Medical Industry Remote Work Challenges Resolved — Efficiently
Remote work, once a rarity, has now become a fundamental aspect of our professional lives. As detailed in our previous article “Navigating the Future of Work: Solving Remote Work Challenges with Expertise and Innovation”, this transformation came with a fresh set of challenges for companies and teams. At Kaleidoscope, we’ve not only identified these challenges but also pioneered innovative solutions that empower our clients to thrive in the evolving work environment.
Unveiling challenges and crafting solutions for seamless transition
As the medical industry grappled with the shift to remote work, we recognised significant hurdles in one of our medical clients; lack of flexibility, lack of team collaboration and the industry’s inherent resistance to change. With long-standing traditions and a deeply ingrained in-person work culture, the transition posed formidable challenges ultimately hindering the facility’s productivity and growth. Our team at Kaleidoscope stepped in to help this facility drive the transition to a hybrid model.
As is typical in our approach, we set out to diagnose the most crucial issues facing this facility using Design Thinking methodologies and then leveraging our team’s expertise crafted a customised proposal backed up by our comprehensive toolkit on how best to move this facility to thrive in a hybrid model.
Revolutionising meetings from time constraints to seamless collaboration
The facility was struggling with scheduling conflicts and travel time which made it challenging for the whole team to attend in-person meetings leading to communication gaps and information delays across the team and organisation. As is common in any workplace, urgent matters arise and priorities change throughout the day or week and these unexpected changes pose a greater threat to managing meeting schedules and honouring those commitments. To address these issues, Kaleidoscope proposed, implemented and led the move to virtual meetings which have emerged as a cornerstone of adaptability. We believe that location should never hinder collaboration and we understand that time is a valuable asset. The shift to virtual meetings has not only optimised communication but also provided greater flexibility and adaptability to the team. By eradicating the need for travel and enabling participants to seamlessly step back into their work, we’ve significantly improved the meeting experience while reducing time wastage.
Kaleidoscope took our role in these virtual meetings one step further, we facilitated and led these virtual meetings, this allowed us to ensure that the meetings remained punctual, focused and productive, removing side conversations that popped up and unnecessary discussions.
Bridging tradition with tech
The medical fraternity is not only traditional in their approach to work but they are also delayed in their adoption of tech tools. The medical facility that we were working with was, during their in-person meetings, finding it difficult to take notes and capture crucial information resulting in lost or forgotten action items and decision points. This hampered effective follow-up and implementation of decisions and changes. To counter this, we introduced a collaborative digital canvas and Trello, a project management tool.
Let’s pause to look at these two tools in more detail. Miro is a staple in the Kaleidoscope toolkit. It is a collaborative online whiteboard platform enabling distributed teams to work effectively together in real-time, with its built-in templates and collaboration features is it used for brainstorming, mind-mapping and designing and even has digital sticky notes. Miro ensures no information gets lost, that every team member’s thoughts are shared and documented and that a flow is followed.
Trello, another tool in our toolkit, is a web-based project management tool that facilitates task organisation through boards, lists and cards while features such as real-time collaboration, drag-and-drop features, and integrations enhance project efficiency. At a glance, Trello shows you what’s being worked on, who is working on what and where something is in the workflow. It empowers teams to manage any type of project, workflow or task tracking with ease.
Embracing the power of sprint methodology
The last move that we made at this facility was the deployment of new ways of work, the Sprint methodology, which we made in response to the operational inefficiency, lack of collaboration and inability to adapt. Traditionally used in software development, sprint methodology has been successfully applied to varying industries over the last few years. The fundamentals of the sprint methodology which we mapped out and facilitated with the team started with goal setting, the process of defining specific and achievable goals at the outset of the year provided a north arrow for this facility.
Secondly, sprint planning is the process of identifying core items that are achievable within a fixed period, a sprint, that will feed into achieving the established goals. We then established a sprint rhythm which consists of defining the sprint period allowing the team to maintain focus. The team then broke down their complex tasks into smaller, manageable parts and delivered incrementally on those. The last step in the sprint cycle is a review where the team reviews the completed work and determines what can be achieved in the next sprint.
Thriving through transformation
Aided by our team of expertise and comprehensive toolkit, this medical facility and its Management team were able to leverage a Hybrid model and succeed through the shift to remote work by embracing the changing circumstances, tackling new technologies and incorporating new ways of work ultimately overcoming traditional industry constraints that were hindering productivity and good communication. This shift allowed this medical facility to work collaboratively and efficiently, aligning to their goals to deliver results in a structured and iterative manner that allowed them to continue providing exceptional medical care to South Africans in a way that is adaptable and resilient.
