Quarterly Execution Brought Agility to Varha’s Project Management

When Varha, the wellbeing services county of Southwest Finland, set out to build a unified data foundation and develop its data leadership capabilities, agile collaboration was essential. Planning and executing the work in quarterly cycles proved effective for advancing this large-scale initiative.

Major IT projects are always learning experiences. Best practices emerge from solving real-world challenges, refining shared processes, and collaborating across organizational boundaries.

Varha’s initiative is the result of continuous planning and the combined efforts of a wide network of contributors. The current project, covering the data foundation, leadership development, and platform buildout, will conclude by the end of 2025. After that, Varha and its in-house IT provider 2M-IT will shift to a continuous service model built during the project.

Quarterly Planning Enables Flexibility and Control

Managing a project with multiple teams, vendors, and changing conditions requires effective tools and shared ways of working.

Project Manager Juha-Pekka Sainio describes the journey as one that relies on clear project structures, transparent communication, and a team that adapts to change:

“One of our key decisions was to plan and prioritize work quarterly, together with Varha, 2M-IT, and the core delivery team. This helps us react to changes and keep workload and costs under control.”

Sainio joined the project in 2022 during the early planning phase. The team started by assessing the current state of data leadership and defining the future direction.

In autumn 2023, the full-scale program was launched. It involves several vendors working in multivendor teams, each with its own culture. According to Sainio, success requires shared processes, open communication, and committed stakeholders:

“We create a working environment where challenges are surfaced early and solved together. Transparency and collaboration help avoid silos and ensure progress.”

Agile Teams and Continuous Improvement

The project team works in two-week sprints. Every quarter, the broader direction is reviewed. Breaking the program into smaller pieces helps recognize evolving needs:

“Clear processes, open communication, and shared prioritization guide our work. We also continuously improve our methods. The quarterly model helps us spot changes and adjust priorities as needed.”

During the project, the team developed several new processes, such as the “information need to production” flow and the data product lifecycle. These help coordinate multivendor efforts in areas like requirement definition, integrations, and data warehousing. A shared conceptual model supports the entire flow, and final delivery is handled by the reporting teams.

A Learning Organization in Action

Varha is a good example of a learning organization. Its goal is to embed data leadership throughout the organization. Head of Information Services Marjaana Siirala highlights the role of the new system in supporting leadership:

“As we expand access to data through a unified platform, our focus shifts to strengthening capabilities and using more advanced analytics. The use of data portals is already widespread, and the work to integrate data leadership into our governance continues. We continue to develop both our data leadership systems, our ways of working, and the broader capabilities of a data-driven organization.”

The DSharp Studio tool helped build an initial KPI repository, which is now expanding into a full-scale data leadership platform. The system brings together key data from health, social care, and rescue services across all municipalities in the region.

Because Varha’s experts were involved from the beginning, they understand current and future data needs. Continuous development ensures access to accurate and relevant data. This also supports wider use of data across the organization:

“Now we can focus more on analyzing data and finding insights. We know our data foundation and have automated its flow through a shared conceptual model.”

Collaboration Drives Success

Project success depends not only on planning, but also on the team’s ability to adapt and evolve. The collaboration within Varha’s project group shows that the best results come from developing and testing together:

“The flexible collaboration model and culture of mutual learning we have created and followed in this project will, where applicable, become part of our ongoing operations. In doing so, we support Varha’s development toward its vision of becoming the friendliest and most impactful university-level wellbeing services county, respected by professionals”, Siirala concludes.