Healthcare organizations must embrace change to meet the demands of new industry regulations, competitors and consumer expectations — and do so swiftly, with optimized effort and costs. Yet, large digital modernization projects often go over budget, beyond schedule and deliver fewer benefits than expected. On average, for every $1 billion invested in large digital projects, organizations waste $166 million. In our analysis, a major reason why projects go over budget and under deliver is the lack of line of sight from strategy to execution. The obscured vision results in the following:
- Employees and vendors work with little comprehension of how their projects support broader objectives, so they generally do the minimum required.
- Teams often set inappropriate priorities and miss opportunities to add value and proactively support the larger enterprise vision.
- Project and operational leaders end up trying to manage resources and vendors instead of managing the process.
Adopting a business value realization (BVR) methodology changes this scenario. BVR holistically bridges the gap between strategy definition and program execution to ensure project-specific activities and day-to-day operations map to business priorities for maximum return. It combines C-suite strategic thinking, domain expertise and specific functional expertise. It then goes beyond the typical project management office (PMO) approach to status, issue, risk and budget management to ensure projects deliver expected benefits while containing their costs.
How it works
BVR is built on four key tenets to ensure that value is identified, managed and realized as a program is envisioned and operationalized.
- Objective point of view. For optimal results, provide for independent assessments of all the pros and cons of key decisions and manage enterprise priorities among clients, vendors and implementation partners.
- Smart program management. Encompass strategic thinking, extensive healthcare experience and operational expertise to help incorporate value management into all aspects of the program.
- Data-driven decisions. Use real-time data and metrics to continuously measure project progress against program goals and value realization.
- Dynamic program improvement. Employ functional expertise to rapidly diagnose risks and issues at all stages that could challenge value realization and provide immediate course corrections based on best practices. The BVR team helps align internal and external stakeholders to that ensure program strategic goals are accomplished.
A strong BVR governance structure is also vital to validating the impact of data on project objectives and priorities and measuring the value achieved. The structure helps translate strategic directives into tangible goals and actions. This governance model, along with BVR dashboards, templates and processes, helps data and results from operations and development teams percolate upward so executive teams and business leaders understand the effects of their decisions and where additional guidance is necessary.
By tracking these metrics, an organization has the data it needs for strong decision-making in alignment with project timelines and objectives. When an organization needs to prioritize capabilities during the initiative, BVR dashboards can provide the data to show which activity has the greater ROI and can be delivered in the required timeframe. Decision-making becomes objective and data-driven, and the impact of those decisions is made clear.