IT Upgrades And Changes Won't Succeed Without Operations Staff At The Table

By Deana Rhoades, Practice Lead, Health Plan Solutions, NTT DATA Services

Does your services integrator, PMO, delivery and implementation team implement technology, or operationalize your technology? There’s an important distinction, one that can make all the difference in the success of your IT projects.

• Google says the definition of implement is “put into effect.”
• Google says the definition of operationalize is “put into operation or use.”

All clear (as mud?)

Now my true self is a lover of operations — give it all to me — enrollment, billing, claims, COB, provider data management — keep it coming, I love it all! I’m not saying I don’t love information technology (IT), and my great friends and colleagues in IT, but for me, operations is Where. It. Is. Oh, and as a quick shout out to the smarty-pants in compliance, you’re cool too (but I really love operations the best).

With that love of operations, and deep respect for IT and compliance, comes my perspective on the concept of operationalization. It’s not a new concept, having been brought into the technology implementation and delivery ecosphere a decade ago from social sciences and physics research industries. But when I hear my IT friends use the term to describe the outcome of a project, I get a shiver down my spine. Brrrrrrrr.

Operations People Define “Operationalize” Differently From IT

Here’s why I shiver: No one can know whether a piece of technology, a policy or process is operationalized better than an operations person. I know; my non-ops friends are saying things like “but our testing team approved it” and “compliance trained ops on it” and “what about user acceptance testing?” Still, all the changes that come with a change in technology, policy or process are intended to drive a business outcome — and operations holds ultimate responsibility for those outcomes.

On average, about 70 percent of all IT-related projects fail to meet their objectives. In program management studies, lack of user support or involvement consistently fall into the top five drivers of failed delivery. To set your organization up for project success, be sure to address and closely manage these three common challenges:

• lack of user input
• incomplete requirements and specifications
• changing requirements and specifications

Surprise! There Are Critical Things IT Doesn’t Know About Operations, And They Don’t Know They Don’t Know

I was recently brought into a project at a health plan to upgrade a database. The project was being led by my good friends in IT. Sounds pretty straightforward, eh? Operations leadership was brought in towards what was meant to be the end of the implementation so that the business teams could perform User Acceptance Testing (UAT). SURPRISE — it was discovered that a multitude of operational reporting databases and reports would need to be updated too. The IT staff had accounted only for IT-supported interfaces and integrations. Imagine the pain had Operations not stepped in to operationalize this “straightforward” change. It would have been crippling — member letters, ID cards and EOBs would have completely stopped being produced. Needless to say, that round of UAT was not the end of the project. Few health plans have comprehensive process inventories of key processes, interfaces, reports and other collateral that would allow IT to easily assess impacts to operations. They need Operations to fully Operationalize.

Get Operations At The Table To Provide The Information You Didn’t Know You Needed

Whether it be a minor or major upgrade to a technology component, or a full transition to a new claims or care management platform, be sure you are choosing the delivery team that has the skills on both the IT and Operations sides of the house. Find those folks in your organization who love operations the way that I do and make them key members of the project team. Let them define the business outcome requirements up front, maintain insight and some control over the project, and hold ultimate responsibility for operationalization. IT can implement. Operations operationalizes.