A New Way of Prioritizing Projects

Many healthcare delivery organizations are paralyzed due to an inability to efficiently and effectively prioritize competing initiatives. This paralysis often stems from, ironically, the predominant approach of assessing the value of each individual project.

While implementing a systematic prioritization process can help, there is a fundamental issue with this approach. In short, organizations find that it is fairly easy to justify anything on the basis that it supports the organization’s strategy. As a result, an organization can find itself with more projects than it can handle, a weak project portfolio that under-delivers on its promises, and delays that compromise organizational productivity.

An alternative—and often complementary—approach is to assess the strategic threats, opportunities, and issues of an organization first. Then, and only then, should an organization use its findings to assess the value of each project.

The premise of this approach stems from the fact that every organization has a “hierarchy of needs” that determines its ability to achieve its strategy and survive. These needs (e.g., adequate number of patients, providers, staff, facilities, supplies, access to capital, and cash) must align in a certain way to equal success. Any threats, opportunities, or issues related to these needs must be addressed first. All other initiatives are secondary.

This can be a more effective approach to weeding out more initiatives on the front end, and result in a better alignment between an organization’s strategy and project portfolio.

Follow These 3 Prioritization Steps 

There are three steps to incorporating this approach into your prioritization methodology:

1. Identify and prioritize strategic opportunities, threats, issues, and regulatory requirements for your organization. Your organization has already assessed most of this information as a part of the strategic planning process. It may include acquisition and expansion opportunities, competitive threats, security threats, changes in payer requirements, the emergence of new technology, performance issues, cost reduction opportunities, and a host of regulatory requirements, like ICD-10. Prioritize each item by evaluating its expected impact on the organization’s ability to achieve its strategy (often measured in financial, clinical, and patient experience terms). Assessing the relative magnitude (high, medium, low) and timing (short-term, mid-term, long-term) of each impact can dramatically streamline the ranking process.
2. Identify all initiatives that you need to satisfy the highest-ranked opportunities, threats, issues, and regulatory requirements identified in step one. Starting with the highest priority items scope each project out at a high level and then slot it into the organization’s master project portfolio. Work your way down the list until your organization has reached its project capacity.
3. Once your project portfolio has reached its capacity, validate the project list by comparing it to projects not on the list to see if you need to make any adjustments. If your organization believes that additional projects must be completed, then you must determine how to either increase project capacity or cut existing projects.

 

Do Not Underestimate the Power of Prioritization

Project prioritization is complex but it can produce a strategic advantage for companies when it is done well. It has the potential to not only increase productivity by improving project throughput, but it can also improve an organization’s ability to focus on the initiatives that are most important to achieving its strategy. And with the pace of change accelerating, healthcare organizations cannot afford to overlook this capability.