When you work for a healthcare organization, there aren’t many really bad projects. Most of them have intrinsic value and usually benefit patients or the community in some way. Still, if you try to lend your skills to every project that comes along, you’re likely to find you’ve lost your focus, and are so busy taking orders you can’t get your head up high enough to see where you’re actually going. What you need is prioritization.

The most effective communication teams are strategy driven. A strategic plan that spans the many operational aspects of the organization is key. It should include objectives for employee engagement, clinical quality, finance, patient satisfaction, and for any other aspect of your operation that leadership has deemed important for the forward motion of the organization. The strategic plan is the road map for the communication team. There’s a role for us in virtually any strategy the organization can dream up.

Our department has developed a criteria-based rating system for project requests that places projects in one of four tiers. Ours is built in an electronic survey format and available online, but paper would work too. The project request process asks requesters a series of questions that help determine whether the project is listed specifically on the strategic plan, or has direct impact on a strategic plan goal, whether the project is part of a division or departmental business plan, has measurable objectives for success, or is tied to a department level service improvement plan. Tier One projects get the highest priority in terms of budget and communication team resources. Our department’s resource allocation declines as the requester answers “no” to more questions, with those one-time, short-lived projects with no goals or measurable objectives settling into Tier Four.

In addition to giving us a better way to prioritize incoming work, the process helps requesters, as they go along through the questions, to understand how we prioritize our time and projects. By the time they get to the end of the questions they have a pretty good idea of where their project will fall in our Tier System. Nevertheless, the survey ends by telling them what tier their project is and directing them to definitions of the tiers and sets expectations of what they can expect from our departments in terms of support.

All projects requesters, regardless of tier, receive a call from our department within three business days to talk through what support is available for them. We have developed scripting that helps the communication staff help people understand their place in the priority queue without making them feel unappreciated. For Tier Four projects we have developed an array of branded self help templates that departments can use to produce their own communication materials. Depending on the quantity needed, our department picks up the cost of the pre-printed paper used in these materials. We always proof the self-generated copy to be sure it’s clean before they go to press.

By hardwiring the prioritization process, we can turn our creative resources loose on the most important organizational communication needs. Our ability to help move the important stuff forward raises our credibility and influence in the organization. While it’s certainly not perfect, the process flow allows for better planning, and as a result, we even have time to assist with some of those purely fun Tier Four projects that come along.
 

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