Case Study

Background

eHealth Queensland (eHQ) provides a range of ICT services to Queensland Health and other Queensland Government agencies. Rapid changes in the digital healthcare landscape require eHQ to constantly adjust and adopt new and different ways of working in order to deliver products and services more quickly and at a lower cost to customers. This dynamic environment requires a cultural shift towards innovation and rapid delivery using Lean and Agile principles.

Objectives

eHQ engaged the S3 Consult team to design and develop an innovation program with the aim of empowering staff to think differently about how they met customer requirements. We worked with the Chief Executive and the executive leadership team to develop a program which would meet the following objectives –

• Empower staff to solve problems impacting customers and eHQ teams.
• Demonstrate the ability to make quick decisions and rapidly deliver results.
• Embed cultural awareness of innovation and customer based design and co design.

Project Approach

The S3 Consult team collaborated with the business owner to develop a project plan and engage the Chief Executive as the overall sponsor. Members of the executive leadership team were identified as sponsors for a total of 5 innovation initiatives which were to be selected from a nomination pool. A staff engagement and communication plan was actioned to invite nominations for innovations with certain pre-requisites including a 6 week delivery period. A total of 36 nominations were evaluated and 5 finalists identified with initiative leaders appointed for each. The initiative leaders received one-on-one coaching from our team to assist in team formation and stakeholder alignment.

A total of 18 staff were then involved in immersive training in Lean techniques, Agile project management and design thinking to enable rapid innovation project delivery. A part of the training exercise was the development of individual project schedules and the use of digital collaboration tools for dispersed teams.

The S3 Consult team provided ongoing coaching and facilitation for each of the teams individually as well as the overall project to ensure progress against the planned schedule which required prototype delivery within 6 weeks.

Each team was tasked with developing a final presentation to which all eHQ staff were invited, with the winning initiative to be selected by a panel of internal and external judges.

Project Outcome

The project achieved the following outcomes –

• Identification of innovation initiatives and delivery of prototypes highlighting customer value of approximately $4Million per annum.
• Jump starting the innovation culture within eHQ leading to improved staff engagement scores and staff empowerment.
• Finalist for the annual Department of Health awards in the cultural innovations category.