Transformation on your plate? Pick a project. Start. Execute. Repeat.

Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash

Healthcare delivery organizations, and departments or service lines in particular, need an approach to adaptation that matches the volume of change within the industry.

The refrain “It’s coming at us all at once” is echoed in organization after organization after organization. The demands of transformation are constant and unrelenting.

Since projects are how organizations change, and change is constant, projects should be constant, too.

Start. Finish. Repeat. It’s the only way to transform.

Constant projects? But how?

Keep it short. Limit the scope of any project to a timeframe that is manageable, keeps participants engaged, and quickly produces an outcome. A twelve-week timeline is a respectable benchmark. Is the initiative larger than the single project? Do another one! More than that? Do another project! What’s that old project management adage — when’s the best time to start another project? Right after you finished the last one! (Oh, maybe that came from sales…)

Ditch the meetings. Instead of using meeting time to update project status or badger slowpokes for the work they promised or manage pending risks or etc., use that time to work on the project. Limited scope projects have timelines that demand constant action. Project participants will actually show up and participate if you get actual work done during a reoccurring calendar block. Save the weekly status updates for the end-of-the-project celebration!

Think real time and show progress. Try new functionality — changes in people, process, and technology — first in the meetings-where-work-is-done and then in the real world. Review it! Validate it! Encourage participants to provide input — “yes, I like this;” “no, I don’t like that” — and make decisions to adjust or move forward — “yes, thanks for your opinion and that’s a great addition;” “yes, thanks for your opinion and we’ll save that for a future phase.”

Enhance! Enhance! Now it’s time to improve. To iterate. No project is ever, ahem, finished. Of course it will be introduced into the world and become the new way of doing but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved or altered or added to. A solution should be adjusted as the project outcome meets the real world and feedback is received. Add small things. Add big things. Try new things.

Believe in temporary. Maybe something drastic changed and the project outcome needs to be eliminated just a year later — that’s okay!, it was such a short project and great utilization of resources that the project outcome did what was needed. It was the bridge from there to here. And if we really go macro on it: every solution ever has been temporary. Things change. All the time. Projects that help departments move from one state to another are successes. Time to get started on the next project.

Increase the execution rate. Do projects. Lots of them. All the time. Finish projects. Keep going. It’s been said many different ways but the only known way to succeed is to try lots of things. Embrace the 10,000 Experiment Rule.

Train. Train. Train. Train. Train. Train. Projects go off the rails at this most important juncture: the translation of the new project into a live environment (and this advice isn’t only for technology projects). Resource-constrained organizations, most all of them, find that training is a convenient place to trim costs. Trimming costs is a fine objective — but don’t skimp on training time and resources. All that hard work of making a project happen shouldn’t go down the drain at the climax of execution.

Big transformation on your plate?

Pick a project.

Start.

Execute.

Repeat and keep going.

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Every month we deliver an email with project ideas, healthcare insights, and tips to help you do your job better. Sign-up here.

Status:Go creates software for healthcare delivery organizations so they can improve operations, execute strategies, and try new ideas. We know healthcare, Salesforce, and how to get things done. Get in touch to get your project started.

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This originally appeared over here.

Formalizing The Way We Work — An Organized Way of Working

For at least the last decade — perhaps longer — companies have been explicitly trying to adapt to a VUCA world.

Volatility.

Uncertainty.

Complexity.

Ambiguity.

Volatility refers to the speed and turbulence of change. Uncertainty means that outcomes become less predictable. Complexity refers to the growing interdependence of social and economic forces. Ambiguity indicates the haziness of reality.

These are the general conditions of our industry (professional services) and the industry we serve (healthcare delivery).

In short, it’s crazy and uncertain out there.

Awareness and readiness become paramount when VUCA is the prevailing reality. Awareness and readiness allow a company to respond to problems and take advantage of opportunities, both of which are in abundance in a VUCA world.

To respond to problems and take advantage of opportunities a company must be organized.

Being organized becomes essential to existence and scaling.

Being organized is a competitive advantage. That’s the key to existence.

Being organized allows more work to be completed. That’s the key to scaling.

Being organized allows decisions to be made by the most appropriate employee. That’s the key to creating a responsive company.

Responsive to customers. Responsive to the market. Responsive to each other.

To become organized, we must:

1. Share, process, and make as much information available to as many people as possible
2. Turn knowledge into learning and improvement
3. Encourage everyone to contribute

With the goal of creating reliable, repeatable, and adaptable ways of working.

Reliable, repeatable, and adaptable ways of working provide exponential benefits.

All of them can be summarized with the “Beamed to Mars” principle. It asks, if a co-worker happens to be beamed to Mars tomorrow, could someone in the organization step-in and fulfill their current responsibilities?

Sadly, Mary was beamed to Mars.

Mars excursions happen all the time: weeks of vacation, a series of sick days, family emergencies.

The red planet is not a lonely place.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of organization is that which rolls up to the individual employee: it allows for greater autonomy and creativity by routinizing the work that can be routinized and creating slack to work on more interesting and difficult problems.

That’s our operating goal. To organize the company, the work our employees do, and how that work is informed and created.

Becoming organized starts with the company’s intention:

• Help middle manager administrators transform healthcare delivery.

It continues with outlining our company’s principles, the foundational beliefs that drive our behavior and reasoning:

• Start Now. Go Fast. — as in moving appropriately quickly and efficiently with a willingness to experiment our way to the best solution
• Know-How — as in expertise and skill in everything that we do
• Execute. Start Again. — as in getting things done is our ultimate outcome

Then it continues with our performance expectations of every employee:

1. Be Curious — to explore, to learn, and to improve.
2. Be Flexible — in your approach, acceptance of responsibilities, and in providing assistance.
3. Be Ready — be prepared, be responsive, and be aware.
4. Take Initiative — to get started, to communicate effectively, and to make things better.
5. Contribute to the Whole. The responsibilities specific to your role are important. We also request that you contribute to building a company.
6. Commit to the Approach. We have designed a way of operating. Follow along or help us find a better way as everything is open to improvement.

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Every month we deliver an email with project ideas, healthcare insights, and tips to help you do your job better. Sign-up here.

Status:Go creates software for healthcare delivery organizations so they can try new ideas, improve operations, and execute strategies. We know healthcare, Salesforce, and how to get things done. Get in touch to get your project started.