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A change from Traditional Waterfall Project to Agile Approach

Abstract

Agile project management is a collaborative and flexible approach that incorporates client feedback at every stage of the project life cycle. It is mostly utilized in software development. The Scrum methodology is recommended to the chief information officer (CIO) as replacement of the traditional Waterfall project management framework in the IT department of a large healthcare organization. Scrum is a practice that encourages teams to learn via experience, self-organize while solving a problem, and reflect on their successes and failures in order to continually improve. It consists of a series of meetings, tools, and responsibilities that, when coordinated, can assist teams in structuring and managing their work. Scrum enables repeated planning, enhanced stakeholder participation, and flexibility that can be tailored to the rapidly changing demands of the healthcare environment. This research explores the challenges related to healthcare that have to be resolved in the process of transition, lists the 5 most essential challenges are generally experienced when implementing scrum in organizational setting, and propose solution for handling those challenges and proposes a staged implementation plan. The aim is to have an efficient, scalable and sustainable transformation that promotes clinical quality compliance and operational excellence.

A change from Traditional Waterfall Project to Agile Approach

Agile Methodology Suggested CIO

Agile project management is an interactive and adaptive model’ which embraces client reactions throughout the project life cycle. Primarily, it has been applied in software development (Saleh et al., 2024). This is an approach that is concerned with the constant upgrading of the process of developing products or services through an interactive approach to development and breaking down of work into very small manageable cycles known as sprints. The most suitable structure is Scrum in the transition of the IT department among the well-known agile methods frequently used, which are also Kanban, Lean, and Scrum (Saleh et al., 2024). One of the robust models of deploying agile processes in software development and other project Scrum methodology is (Alshurideh et al., 2024).

This popular methodology utilized daily brief meetings known as scrums and short work periods known as sprints to target individual chunks of the project in succession until the project was complete. The healthcare setting is specifically one of the most benefiting settings of scrum since it can easily and repeatedly interact with the clinicians and regulatory personnel to give feedback on the usability, safety and compliance requirements throughout the project life cycle.

Benefits of Scrum for Healthcare IT

Among the primary benefits of employing Scrum to the healthcare IT organization, include first, the tool may allow clinical stakeholders engage at the early and continuous stages of work, which enhances the usability of the end product and the satisfaction of the end users (Alshurideh et al., 2024). Second, collaboration is promoted, and all the efforts are directed at the accomplishment without having to wait a common goal. Also, there is increased control and transparency that the stakeholders may enjoy over the project which allows for better organization. Moreover, the client will be able to monitor the progress more closely without having to wait until the result is dissatisfactory. Third, Scrum promotes constant testing and quality assurance, which contributes to the minimization of risks and mishaps that may interfere with the security of the patients.

The Scrum methodology drives up the value delivered to customers by decreasing the duration of time required to develop new products and enables higher flexibility and adjustment to changing demands and landscapes (Alshurideh et al., 2024). Last but not least, Scrum can promote cross-functional collaboration and silo demolition between IT, clinical operations, and compliance teams, resulting in innovation and shared responsibility over the outcomes of the projects.

Healthcare Specific Challenges

The shift to Agile methodology in the medical field raises a number of issues that are specifically related to the sphere of healthcare and have to be addressed thoroughly (Alotaibi, & Almudhi, 2023). Among the most important ones is adhering to regulations in healthcare like HIPAA, which means that the privacy and security of patient data need to be ensured in all sprints. Another concern is a clinician availability since clinical personnel might not have much time to attend Scrum meeting to give feedback because of busy schedules (Alshurideh et al., 2024). Moreover, the healthcare information technology (IT) systems, especially electronic health records (EHRs) normally complicated and challenging to blend, and thus technical transition requires more resources. Furthermore, patient safety concern should be considered prior to the releases of system updates should be carefully validated prior to being deployed. Lastly, the cultural shift to a decentralized, team-based model that Agile suggests may be highly resisted by healthcare organizations' hierarchical structure and so the user of the system must be involved in the system development before transition.

Top Five Transition Challenges and Mitigation Strategies

There are certain highly concerning aspects of switching to Scrum that must be addressed beforehand. The first obstacle to change is the company culture, which is centered on iterative development rather than linear planning. This may be addressed by enlisting executive sponsorship, Agile coaching and tying performance measures to Agile ideals. The second issue is regulatory compliance concern, and this concern can be addressed by having a backlog planning and the inclusion of compliance officers as well as the implementation of automated tests which assist in incorporating regulatory checks within every sprint (Alshurideh et al., 2024). Third, many of the personnel may not have used Agile methodology before, so to ensure the personnel are better informed and know how to use the methodology, the personnel must be trained on scrum.

The fourth challenge associated with scrum include resistance to change, employee will tend to resist change when it disrupts their routine and creates uncertainty (Alshurideh et al., 2024). Hence this concern can be addressed through the involvement of clinicians through time-efficient review meetings and the provision of adjustable feedback channels. Finally, connecting Agile processes to old EHR systems can have technical challenges, and so, this challenge can be addressed by performing a pilot testing and staged releases to prevent interference with the system.

Implementation Plan: Phased Transition to Scrum

To do a successful transition of Waterfall to Scrum, a structured implementation plan is required. It should start with the two-month preparation stage when a cross-functional task force is established, the level of preparedness is checked, and the executive leaders can share the vision of Agile implementation (Alshurideh et al., 2024). Then comes the pilot phase, which takes three to five months, where one or two low risk IT projects are chosen to experiment with the Scrum framework. Teams will undergo official training and do two or three sprints and then carry out Sprint Reviews and Retrospectives to analyses results and optimize practices. At the scaling phase which normally take place between the sixth and twelfth month, Scrum is applied to larger IT initiatives, and this is assisted by further coaching and institution of coordination mechanisms like Scrum of Scrums (Saleh et al., 2024).

Lastly, during the institutionalization phase, Agile is ingrained into governance processes via frequent performance assessments, Agile measurements, and constantly enhanced efforts. Subsequently, as time goes on the organization could scale up to enterprise-level Agile systems to make them sustainable and adjustable.

Conclusion

Agile project management is a collaborative and flexible approach that incorporates client feedback at every stage of the project life cycle. It is mostly utilized in software development. The switch to Scrum after using Waterfall would provide healthcare IT departments with a major chance to become more responsive, collaborative, and successful in implementing projects. Although the healthcare setting is associated with some unusual concerns which includes regulatory requirements, clinician participation, and resistance from the staff, some of these concern can be resolved with the help of a set of specific mitigation techniques and a properly planned implementation process; as well as user training and engagement in the transition process. Adopting the Scrum methodology, the healthcare organization will be in a better position to develop quality user-centric health technology solutions efficiently and within the required time.

References

Alotaibi, F., & Almudhi, R. (2023). Application of Agile Methodology in Managing the Healthcare Sector. iRASD Journal of Management, 5(3), 147-160.

Alshurideh, M., Akour, I. A., Al Kurdi, B., & Hamadneh, S. (2024). Exploring the Impact of Scrum Framework on Project Effectiveness: A Quantitative Analysis of Agile Implementation Challenges and Benefits. International Journal of Theory of Organization and Practice (IJTOP), 4(2), 161-174.

Saleh, H. H., Abbas, Z. A., Latif, N., & Khalil, Z. T. (2024). Agile Management in Healthcare Improving Patient Outcomes through Flexibility and Responsiveness. Journal of Ecohumanism, 3(5), 633-649.