About a year ago, we began collaborating with Arcondis on the Integrated Resource Planning Tool to efficiently allocate and manage human resources in the healthcare industry for companies and employees. We are incredibly proud of the outcome of our partnership as it showcased that digitization, and agile approach are the bridges for all businesses. Arcondis globally recognized consulting company with an exclusive focus on the healthcare and life science sectors, where quality and regulatory affairs are crucial. At Mindset we are digital transformers who help companies’ leverage their online businesses. Although we were unfamiliar with each other’s industries at the outset, we were confident that applying the Design Thinking methodology would bring us on the same page.
Problems we tackled
Outlining the main problem which is the lack of appropriate employee deployment in the healthcare area, and we formulated the four main challenges that managers face:
- Need for intelligently managed human resources in a complex environment
- Multiple teams intersecting to form units of care in a flexible and cost-effective manner
- Difficulty finding a suitable solution that fits your requirements and one-size-fits-for-all does not work for you
- Need for an experienced partner for integrated planning in healthcare to move forward
Based on our partners’ experience, we set up principles for measurements as follows:
a. KPI-based management
- Measure what you want to control
- Connect measurement to action
- Keep expectations realistic
b. Best practice for organized collaboration
- Define roles and responsibilities
- Delegate tasks and decisions
- Keep teams small and effective
- Discuss and learn often
c. Finding the balance
- Complex tasks vs. overview
- Flexibility for employees vs. company planning
- Unpredictable number and severity of patient cases
- Single interventions vs. pathway of care
- Regulatory compliance vs. flexibility of execution
d. Foundational reality
Our Solution
We channeled these principles into a blueprint that can be customized to meet specific staffing needs. To do this, we chose the three main persona types (administration, team leaders, team members), and by using the Design Thinking method and agile approach we can deliver a Minimal Desirable Product: Integrated Resource Planning Tool.
How does it work?
Based on Arcondis secondary research we have created a set-up of principles that significantly work if assigned to the responsive persona type. Here are some examples:
a. Admin & Controlling
- R&R definitions
- Compliance
- Interfaces
b. Team Lead
- Chooses and leads team
- Consolidates learnings
- Improves planning
- Brief and debrief team members
- Time tracking
- Workload management
- Comments / learnings
- Absences overview
Collecting data from each of the measurements results in a poll of lessons learned that helps with future improvements such as team collaboration, team size, or workload distribution.
MDP Development
The next phase before delivering the Minimal Desirable Product is divided into four steps such as due diligence, workshops, prototypes, and validations. These steps were designed accordingly to the agile approach that has been tested by our company in different scenarios. The biggest advantage of this approach is detecting inconsistency and errors at the early stage of the project which helps to avoid the loss of time and resources. Last, but not least important, the blueprint provides the guidelines for the necessary requirements for building and launching MDP and how to implement the changes in your organization on the emotional level. We and our partners use to say, “Winning hearts & minds take more than good arguments and a business case – you need strategic empathy”.
We are incredibly proud of the outcome, as it has demonstrated how digitization and an agile approach can serve as the connecting bridges for businesses of all kinds!
As entrepreneurs and managers, we understand the matter of impeccable time management, therefore Integrated Resource Planning includes a clear timeline and task assignment for us – the consultants, and you – the client.
Want to learn more about how our blueprint can make changes for your company? Book an appointment with one of our experts, Michael or Patrick, who have over 10 years of experience solving companies’ problems and digitizing their solutions.
