Management Consulting
Feb 04 2012
The Missing Health Care Mobile App
When I think of the boom in Healthcare IT, I am reminded of the multitude of systems which allow providers to communicate to other providers, patients, and insurance companies to facilitate the care of the patient and management of health services. I know there are several websites available to communicate with the patient or member community, yet, the mobile applications are generally lacking. While there is an app for your health and fitness, there aren’t many apps for the patient which insurance companies or health care providers are supplying.
Jan 18 2012
Scrum Estimation Methods
Dec 16 2011
Avoiding the Danger of Facilitating SMEs
Most projects will take a Train the Trainer (TTT) approach to save time and money. TTT can be an invaluable tool for projects and increase adoption rates for new processes and technologies. Handled poorly however, TTT can do more harm than good. If your TTT approach consists only of identifying SMEs, handing them a presentation and off to teach the class they go- you are setting your training up to fail.
TTT works when the SME has been trained previously as a facilitator. Teaching effectively is much more than knowing the subject matter, standing in front of colleagues and speaking. Where TTT approaches fail is that they don't teach the basics of good facilitating.
SMES often know the material too well. They can struggle to break it down to its most basic elements. For example, would you hire someone with a PhD in auto mechanics to teach your 15 year old how to drive?
Nov 09 2011
The Future of Government Operations
It is often difficult to define, never mind embrace, a silver lining from occurrences that are so profoundly negative. However, government can, or more pointedly should, greatly benefit from our current, prolonged economic downturn.
In short, government at all levels (Federal, State and Local) is required to change its overall operational model – some entities already have or are well down the path. Operations, processes, and most importantly stakeholder/citizen interactions must change to accommodate current and future budget constraints. All of these changes must occur while providing citizens with enhanced customer services.
Nov 04 2011
Building Business Capability Conference - BA Center of Excellence
A big focus during the first couple of days at the conference has been on Business Analysis Centers of Excellence (COE). There have been a number of sessions where the speaker has shared their experiences with setting up and maintaining a COE. There is a desire among BAs at an organization to have a community where the analysts can share ideas, create standards, develop best practices and document templates, and learn about what it takes to be a better BA. There were some instances where management iniated the creation of the COE, but in most cases it started as a grassroots effort among the BAs in the organization.
The purpose of a COE is to setup processes, controls and templates for the business analysis community within an organization to follow. More and more companies are realizing the necessity for this and are looking for ways to implement it. There are a few important things I learned during the conference about setting up and managing a COE.