A Bahmni Inception — In Bhutan
My colleague in the ThoughtWorks Global Health Team, Kristina Lugo recently wrote an experience report about a week long inception meeting in Paro, for potentially rolling out Bahmni as an EMR in various hospitals in Bhutan. The Bhutan Ministry of Health is considering a move towards digitization of their Health Records to improve patient care and operational efficiency.
At ThoughtWorks, most projects begin with an inception where all the stakeholders in the project get together to analyse and start the discovery phase of the project. It’s usually done in order to develop a shared understanding about the project and its goals. It also helps in coming up with an agreed upon implementation roadmap, at least for the next 3 to 6 months.
In her article, Kristina compares her experience doing inceptions for commercial clients versus doing them for Global Health clients. She talks about the need for aligning with the social sector, and considering their viewpoint in terms of cost, infrastructure, culture and processes. For instance, to quote one example from her article:
In a Global Health inception, we take requirements gathering a step further to spend time in the facility where the product will be implemented, because it is very important to understand the physical and social context in which the software will be deployed.
I would highly recommend reading Kristina’s full article on ThoughtWorks Insight: Beyond Inceptions: Aligning with the Social Sector
