Customized Transformation Journey for Healthcare Information Systems (HIS) Delivery

About the Client

The client is a global leader in healthcare information systems (HIS), providing advanced solutions for electronic health records (EHR), and ancillary healthcare systems. With a diverse product portfolio and geographically dispersed teams, the organization embarked on an agile transformation journey to enhance delivery efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Problem Statement

The client faced several challenges that hindered their ability to adopt and scale agile practices effectively:

• Siloed Collaboration: Cross-functional teams lacked alignment, leading to misaligned goals and delays in product delivery.
• Agile Ceremony Inefficiencies: Sprint ceremonies were inconsistent and lacked well-defined roles, agendas, and outcomes.
• Requirements Management Issues: Poorly defined requirements and insufficient backlog refinement led to frequent sprint disruptions and rework.
• Dependency and Risk Management: Dependencies across teams were not adequately addressed, resulting in delays and scope mismanagement.
• Resistance to Agile Practices: Initial resistance from leadership and teams created challenges in fostering agile culture.

These challenges were identified and prioritized collaboratively with teams and stakeholders following a comprehensive health check and diagnostic phase, which provided a clear understanding of the pain points and their root causes.

Solution Offered: Agile Transformation Program

BaffleSol facilitated a structured transformation program based on the outcomes of the diagnostic phase. The program prioritized solutions in a sequenced manner, focusing on immediate pain points first, followed by long-term initiatives to embed agile maturity.

Phase 1: Diagnostic and Problem Prioritization

• Conducted a health check assessment to identify gaps in agile adoption, collaboration, and delivery processes.
• Used insights from the diagnostic phase to prioritize problems collaboratively with teams and stakeholders.
• Sequenced solutions based on impact, urgency, and feasibility, ensuring that quick wins were addressed first.

Phase 2: Implementation of Solutions

• Requirement Slicing and Refinement:
  • Conducted workshops to improve how requirements were defined and refined.
  • Introduced success criteria like Definition of Ready (DoR) and Definition of Done (DoD) to ensure high-quality backlog management.
  • Outcome: Reduced sprint disruptions, improved requirement clarity, and enhanced incremental delivery.

• Streamlining Agile Ceremonies:
  • Established clear guidelines for sprint ceremonies, ensuring they were purposeful and engaging.
  • Trained Scrum Masters and Product Owners on effective facilitation techniques and agile best practices.
  • Outcome: Enhanced collaboration, improved sprint velocity, and consistent story completion ratios.
• Big Room Planning Workshops:
  • Introduced Big Room Planning to improve cross-team collaboration and manage dependencies effectively.
  • Created dependency dashboards and iterative plans to align teams on goals and timelines.
  • Outcome: Improved release confidence, reduced dependency-related delays, and better capacity planning.

Phase 3: Building Long-Term Agile Maturity

• Established Agile Councils for Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches, and ProductOwners to foster continuous learning and governance.
• Developed a metrics-driven governance framework, monitoring KPIs such as velocity, defect leakage rates, and backlog health.
• Integrated agile principles into leadership practices to align cultural transformation with operational goals.

Key Features of the Transformation

• Problem-Driven Prioritization: Solutions were implemented in a sequence determined by collaborative problem prioritization with stakeholders.
• Customer-Centric Requirements Management: Techniques like empathy mapping were used to align product development with end-user needs.
• Incremental and Iterative Planning: Rolling wave planning and dependency dashboards enabled better alignment and delivery.
• Governance and Transparency: Real-time metrics and dashboards provided visibility into team health and progress

Benefits Achieved

Within 6 months, the transformation program delivered measurable improvements:

• Improved Delivery Efficiency: Reduced cycle times and enhanced release confidence.
• Enhanced Collaboration: Structured ceremonies and cross-team planning improved alignment and reduced silos.
• Reduced Defect Leakage: Streamlined processes minimized defects, improving customer satisfaction.
• Agile Buy-In: Leadership alignment and team training overcame resistance, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

Exciting Takeaway: Prioritized Problem-Solving for Quick Wins

One of the most exciting aspects of this transformation was the problem prioritization process. By aligning solutions with the most critical challenges identified in the health check phase, the organization ensured quick wins, such as the introduction of requirement slicing workshops. These quick wins demonstrated value early, building trust and momentum for the larger transformation.

Conclusion

This case study illustrates how a leading healthcare information systems provider successfully navigated the challenges of agile adoption by taking a problem-driven and phased approach. By focusing on both quick wins and long-term goals, the organization achieved measurable improvements in delivery efficiency, collaboration, and customer satisfaction.

Struggling with agile adoption or delivery challenges? Let us help you design a transformation program tailored to your organization’s needs. Contact us today to get started on your journey toward operational excellence!

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