Challenge
The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) is undergoing major transformational efforts to plan and implement the MyVA vision. The fundamental premise of MyVA is to create a service organization that “sees through the lens of the Veteran and hears through the voice of the Veteran.” As part of that effort, VA Secretary Bob McDonald put together a team to focus on the Compensation and Pension (C&P) examination process to make it more consistent, predictable, and easier for Veterans.
Solution
After an end-to-end analysis of the C&P examination process, senior VA leaders identified multiple areas for improvement. Several initiatives were established to address many of the identified improvement areas. After the initial research and design, each initiative was tested in a small feasibility assessment. Initiatives that demonstrated success were chosen to move on to the pilot-testing phase. After additional measurement and analysis, initiatives that demonstrate success in the pilot-testing phase may be chosen for national rollout.
Result
The Atlas Project Team provides project management support to guide the research, design, planning, testing, and rollout of the C&P Examination improvement initiatives as well as program management support to ensure consistency, coordination, and integration of efforts across the initiatives. The Atlas Project Team, along with the VBA and Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Project Leads charged with leading the initiatives, created project charters to validate the vision, goals, deliverables, and schedule to help ensure that each initiative is completed on time so that the overall goals of the program can be reached. Each initiative’s assigned Project Manager is responsible for supporting the Project Leads through development of plans, schedules, and status reports; risk analysis and management; structured and ad-hoc analysis; data collection and analysis; agenda development, meeting facilitation and note-taking; presentation and report development; and overall process improvement.
These initiatives will drive improvement in the Veterans’ experience with the C&P examination process. This improvement will help VA move toward Secretary McDonald’s goal that the C&P examination becomes an opportunity for building a trusted, lifelong relationship with Veterans, rather than a source of confusion and frustration.