Project leaders must challenge directors now for 2020!

A fortnight ago, Skipr featured a short article by my colleague Jan Bosman entitled: "How healthcare can save 30 per cent on indirect costs". The crux of his argument that ministry research shows non-client-related care costs in long-term care are above 40 per cent and can be reduced by 30%. The cause of those high indirect care costs lies in regulatory burden, inadequate ICT and inefficient work processes.

In recent years, I have had the opportunity to advise and guide many healthcare organisations and their directors in the field of project and portfolio management. One of the first things I try to make transparent for the directors is which projects and programmes are running in the organisation and which resources (people and means) are involved. That way, I try to get a grip on the projects, purely with the aim of getting those projects to deliver better - and faster - results. After all, the need to change is so great in long-term care in the meantime that there are not enough people, resources and time to fiddle around for long.

Only secondarily do we then work together to ensure synergy between the projects in the project portfolio. We do this by looking very closely at the contribution of all projects to the strategic pillars of the organisation. Are we doing the right projects to meet our challenges? And it is precisely in ensuring that synergy that I want to make the link between Project Portfolio Management and the aforementioned article. Indeed, it has been my experience that when defining the decision variables - the variables the organisation uses to determine why one project is better than another - executives leave too much room for interpretation and think too statically.

Indeed, the mission, vision and strategy and underlying framework letters always mention something along the lines of "Best Employee", "Best Care" and/or "Best Organisation", or variants thereof. And it is precisely these strategic pillars that many directors see as the most important basic variables. Of course, these topics are deliberately chosen so that everyone can identify with them and they are easy to communicate and reproduce. From a marketing and communication point of view, I get that. Moreover, these container terms last a nice long time and will never become dated. And so, by definition, that makes them unsuitable as decision variables for project portfolio management.

Indeed, it is a breeze for an initiator of a new project to write a project proposal in such a way that it looks like the project is going to contribute to one of those vague strategic pillars; anyone can make the expected outcome of a project contribute to "Best Organisation".

So my suggestion for project leaders in healthcare is to enter into discussions with the directors now to elaborate the strategic pillars one level deeper and for the medium term in the 2020 framework letter. Once a year, it is good to set the frameworks for the organisation by defining what is meant by "Best Care" or "Best Employee" for the coming period. How does the organisation intend to flesh out these topics this coming year? And in that conversation, make sure that in the next few years, under the strategic pillar "Best Organisation", there will at least be something about reducing the number of ICT systems, reducing manual data entry and improving data quality (all to improve the quality of care).

And if you are already too late because the 2020 framework letter is already ready: use the conversations you have with the directors about your next project to flesh out together the frameworks, objectives and expected outcomes for 2020.

Maarten van Weeghel is Director at Improven and specialises in setting up and improving project & portfolio management at healthcare organisations.

This blog appeared on Project Managers in Care https://www.projectmanagementindezorg.nl/blog-16-2020