Many articles have been written about the Lean Roadmap, talking about how they can help teams work more efficiently toward achieving an organisation’s vision. At Interfuze, we’ve found the Lean Roadmap to be a valuable tool with one of our clients for their digital transformation journey.
Auscare is a WA-based organisation which started as a staffing agency for Aged Care facilities. The sector has since experienced significant growth and Auscare has responded by offering additional service lines with rapidly growing client base.
Over the years Auscare has grown to encompass Home Care packages, Commonwealth Home Support Program services, Veterans DVA Clinical Nursing, personalised private services for older community members, and diverse training courses and certified qualifications to those in the healthcare industry.
The growth in customer volume and service variety means that Auscare needs to advance to an integrated solution to meet increasing demand.
Working closely with Auscare’s owners, managers, and stakeholders, we developed a vision for a solution that will sustainably accommodate that growth.Prioritised initiatives were developed that involved:
· Introducing a fit for purpose system to manage Community Care,
· upgrading the existing training system,
· adding a CRM to be used across all service streams, and
· connecting these and several existing business systems to produce an integrated solution
We used this information to develop a simple Lean Roadmap in Microsoft Excel, with high-level time horizons for each initiative. We were very open about its simplicity and the absence of detail. Our focus was for our Roadmap to be easily maintainable and adaptable as new opportunities and/or circumstances arose, so it would always be a highly usable, living document.
At one point we moved the roadmap to Jira, but found it harder to maintain, so ended up reverting back to Excel. This reflects our mantra that systems should never get in the way of human interactions. This also turned out to be a good move, as we found later on that we needed to restructure the program and consequently refactor the roadmap to reflect this.
At least every fortnight, we hold a Roadmap meeting where we talk to the Roadmap holistically and to each of the initiatives – progress against each and if there are any blockers and ensuring that prioritised work continues to move forward. One of the important tasks during the program and following each of our meetings is to update the roadmap with the latest information to ensure it is current, accurate and communicates the latest information around Auscare’s priorities, objectives and what value is expected to be delivered.
Our LeanRoadmap has been invaluable in:
- Keeping the team focused and aligned to Auscare’s vision. The roadmap is highly visible and regularly discussed so everyone is on the same page about what we are doing and why.
- Showing how each of the work streams come together.
- Ensuring initiatives’ progress and any blockers are swiftly addressed.
- Ensuring tactical decisions and actions are informed by, and align with the ‘big picture’
- Energising the team when they can see progress being made and what is coming.
- Evaluating the results, and making corrections and adjustments (as per the Plan-Do-Check-Adjust continuous improvement cycle).
- Showing how we pivot activity over time to respond to changing circumstances but still maintain focus on the vision.
Part of the roadmap has also been shared and used with external vendors. They have benefited by understanding how they fit into the wider program context, where dependencies exist, and what Auscare wants to achieve.
Before the introduction of a lean roadmap, Auscare was stuck in a cycle where lots of isolated conversations were being had around the need for and introduction of new systems, but most were going nowhere, being repeated, and being had without the broader context.
The introduction of a roadmap helps frame and capture those conversations and provide a single direction to the group for heading forward.
Auscare’s owner Veronicah de Boer commented that “The introduction of a lean roadmap and regular stakeholder check ins has really focused our efforts and accelerated the pushto develop an integrated solution.”
Are your IT conversations suffering from “Groundhog Day”?
Could you use a Lean Roadmap on your digital transformation program or is the one you are using not offering the above benefits?
If so, please reach out to us for a chat. As passionate problem solvers with a genuine love for helping others, we’re always keen to help!