Validation Project Plans

Hello good people of the world! Today’s post is about Validation Project Plans, which is a specific type of project plan for projects in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device regulated industries. This post covers Validation Project Plans for pharmaceutical/biotechnology industries in particular.

Often I’ve see Validation Project Plans contain a lot of fluff but little meat, making them of less value to the project team. A good project plan clearly documents the following, at a minimum:

1. What facilities, systems, and equipment are in scope of the plan
2. What are the expected activities and deliverables
3. Who is responsible for what
4. What is the validation approach and rationale for that approach
5. What happens after the validation scope covered in the plan is completed (i.e. ongoing requirements)

Note I do not include project cost or schedule in a project plan, because these are often changing rapidly and should be maintained in a less controlled, more flexible manner, e.g. with scheduling software for a schedule.

The plan itself should be controlled (i.e. approved and revision controlled) as soon as possible in the project but early enough so that scope will not change (too much).

Additional things to think about when drafting your plan:

1.  Commissioning versus Qualification versus Validation. If your project has multiple phases (and any decent-sized project should), be sure to clearly state responsibilities and deliverables at each stage.
2. Include references to regulations, industry guidance, and site procedures that govern your plan. Make it clear to everyone who reads the plan what framework you are working inside.
3. The purpose and scope of the document should be clear and up front.
4. Get buy-in from all functional groups by having them approve the document.
5. Like all controlled documents, the plan should have version/revision history.
6. Use tables to clearly present information.

I put together a quick template here:

Validation Project Plan Template MWV

What do you feel is necessary in a Validation Project Plan? Comment below.

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