want to do a good job, but you have to figure out what can you control and what can't you control and then come up with the best steps forward. But the stress over time, sure, it can wear on you. Sometimes you're in the pits of it and you're trying to lock a database for a filing and all hands on deck. Those times exist. You don't get a break. But there are other times when the stressful situation, it really could wait till tomorrow. You finishing it today isn't going to make a difference. So go play with your kids. Go have dinner with your friends. Go for a walk. So it's kind of just maturing and learning what is mission critical, drop everything. And what is, I see that and I will get to it when I can get to it. And when you also find people you trust. I have buddies at work that I can call up and just say, I have to tell you about my day. because they understand. My friends don't know what clinical research is like, but just listen to what happened today and just venting. And then I'm like, okay, thanks. You know, how are you? And that really helps even remotely form those friendships at work.

SPEAKER_01: 18:37

When you think about the stress, what is it that actually keeps PMs up at night? I'm hoping that every project manager that's listening feels this answer and goes, yep, that's me. So because you know this, but What is it that keeps PM set up?

SPEAKER_00: 18:51

It depends. There is no single answer for that, right? Depends what's going on in your study. So fundamentally, though, what keeps you up is, for me, is my sponsor happy? Am I doing things well? Are we going to deliver this study successfully? And so it just depends on where you are in the study, but fundamentally, It's the night before I'm thinking, well, let's say we're supposed to get our first patient in tomorrow. Well, then I'm worried, like, are they going to show up? What if they don't? And then if they don't, I got to tell the sponsor they're not there. And then what are we going to do? And you don't want to go down that rabbit hole. So it's understanding, depending on the phase of the study you're in. what could happen. And being proactive. Be prepared. As you experience more stressful times, you learn the best way to address certain challenges that work for you. They don't work for other people.

SPEAKER_01: 19:39

I always think it's interesting, too, when you PM earlier in your career, you see something and it's the first time. And then what's so interesting as a project manager is you see so many trends. I have seen this so many times. I think even though it's not the news you're looking for, it means you've got to solution something different. Because you've seen it so many times, you're sort of mentality coming in to solve that problem is, okay, seeing this, this is what we need to do. This is how we need to do it. How do we go craft this solution? That just comes with experience is how that expertise comes. But on the flip side, so if you've got the low lows and the stress part, which is part of it, there are a lot of high highs because when you're a project manager, being the coach, being the orchestrator means that job where maybe you don't get as much of the accolades during the day. But when you get to the big milestones, that's really proud moments. And some of the proudest moments I had in my career where you worked for six months and you moved everything and then you got an FPI the day before it was due. I think for me, it was like this collective sigh of relief, like you did it, right? Because you want to win and you want to help your sponsor do that. And so what are... What are some of the best practices that you coach project managers to do when they want to congratulate people, they want to acknowledge people, they want to motivate team, maybe in the day-to-day when it is stressful, but also when you get to these larger milestones?

SPEAKER_00: 20:58

Two different things that I think day-to-day motivating people, my advice is to understand each individual's worries, concerns, personality type. Some people might be influenced by time off or stress. I might be influenced by positive praise, right? Or it's just, you have to know what motivates people. Some people really want recognition. For those individuals, it may be collectively to the team or calling them out if they've really performed well. So it's not, Becky did a good job. It's Becky's team. And these individuals really went above and beyond or came through or were innovative or came up with a solution. So we achieved this goal. And you should do that no matter what. For some people, that's enough motivation. But for others, in my experience, it's offering them opportunities to say, well, let's get through this and then let's figure out how I can help you move up in your career let's say or let me introduce you to some additional people if you want to learn about something but it's being their sort of mentor and partner and understanding what drives them to do their job. Sort of, it's hard. A lot of companies also, I will say, have like rewards programs, especially big CROs where you give like points and then you can buy something or trade it in for some gear or a day off. And so even some of that is, I think, really motivating. And then kind of coming back to is the opportunities, figuring out And this is if you're a line manager or a project manager. But what does your team want out of their CRO experience? And is there any way you can help them? And if you can't, maybe you can introduce them to somebody who can.

SPEAKER_01: 22:39

I think for me, this principle of do for one what you wish you could do for everybody. And sometimes, and I think I was faulted at this as a project manager. Some would do a good job. And I'm like, well, I need to make sure I take care of the team. And so it was always the team. But sometimes... Becky Thompson did an awesome job, and I really just need to call out Becky Thompson. How do PMs educate themselves? If project managers are stressed out, but also have lots of highs, and they're working to orchestrate this huge orchestra thing, And they've got to focus on the sponsor and the vendor and do all these other things. How do they actually take time for themselves? And when they do, what do you recommend they read or do to educate to get sharper in their craft?

SPEAKER_00: 23:24

First thing is it depends what type of learner you are, right? Because some people are going to be readers. Some people may not be. But in general, stay on top of industry trends. And that can be just as simple as I get an email every morning with kind of top news stories in the industry. And I try to read it. Some days it's, you know, set up to sound down and I'm like, I have so many emails. But when I do have time, at least scan it. And when something is interesting or relevant to you, read about it. I love TED Talks because sometimes I get really tired of reading. Like your eyes are just tired. You're at the computer all day. So I also love like listening to TED Talks. The other thing is I have become over time very keenly aware of my strengths and weaknesses. So when I was a project leader, I had to do that as well and say, what do I need to learn more about to be a better project manager? Maybe for somebody it's financial acumen. Maybe for somebody it's communicating with people. They're great at their job, but they're not really good at being part of a team. And so figure out what that is and either go to your manager or a mentor or a colleague, figure out how you can get better in that area. And maybe it's shadowing a person. Maybe it's watching how they do their job. Maybe there is a great book. It just depends what the question is.

SPEAKER_01: 24:37

One of the questions I would get all the time is very similar is I'm really good at PM, but I want to learn how to sell. I want to learn how to market. I want to learn how to be better at social media, whatever that thing is. I created actually a thing called toolbox on my website and I send students there all the time to say, Hey, if you want like assets here, they are. And they're just, you know, reams of books and blogs and YouTube videos that I found helpful because you're right. When you're a project manager, you do so much. You have to stop and think about yourself for a second and say, how do I sharpen my skills how do I get better and how do I spend time learning it's really important talking about what's trending too because I think it's interesting that you mentioned that There's a lot of trends going on in management in general, in managing projects. Clinical research is included in that conversation, even though there's a lot of niche skills and capabilities needed to manage a clinical trial as a project manager. You actually have to know how clinical trials work. But you've got all this innovation happening in software and all the integrations that occur now that weren't around when we were PMs earlier in our career. You've got SaaS technologies, and now you've got AI. Everybody's favorite topic. You know, so how do PMs keep up? And what I would say is how do they keep up? But how do they adapt to these tools? Because a lot of them are intended to do a lot of the things that project managers do. So how do they keep up? But then how do they start to adapt?

SPEAKER_00: 26:01

It's a great question that comes up all the time. And at the CROs I've been at and at conferences, It's always everybody's favorite question because everybody loves AI. My thing with AI in general is it's not going to replace the project manager's job, but what it's going to do is give you tools in order to be more effective as a project manager. So there's a lot of fear around AI. I think as PMs or as CRO organizations, we are the experts. I know what it's like to manage a project. So I want to work with my company to tell them what actually would help me be more effective because I know what was maybe very manual or what could be optimized where you're guessing and you're not getting it right, but AI really could help. So I think it's exciting. I think people are very nervous and change is hard. And I mean, remember going from paper CRFs to EDC and it was like, Wow. So it's coming. We've got to embrace it.

SPEAKER_01: 27:00

One of the talk tracks I hear, again, specifically around project management, is that these tools should increase efficiency now. And what does that mean? It means we can take a PM and I'm making the numbers up.

SPEAKER_00: 27:12

I know. The

SPEAKER_01: 27:13

average PM manages two projects per FT. Now they're four.

SPEAKER_00: 27:16

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 27:17

Whatever the number is.

SPEAKER_00: 27:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 27:19

If you hear that or if someone brings that up, Let's just say from another CRO. How do you address that? How do you talk through that with somebody to make sure we're thinking about the future and incorporating, but we're being very measured about what's actually achievable today?

SPEAKER_00: 27:33

The ELT boards can all get very, very excited about, oh my gosh, we can have fewer people do more things. That's good for business. That's more revenue. And that's great. But it's being realistic about it. How much time will these tools save? And it may not be that they're actually reducing the amount of work. It may be that Thank you so much. To me, that's a slippery slope, and you have to really look at what these new AI tools and technology is doing.

SPEAKER_01: 28:09

I got a similar question in project management recently, and my answer was, how many of your PMs are using Copilot to write their meeting minutes? And the person said, what's Copilot? And I went, okay, so here's what we're going to do. Let's just start with using AI to draft meeting minutes. Let's just get started, and then we'll figure it out. But if you're so early in that you haven't started to draft meetings, meeting minutes, you probably have a long way to go to figure out how this is going to increase capacity in your study.

SPEAKER_00: 28:38

For all the project leaders listening, in my mind, the most practical ways today AI is going to help them do their jobs is things like meeting minutes, slides, but it's also figuring out tools. I've heard a lot about how it is helping write trip reports for CRAs more faster, more effectively, more efficiently. Well, that's great. And where I think the two places I'm most excited about Thinking back to just being kept up at night as a PL is better forecasting and optimizing recruitment. So you have better, more realistic timelines for how you're going to enroll a trial. And then it's investigator grant planning and financial forecasting, things that won't necessarily save time, but they'll make your project more successful. And then resource planning is a big one. But those are very small places to start a tangible, real, achievable project. goals we could get to.

SPEAKER_01: 29:33

There's no doubt. that these tools, that these features can make people more efficient. But like everything else in technology, right? Like what I learned in technology is you can build the greatest, simplest, most easiest to use technology that the button says next. You are still going to have to train people, advocate and help them adopt to make things work. And that's no different than project managers. Even though I would tell you, I think some PMs are some of the best learners and implementers and people that scale things. There is still a lot to be done here. And a trend to definitely keep an eye on you've seen the market at the top you've seen the market in the middle you've seen the market at the bottom you know just like everything else that's cyclical we're in a challenging unique time in our industry today as we record this in clinical research if you have somebody that's earlier in their career early in a project management role they have everything we've talked about today sitting on their right and on their left shoulder and then you say hey let's add market complexity and challenges on top of that what do you tell an individual like that about how to really have grit and dig in to really think differently in phases like this in the market we're having.

SPEAKER_00: 30:41

It's really tough, but we've been there. And first is it's cyclical. So know that it will get better and it will happen. go down and up and down. So just take a breath and know we will come out of this. You know, we can't predict the future. Maybe AI knows. But in the meantime, I think it's actually there's going to be so much opportunity for younger individuals starting out their career for so many reasons. First of all, hang in there. It may be tough. You may be asked to do things that aren't typically your job because it's all hands on deck to be successful. Say yes. Say, how can I help? jump in, do whatever you can, even if it means you're maybe doing the role of a clinical team member, but you're helping. Be that person that says she's willing or he's willing to do anything. That's going to help with your reputation. And then be patient. In the downtime, read books, TED Talks, whatever. Stay engaged in what's going on in the industry. But in six to nine months, there's going to be more opportunities as we come out of this. So keep networking and learning so that when openings come up, people are going to say, well, I know that person. They are willing to put in the effort. They could be great at this job. I think it's a It's scary, but it's also a very exciting time for people earlier on in their careers because the opportunities are coming and there's going to be a lot of them.

SPEAKER_01: 32:00

Becky, thanks so much. Thanks for spending time today to talk about project management. When I look at everything we're trying to do at Inclusion Criteria, everything we're thinking about in the market from helping people in their careers to keeping up with trends to connecting with experts so we can learn from them, you've really helped us do that today. If someone wants to connect with you, and ask you questions or just learn more, what's the best way to reach you?

SPEAKER_00: 32:20

LinkedIn. Message me on LinkedIn. I will get back to you.

SPEAKER_01: 32:24

Becky, thanks so much. And we'll talk to you again soon.