Accelerating Flow in Pharma: How Sanofi Cut Time to Production by 80%
- Brodie Chivers
- Apr 1
- 8 min read
Updated: 11 minutes ago
About Sanofi
Sanofi is a global healthcare company known for its innovative approach. The company is committed to advancing scientific breakthroughs to enhance the well-being of individuals.
With a presence in approximately 100 countries, Sanofi's team is focused on pushing the boundaries of medicine, striving to accomplish what was once deemed unachievable. Their efforts extend to offering potentially life-altering treatment choices and vital vaccine coverage to millions of individuals worldwide. Additionally, Sanofi strongly emphasizes sustainability and social responsibility as key pillars of its corporate mission.
Introducing Bilal Alawiye and his role within Sanofi
Bilal began his career as a software engineer, transitioning to Agile practices in 2014 after attending a transformative seminar on Agile principles. His journey led him to an initial focus on Scrum and team dynamics, which expanded into a passion for coaching and Lean principles. Over time, Bilal developed an interest in organizational systems and flow, drawing inspiration from influential thinkers like Daniel Vacanti and others who advanced agile methodologies.
Currently, Bilal serves as a Systems Coach at Sanofi, leading a team of approximately eight coaches across different departments within Sanofi’s “Accelerator” ecosystem—a collaborative initiative launched in 2022 to drive strategic projects and foster cultural transformation.
His work emphasizes continuous improvement and Lean principles as a foundation for sustainable change. Although “agile” remains part of his title, Bilal prefers terms like “improvement” and “continuous growth,” reflecting his broader approach to systemic coaching and change management.
Background
Sanofi has been using ActionableAgile® Analytics in Jira Cloud since January 2023. 55 Degrees is excited to build a long-term relationship and support Sanofi with its Accelerator as it looks to drive continuous improvement internally.
The Situation
Sanofi’s accelerator team embarked on a transformative journey toward agile product delivery, aiming to implement a culture of continuous improvement across their commercial sector while implementing a product-focused approach.
Historically, the organization’s large, traditional structure presented a challenge, and moving to a product-focused, iterative model required both cultural and technical shifts. Thanks to supportive leadership, among other things, Sanofi was able to initiate these changes.
In 2022, Sanofi’s commercial accelerator team was launched and faced the task of modernizing its approach to product development and delivery within a large, traditionally structured organization.
Digital Accelerators at Sanofi
Our industry-leading Digital Accelerators are physical "labs" where a diverse, collaborative, and purposeful melting pot of tech profiles work together in rapid and disruptive ways, searching deeper and solving faster at scale.
This is part of our concrete actions to become the first biopharma company powered by Artificial
Intelligence (Al) at scale, accelerating the delivery of medicines and vaccines to patients, by putting Al in the hands of all Sanofians within an ecosystem of partnerships.
Sanofi's Accelerators are the beachheads for a transformative new culture that champions
agile and innovative ways of working to accelerate relentless improvement:
• The world's leading digital talent solving the world's most important healthcare
challenges.
• Lean, diverse, and agile teams unleashing engineering, design, scrum, and data expertise, in synergy.
• 200+ co-workers across 20+ nationalities, working in inclusive, collaborative co-
location.
In 2022, Sanof launched their first Digital Commercial Accelerator to address unmet needs in patients suffering from atopic dermatitis across France, Italy, and Spain. In 2024, we launched our Digital R&D Accelerator to help us accelerate the development of novel medicines.
In May 2025, we will continue to increase the scale and impact of Al, with the launch of our third, Digital M&S Accelerator, focused on ensuring the seamless, faultless launch of our pipeline products and securing M&S as a competitive advantage for Sanofi.
Challenges with Traditional Approaches and Cultural Shifts
Sanofi’s work was characterized by highly structured, routine processes that lacked the flexibility to respond to rapid changes in the pharmaceutical landscape. "Teams were not used to working in [an agile] way," Bilal explained. The company’s size and traditional frameworks made it difficult to scale agility and foster cross-functional collaboration.
The shift from rigid, task-oriented workflows to a product-driven approach required not only new processes but also a cultural transformation, which was championed by the CTO. “Our CTO really had an amazing vision…he came from that world and was able to influence this shift in our ways of working,” Bilal noted.
“From a business point of view, it was much more of a product approach. We had some conversion rates that we wanted to tackle. We were targeting mainly doctors and patients, but we were also focused on giving treatment faster and earlier to patients."
The Need for Predictable and Efficient Delivery
Beyond the cultural changes, Sanofi aimed to improve delivery efficiency and predictability. Traditional practices relied heavily on manual tracking and delayed feedback loops, which slowed down progress and limited visibility into team and product health.
By 2022, Sanofi recognized the need to reduce cycle times, standardize their metrics, and adopt a flow-based approach that would allow teams to deliver high-quality outcomes quickly and consistently.
"On average, it took about three months for a normal product outside the accelerator to go to production. We needed a way to reduce that dramatically."
The Solution: ActionableAgile® Analytics
When Bilal and Sanofi’s accelerator team began their improvement and disruptor journey, they recognized that incorporating lean principles and flow into their agile practices—and leveraging their existing data in Jira—could be a powerful way to boost delivery efficiency and foster a culture of continuous improvement.
ActionableAgile Analytics for Jira Cloud was the ideal choice, allowing Sanofi’s teams to work directly within Jira without the need to transfer data to external platforms.
Once implemented, ActionableAgile Analytics allowed Sanofi to explore real-time flow metrics, sparking immediate interest and engagement. This was boosted thanks to some additional hires who were interested in lean concepts - Something Bilal attributed substantially to the success of rolling out the tool to the organization.
Shifting from ‘Mechanical Scrum’ to Flow-Based Agility
Sanofi’s accelerator team initially worked with teams accustomed to a structured, routine-based approach, which Bilal referred to as “Mechanical Scrum.” This setup often focused on tasks like daily stand-ups, retrospectives, and story points, which didn’t fully align with the team’s goals for agility.
To change this, the accelerator team began by having one pilot team focus solely on work item age, incorporating this metric into their daily stand-ups. After the stand-up, they would do a problem-solving session they called “Résolution de Problème” (lean practitioners may find this similar to Kaizen discussions).
This shift to incorporating work item age into the daily conversations allowed the team to optimize their work in a very noticeable and visual way.
This approach quickly proved valuable, giving the team new transparency into workflow delays and bottlenecks. As they collaborated closely in Jira and experimented with the Monte Carlo Simulations in ActionableAgile Analytics’ for forecasting larger efforts, they realized the power of the platform and probabilistic thinking—sparking broader interest and adoption across teams.
Expanding ActionableAgile Analytics Across Teams
Encouraged by the shifted mindset and early visible successes, the accelerator team gradually extended ActionableAgile Analytics to additional teams, and soon after, other teams outside the accelerator began adopting the tool in a “snowball” like effect.
Today 7 teams out of 12 use ActionableAgile Analytics as an asset to track flow. The conversation has started to shift from velocity to flow metrics such as Cycle Time, Work Item Age, WIP, and Throughput.
Most importantly, probabilistic forecasting is now widely recognized across teams throughout the organization, providing a shared language and the ability for more and more of our organization to ground decision-making in real-time data.
“People no longer see ActionableAgile Analytics as a tool; they really see it as a ‘continuous improvement of flow’ asset.”
The Result
From Bottleneck to Breakthrough: Seeing and Solving the Problem
Another Technique that helped Sanofi was seeing their CFD, and heat map showed that sprint after sprint, there was significant aging in the validation process of the work.
Bilal: “We observed that validation was linked to the PO only, We managed to optimize the process of validation by creating a shift right policy where at the beginning of every daily,
We would first inspect what needs to be validated and allow everyone to validate that instead of leaving the PO as the main actor of validation as this proved to be a bottleneck for the team.”
The North Star for Coaches - Cycle Time
The shift towards flow has also reshaped the role of coaching within the accelerator, transforming it from an advisory role into an accountable “sports coaching” model, as the team terms it. Coaches now track metrics like cycle time as a “North Star” to gauge learning and adaptation speeds.
This focus on measurable outcomes has fostered a culture of continuous improvement, with flow metrics like cycle time serving as indicators of efficiency and alignment.
In embracing ActionableAgile Analytics, Sanofi’s teams have found a sustainable method for promoting fast, efficient learning and elevating their workflow processes, establishing flow metrics as a core part of their agile transformation.
Accelerating Time to Production - 3 months to 12 days!
With the implementation of ActionableAgile Analytics, Sanofi’s accelerator team achieved a remarkable improvement in time to production. Previously, moving a product from development to production outside of the accelerator took about three months.
However, thanks to the combined efforts of ActionableAgile Analytics, the engineering team, and the discovery team, the accelerator reduced this timeline to just 12 days.
By leveraging dedicated engineering platform, teams, and investing in tools like ActionableAgile Analytics, Datadog, and Backstage for DORA metrics, the accelerator developed a streamlined, efficient production pipeline, setting a new standard for delivery speed across the organization.
“At Sanofi, we’re a scientific company, so we prioritize a scientific approach to problem-solving and taking action. We can’t rely on wishful thinking alone. For example, if we see that delivery takes 30 days, we can now challenge our coaches with a clear, data-driven question: What coaching strategy could help reduce this to under 15 days?”
Summary of Outcomes
Early Adoption and Scalability of Flow Metrics - The Accelerator has laid the groundwork for scaling ActionableAgile Analytics to broader organizational levels.
A shift from Mechanical Scrum to Flow-Centered Agility.
Significant Reduction in Time to Production.
Increased Transparency and Non-Judgmental Data Culture - Sanofi created a culture of transparency, where data serves as a tool for inquiry rather than evaluation.
Support for Agile Coaches with a Standardized “North Star” Cycle Time Metric.
What Does the Future Look Like for Sanofi?
Establishing Transparency and Embracing Flow at All Levels
Looking ahead, Sanofi’s accelerator team envisions a future where transparency and flow metrics become central to all levels of the organization, from individual teams to portfolio-level strategy. By leveraging ActionableAgile Analytics, they aim to create a culture where data sparks productive inquiry rather than judgment.
Bilal noted that traditional metrics often push teams toward binary thinking—labeling performance as simply “good” or “bad.” In contrast, flow metrics shift the conversation toward continuous improvement.
“It’s not about good or bad,” Bilal explained. “It’s about understanding where we are now, where we want to go, and what obstacles are preventing us from reaching that target condition—both in terms of process and outcomes. Then we ask: what’s the next step we can test to address that obstacle?”
Currently, ActionableAgile Analytics is primarily applied at the team level. However, Sanofi’s vision involves scaling flow metrics to the organizational tiers where bottlenecks and dependencies often impact larger initiatives.
Building Buy-In
Although manager buy-in came more easily than anticipated, the team recognizes that more work is to be done among some team members. The challenge is addressing dependencies and resource limitations exposed by flow metrics.
The accelerator’s long-term goal is to consolidate data from multiple teams to provide a holistic view of flow challenges, identifying areas where improvement is needed across the organization. With these changes, Sanofi aims to embed flow at every level, evolving from team-specific improvements to a fully integrated, data-driven approach to organizational agility.
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