Purpose - Agile and Design Thinking methodologies became popular in the highly-regulated pharmaceutical and healthcare industry for overcoming such obstacles as requirements gathering, regulatory compliance, and product adoption by users. The literature on their intersection is, however, fragmented. The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the intersection of Agile and Design Thinking and their influence on user story development and product adoption in pharmaceutical and healthcare product management.
Design/Methodology/Approach - A systematic literature review was conducted, analyzing the use of Agile and Design Thinking methodologies in healthcare and pharmaceutical product management, with a focus on requirement gathering and user adoption.
Findings - The results elucidate that the iterative repackaging of agile practices and a user-centric theme in design thinking principles, increase the positive effects on product development outcomes. That said, the advent of standardized user stories which meet reg & bus requirements has been difficult for many and in general a heavy application of lightly enforced requests/resistance → leading to poor user adoption rates.
Research Limitation/Implications - The current review identifies literature gaps in the integration of Agile and design thinking methodologies specifically within a regulatory regime like those found within pharmaceutical and healthcare. Further studies should provide standardized guidelines for regulatory compliance and user-centric requirement gathering.
Originality/Value – This study provides an insight of Agile and Design Thinking integration in regulated product management therefore offering grounds for newer gap in literature, to consider. The focus is on recent trends in the field, challenges faced within the area and gaps in current research at the intersection of these methodologies with healthcare and pharmaceutical product management.
Paper type – Literature review