“A Department of Veterans Affairs innovation specialist says return on investment (ROI) needs to be at the forefront of the agency’s human-centered design (HCD) projects to gain greater leadership buy-in.”
“’We are distinctly situated to seamlessly translate qualitative outputs to quantitative inputs. But because the work we do is so personal, and it’s so deeply connected to our users, sometimes putting dollar signs in front of that work doesn’t seem like the right decision,’ said Mike Catania, a VA innovation specialist, at the 2022 Government UX Summit hosted by Digital.gov Wednesday. ‘To me though, calculating the return on investment for any and every project makes our work more defensible to anyone that sees it and ensures that our projects are fully funded and not left to die half-finished or never funded at all.'”
“VA has been on a journey to incorporate HCD into its modernization projects to improve customer experiences and solutions. VA’s innovation leaders have leveraged HCD to develop best practices, design standards and ensure ease of use.”
“HCD is an iterative process and has six primary steps: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test and implement. As the agency continues to launch new projects relying on HCD, Catania said that it’s critical that innovators display value and ROI to ensure these initiatives are set up for success, receive proper funding and make it into the hands of the veteran…”
“VA’s Spark-Seed-Spread Innovation Investment Program aims to identify and accelerate employee-inspired innovations to improve health care experiences for veterans, families, caregivers and employees. Catania said the model was designed to help frontline employees bring their ideas to market through HCD…” Read the full article here.
Source: VA Highlights Importance of ROI for HCD Innovations – By Sarah Sybert, June 8, 2022. GovCIO.
