The Effective Statistician - in association with PSI

6 steps to prepare before you want to convince your business partner

16 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Do you have a great idea you want to move forward and you need others to buy in? Maybe you want to improve a process or implement a new analysis appr...

The power of simulations for designing clinical studies and beyond

09 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Aiden has first worked on simulations during studying statistics to understand which sample sizes lead to sufficient performance of statistics, which ...

Bonus Episode: Leadership Program

08 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

We designed this program for statisticians and data scientist to strengthen your leadership skills so you can maximize your impact at work even if you...

Join The Effective Statistician in Clubhouse App

05 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Clubhouse is a new social media platform that is audio only and only works on iOS or iPhones for now, but it will be available for Android phones in 5...

The Chimp Paradox

02 Mar 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Do you sometimes feel that you disrupt your own happiness and success? Are you overworked to make sense of yourself? Do your emotions often control yo...

Data monitoring committees for clinical trials and the role of the statistician

23 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In today's episode, we're talking with a niche part of clinical research many statisticians never get actively involved in: DMCs. David Kerr comes wi...

Bias-variance-trade off - an important principle you should know and 3 examples for it

16 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The knowledge about the bias variance trade off is very important for you as a statistician as it comes across your work - especially exploratory work...

Reflections on Statistics Career Opportunities in Drug Development and Healthcare

08 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Jenny has encountered several highly competent people throughout her career who have admitted that they entered one path or another based on certain a...

Career dedication and motivation – the unsung heroes of COVID

02 Feb 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The COVID-19 pandemic has put pharmaceutical research firmly into the spotlight, with the urgent need to develop new therapies, tests, and vaccines. F...

5 steps to present successfully to upper management about complex stats (and everything else)!

25 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Should we oversimplify statistics, or should managers learn more about statistics? If you've been working as a statistician for a while, you know tha...

Do you want to think and act more strategically?

18 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Outside of statistics departments, we are often seen as tactical and operational implementers. This branding makes it hard for statisticians to be inc...

How to best visualize uncertainty

11 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Our job as statisticians focuses primarily on the analysis and communication of uncertainty in its many aspects. For this episode, I think of uncertai...

What you should know about change management

05 Jan 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What is change management? Is it only something for big corporate initiatives or does it also apply to smaller changes? Why does it require so much co...

Knowledge sharing and what it means for you

15 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Knowledge sharing is close to my heart and Nelson, who is a very knowledgeable statistician, has shared a lot of articles in LinkedIn and on his websi...

2 learnings from 150 episodes and an Important announcement

08 Dec 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Good data visualization checklist

30 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Do you want to review a data visualization effectively? Do you want to provide your organization with a simple tool to improve your data visualization...

Good data visualization checklist

23 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Do you want to review a data visualization effectively? Do you want to provide your organization with a simple tool to improve your data visualization...

A deep dive into principal stratification and causal inference

16 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Principal stratification used to play a role only in observational research but at least since the addendum of the ICH E9 guideline, this approach to ...

The benefit-risk tolerability measure - a new way to reach insights into benefit-risk and more

11 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Yves and I have worked together in various roles. Over time, he became more interested in becoming a statistician and I helped him to change his caree...

What we can learn from Taylor Swift about creating data visualizations

02 Nov 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today, we are talking about Taylor Swift and visualizations. Does it seem like a very unreasonable thing? I thought so as well but then I read this ...

How to improve your work by applying the principles of design thinking

26 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What's in it for statisticians and data scientists? Design thinking is an interesting topic and is becoming more popular these days. I found out abou...

How to convince someone you have never met before

20 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What do you do if you need something from someone at work, but - You have never talked to this person ever before - This person doesn’t know you ...

What statisticians can learn from “The Art of Action”

12 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Stephen is a really interesting person. He is the author of The Art of Action and has a background in consulting and history. Based on this knowledge,...

How understanding the bigger picture boosts your career

05 Oct 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How does understanding the bigger picture helps you to be more productive and to be more influential at work? How can this help you sell your work to ...

Getting to YES: Negotiation skills for everyday

28 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

If you enjoyed the last book review, you'll surely enjoy this one as well. This is much more practical than the last one. Getting to Yes is a very fu...

Feeling overwhelmed? Learn the best tricks and the real big levers

25 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Do you feel overwhelmed by all the tasks? Do you think you are missing to get the big things done as you are drowning in day-to-day work? Are you frus...

Innovation, play and failing

21 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Why do we need to innovate? What are the drivers for innovation? How much time would you invest in something if it made an awful task more bearable? ...

10 reasons for career failure and what you can do about it

15 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Napoleon Hill is an interesting author and quite controversial but still good content to reflect upon. In this episode, I want to reflect on: Why peo...

4 steps to engage successfully with senior stakeholders and committees

07 Sep 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Do you currently run an initiative? Do you want to get support or budget for an initiative? Do you want to change the design or analyses of a study? D...

Just being brilliant at stats doesn’t bring you far

31 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I am talking about a topic that is very close to my heart. I want us, statisticians, to have an impact. I truly believe that if we make better ...

My personal leadership principles

25 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Why do you need personal leadership principles? How can you refine and reflect them? What kind of leader do you want to be? Is it possible to be a lea...

My personal lessons from using various data visualizations

18 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

To give you an update, I'll be sharing with you what I have learned from the past year about visualization as I worked a lot of these - the explorator...

How to run effective meetings, even if you are just a participant

11 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What are typical meetings you would be invited to as a statistician? - Study meeting - Project meetings - Team meetings

Everything you need to know about matching adjusted indirect comparisons

04 Aug 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What can we do about indirect comparisons to make it better and more efficient rather than using the usual technique? What are the indirect comparison...

The future of safety analyses: interactivity, visualizations and the FDA

28 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How are safety analyses different from efficacy analyses? What does validation and quality control mean for interactive visualization? Over recent ye...

How to play the game of business to build stronger, more innovative, more inspiring organizations

20 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever considered a career outside of statistics?

13 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever thought of having an additional or changing career? What are the things you must prepare for when considering this? Today, we interview...

Plotting your career and preparing the terrain

06 Jul 2020

Contributed by Lukas

For your career, have you ever thought about what mindset you should adapt to? What do you think marks a “successful” career? What will help you u...

3 Time management hacks, that actually work

29 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Given the pandemic, this episode comes timely as it's a challenge to manage time while working at home. But even after the pandemic, this challenge o...

The Story of Veramed - love and statistics

22 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Were there times you think about creating something bigger than what you currently have? Are you equipped and confident enough to start implementing s...

8 steps to make a smart decision

15 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Imagine you need to choose a comparator for a head-to-head study. How do we usually approach it? - Debate - Meetings - More meetings with other stake...

Present like a pro

08 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Have you been sitting through boring presentations? Have you felt that the presenter lost the audience in seconds? Have you found yourself after a pre...

Failed study, new safety finding, mistakes - breaking bad news

01 Jun 2020

Contributed by Lukas

As statisticians, we often need to bring terrible news to the team. We’re the first to know, that a study didn’t reach the primary endpoint, or th...

How to create win-win situations?

25 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

What are win-win situations for you? How to create such win-win situations? Upon observing on our daily business, however, we have the tendency to v...

Working long hours – is it worth it?

18 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Are you working long hours? How do you manage your time? Do you know how to say no? How do you manage expectations? We want to achieve our goals and ...

MakeoverMonday – Improving How We Visualise and Analyze Data

11 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

How do you create effective data visualization? How do you effectively understand and communicate your data? This episode helps you to explore differ...

Core Outcome Measures in Effectiveness Trials - COMET

04 May 2020

Contributed by Lukas

"A core outcome set (COS) is an agreed standardised set of outcomes that should be measured and reported, as a minimum, in all clinical trials in spec...

ITIT - an acronym which will help you get started in the pharma industry

27 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Introduction to Industry Training (ITIT) gives the delegates a taste of life across the pharmaceutical industry from early drug discovery to marke...

9 learnings from over 100 episodes over 2 years

20 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

This is a very special episode. More than 2 years have passed since Benjamin and I started this podcast.

Why and how to declutter and simplify your data visualization

13 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Do you know why is it so important to create a simple yet informative data visualization? How your design choices impact the visuals? How small detail...

Running on 2 legs

08 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Are you stepping up as a statistician? Are you passionate enough in providing the value and helping society and the organization, and the people we se...

COVID-19 and how charts lie

06 Apr 2020

Contributed by Lukas

The Corona Virus being discussed across the world, with all the visualizations there, it is really timely that I am speaking with Alberto Cairo. He is...

Getting to a good visualization

30 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

We all know how to specify a table and our processes support this. However, designing an awesome data visualization does not work this way. Our approa...

Learnings from the COVID crisis for statisticians

30 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

As statisticians, we are one of the most capable professionals to understand and to relay the right information to the general public about the most t...

Working from home - is this for you?

23 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Are you curious about how working from home works? How can you know if this is for you? What are the advantages and disadvantages when working from ho...

Data visualization - the often overlooked basics

16 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Why is visualization so important? How do you determine the goal of visualization? What is the big difference between explanatory visualization and e...

Learnings from Florence Nightingale

09 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Who is Florence Nightingale and what is impressive about her? Why would it be interesting to talk about her at the upcoming PSI conference? She’s fa...

Problems for statisticians to take on

02 Mar 2020

Contributed by Lukas

After a career that brought you as a statistician to various parts of the pharma world, what is the new job, that you just took on about? What are th...

Wonderful Wednesdays

24 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Do you effectively communicate complex data? How can visualization help you when you are . . . analyzing data? . . . reporting data? What initiatives ...

RWE demystified

17 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Real world evidence (RWE) Big data Real world data (RWD) Pragmatic studies There are lots of buzzwords floating around and especially with the FDA ha...

How and why to increase your external profile!

10 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Do you know what your external profile is? Do you have an idea of how to improve it? In today's episode, Liz Cole and I will dive deep into a topic c...

Impact of AI on Clinical Development

03 Feb 2020

Contributed by Lukas

With so many recent advances in AI, it is important for statisticians to both keep up to date with the most recent methods and getting involved in gui...

The data ops manifesto

27 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Do you feel you're working like a firefighter? Do you have the perception, you're solving the same problems over and over? Do you worry about ever-cha...

6 Effective leadership behaviours for statisticians

20 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

6 effective leadership behaviours for statisticians One of my favourite leadership podcast run by Olaf Kapinski - unfortunately in German - had a gre...

Helping statisticians having a bigger role

14 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Can you really do a bigger role? Did you have a moment in your career, where you were thinking that you as a statistician is put in a box or labelled ...

Overview of different indirect comparison approaches and methods

06 Jan 2020

Contributed by Lukas

Only specialized statisticians discussed indirect comparisons in the past but over the years the topic developed into something, every statistician sh...

Christmas episode 2019

23 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

During this episode, we will review some of the highlights from this year. It’ll help you to remember a couple of lessons learned or inspire you to ...

CALC Episode 5: You’re hired! How to Fail to be Rejected During the Interview Process

19 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

So, hopefully you’ve listened to all of our other podcasts and you are still interested in applying for a job as a medical statistician… This epi...

Baseline testing

16 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

I once reviewed tables for a randomized study and noticed several comments about testing the baseline characteristics. The commenters were arguing whi...

Seeing through the mist - consequences of decisions in phase II

09 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What's interesting about the early phase? What are the typical decisions for phase II? Speaking about a new indication, how do you see decisions are b...

CALC Episode 4: Be Significant: What Employers Look for

05 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

So, you want to be a Statistician in the pharmaceutical industry, a key player in drug research and development, but you are wondering what employers ...

How to leverage time-boxing to reduce overwhelm being a statistician

02 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Do you know how to make a good to-do list? Do you know how to set priorities versus time it takes? Do you have a problem with over-committing? One of...

How to get into flow and reach peak performance

25 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Do you want to have fun at work? Do you want to experience satisfaction? Do you want to get things done at work? Getting into flow is about these thi...

CALC Episode 3: Get a Head Start and Map Your Route to a Career in Drug Development

21 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

So, you’re considering pursuing a career in Statistics but you’re not quite sure. You may be at Uni studying a BSc in Mathematics or a related fie...

What you need to know before you try to increase productivity

19 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Do you often find your workday spiraling out of control? Do you want to be more productive than you yesterday? Do you want to know how to improve you...

How to lead being an introvert

11 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How do you know if you are an introvert? Is it possible to lead successfully even as an introvert? Do you know how to be successful being an introver...

CALC Episode 2: The Average Day for a Statistician: It’s Not Mean!

07 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Statistics isn’t traditionally known to be a trendy subject, but here we are saving lives around the world by developing new and mighty medicines. Y...

Network meta-analyses: why, what, and how

04 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Do you know why network meta-analyses (NMA) important? Do you wonder what steps are included in NMAs? Network meta-analysis is a very important field...

How to resolve conflict without giving in

28 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Do you really know how to deal with conflict? Conflict is one of the biggest topics of stress at work. Managing conflict gives a huge drive to our su...

CALC Episode 1: From Molecule to Patient: The Statistician’s Role in Developing New Medicines

23 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How do we develop new medicines to treat nasty diseases? It all starts by discovering a novel target molecule in the lab. Fast forward 12 years and an...

Current trends in pharmaceutical and how they will affect you as a statistician

21 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What are the bigger trends in the biopharmaceutical industry, which will have an impact for statisticians? . . . in terms of technology changes? . . ...

Natural language processing - how the analyses of unstructured text data can help us

14 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Why is text mining so important? What are the typical challenges and research questions in this area? Are there any ones typical for medical/pharmaceu...

CALC Episode 0: Introduction to PSI CALC Podcast Series

09 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What statisticians can learn from Leonardo Da Vinci

07 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What can you learn from Leanardo Da Vinci on how to put things into perspective? Do you struggle with learning about data communication? How importan...

Learning from Leonardo Da Vinci

07 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What can you learn from Leonardo Da Vinci on how to put things into perspective? Do you struggle with data communication? How important is data visua...

Statisticians stepping up - leadership success stories - Part 2

30 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Do you have great ideas but struggling to implement them? Is having an idea and just being right already good enough? What can you do to convince your...

Statisticians stepping up - leadership success stories - Part 1

23 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Do you have what it takes to be a leader? What skills can you learn from the leadership program? What is the mastermind concept? How can the leadershi...

4 reasons why statisticians fail to lead

16 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Have you thought about being a leader? Do you feel responsible or afraid of taking the lead? Are you equipped enough to be one? Our definition of lea...

Don't be a victim

09 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Do others not help you? Are they making your life hard? Is your company bad? Does your compound suck and hinders your work productivity? A lot of peo...

Non-parametric analyses - much more than just the Wilcoxon test!

02 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Frank has something in common with Benjamin and myself - we all studied statistics in Göttingen and learned and researched in non-parametric statisti...

Taking the pain out of subgroup analyses

26 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Why do you think many of these “subgroup” projects are a headache for statisticians? Have you felt frustrations about such projects yourself? What...

My story of the Effective Statistician

19 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Are you curious about why and how I started The Effective Statistician? What's in it for you? Why I'm passionate about it?

What matters most? A scientific advice role play on estimands

12 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Are you a sponsor who is seeking joint scientific advice from a regulatory agency and from an HTA body? If yes, this episode is for you. This present...

How to become a leader in a cross-functional team

05 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

As statisticians, we work in cross-functional teams, but many people, especially junior people prefer to follow rather than to lead - and that's okay....

Help to make your organisation and yourself outsourcing proof

29 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A lot of statisticians, especially in pharmaceutical companies but also CROs, fear outsourcing because it might make their job redundant. Think about:...

How to communicate effectively by telling data stories

22 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Storytelling allows businesses to better understand insight. Data visualization is a great tool to help share, or tell a story, but relies on the sto...

How to make the collaboration between sponsor and CRO successful

15 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

There is an endless list of things that can go wrong in sponsor-CRO relations. I’m pretty sure you have been in painful discussions about this. Have...

Best of PSI 2019

09 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The 2019 PSI Conference took place at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre (QEII), London, with the theme of “Data Driven Decision Making in Medical Resea...

Mistakes – How to minimize them – How to manage them

01 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Do you agree that everybody makes mistakes? Have you had to deal with a mistake yourself, that you were really concerned about? Were you afraid about ...

Presenting with impact: 7 mistakes to avoid

24 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Have you been sitting in boring presentations that made you start reading your emails? Have you been listening to someone, wondering if this is for m...