The Surgeon General of the Army, U.S. Army Medical Command

The Surgeon General of the Army, U.S. Army Medical Command:

Business Solution:  Balanced Scorecard Strategic Planning, Organizational Survival Model

Challenge:   The Surgeon General (TSG) of the U.S. Army Medical Command (MEDCOM) had over 100 subordinate directorates and commands, some with strategic plans, some without strategic plans. Some of the commands’ strategies were aligned to TSG’s strategy and others were not. TSG’s goal for MEDCOM was to have each subordinate unit have an aligned strategic planning model using the same model as TSG, the Balanced Scorecard (BSC). Not only that, he wanted all strategic plans automated. The past three Surgeons General knew that the alignment and automation of an organization’s priorities is important when developing the strategic path forward, and each had been building on the previous to reach this goal. They were within striking distance of this decade-long goal. However, with an organization the size of MEDCOM (70,000 personnel and a budget of $13B) this task would require the assistance of strategic planning experts.  

Solution: The CEO of Pharos Group led the contracting team as Project Manager to facilitate, develop, align, create dashboards and metrics, and automate MEDCOM’s 100+ Balance Scorecards, world-wide.  Initially spending time with TSG to offer input on his Tier 1 BSC Strategic Plan. We then worked on the development of all Tier II directorate level BSCs leading 25+ strategic planning workshops, using what would eventually become Pharos Group’s proprietary Organizational Survival Model (OSM) methodology, which ensured each directorate had an aligned and automated BSC. Our team also facilitated the design and development of strategic planning governance documents, systemic metrics, and database dashboards. Eventually, our team facilitated the development of the last of the Tier III commands’ BSCs as well.  

Result:  In the end, the process that would become Pharos Group’s OSM ensured over one hundred BSCs were aligned and automated to TSG’s Tier I strategy for MEDCOM, worldwide.  The development and automation of strategies and measures allowed MEDCOM executive leadership to analyze data in real-time rather than making decisions using three-month-old data, as was previously the case. This data enabled the streamlining of MEDCOM operations giving MEDCOM’s executive leadership visibility of underperforming units enabling intervention as needed. In the first year of operations, after the implementing this solution, MEDCOM saw cost savings of more than $700M.  In addition, The Secretary of the Army recognized MEDCOM as one of only two elements within the entire U.S. Army who had correctly implemented a strategic plan and strategic planning process.