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Microbiology got AGILE!

Microbiology got AGILE!
2022 03-16

During February, the LNS Microbiology department’s team attended a series of interactive and insightful Agile courses offered by the experts from the House of Training and the Agile Partner. With a dynamic approach to the trials of project management and workload management, the team was challenged to rethink its way of working.

 

The Microbiology department has been revising its working pattern since 2019 and, to enhance the potential of its team, a series of training is now part of the department’s career development plan. Focussing on transforming the team’s mindset and aiming to increase productivity, the series of trainings started with the Agile approach of working. 

The Agile attitude offers its users a number of values and principles to increase results. Prioritising people and interactions over processes and tools, using technology to facilitate the management of documentation, focusing on collaboration, and having a proactive approach to change, agility can start being part of the mentality of a team.  

Aiming at becoming one of the pioneers of diagnostic laboratories in microbiology worldwide by adopting Agile philosophy, the head of the Microbiology department, Dr. Tamir Abdelrahman, highlights that “Since the first wave of COVID-19 the team has reacted quickly both in crisis mode and, in partnership with health care providers in the country, established an internationally-recognised model, and has played a major role in the national response to the pandemic. Positioned amongst the elite of public health microbiology laboratories in Europe and beyond, we want to invest in our best asset: people, and capitalise on our state-of-the-art infrastructure to provide the best services in our sector. We have initiated various projects and implementing the Agile philosophy will ensure higher standards of project management and excellent delivery of our services with the best utilisation of resources” 

Agility transformation of the department’s processes

The Agile series of trainings was available to the whole Microbiology team and saw the participation of 55 staff members. The implementation of the Agile approach second phase is already underway and staff leaders are conceptualising the agility transformation of the department’s processes. “I was sceptical at first, but the AGILE training turned out to be much more interactive and informative than expected. I’ve learnt a lot of valuable lessons which I am already integrating into my daily work. A pleasant and interesting experience” shares Nicolas Van Elsué, the Microbiology department coordinator.  

Succeeding the training, the first departmental Agile project, named Paperless Laboratory, has started, and will be developed by a dedicated team accompanied by an Agile coach to ensure its proper implementation within the department. Karthik Arumugam, Technical Officer of digitisation of the Microbiology department, tells us about his experience with this new project: “Paperless Laboratory is our long-term lab evolution strategy to capture opportunities offered by existing and emerging technological advances. We believe that the digitisation and automation will ensure better quality and compliance by reducing manual errors and variability, as well as allowing faster and effective resolution of problems”.

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