Making improvements with the Six Steps Methodology

Recent work with Connecting for Health has seen the development of a brand new workforce planning resource for project managers. The resource is based around Skills for Health's Six Steps methodology to workforce planning which helps planners to get the right workforce with the right skills doing the right tasks. The stepped approach to workforce planning, combined with a competence based approach to role design, makes the task of shaping healthcare services more manageable and approachable.

This is an exciting development as it introduces Skills for Health's Six Steps methodology to a new group of users such as IT, programme and project managers, and naturally complements a systematic approach to planning.

The new resource from the Department of Health's informatics capability development team brings together support materials and tools to improve portfolio, programme and project management (P3M) practice and skills in the NHS. The national resource centre can be used by staff and organisations to assess and develop P3M capability and is available for use now. Information on the Six Steps can be found here.