Health care costs can be radically reduced by using project management software.
The central mission of a health care organization is to deliver medical or health related services to a patient population. Non-medical projects and administrative processes compete with health care delivery for scare resources in a hospital’s budget. Many of these projects and processes are necessary. Medical records need to be kept. Supplies must be tracked and operating rooms stocked. Medical devices and software must be monitored and maintained.
On the personnel side, medical staff must be managed, meetings scheduled, problems resolved. And the list could continue.
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Few things can create more tension in a project than pushing back a deadline.
It can create instant anger between a project sponsor and the project manager. It can even filter down to the people working on a project. Resources end-up choosing a bad-guy: the project sponsor (”she doesn’t get it”) or the project manager (”doesn’t know what he’s doing”) -while all the while risking being cast as lazy or incompetent because the deadline is being blown.
Often, the source of the anger can be traced to differing expectations on how the project should unfold over time.
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Here’s Alan Mulally, the new CEO of Ford Motor Company, highlighting the value of visibility and consistent data in managing an enterprise, the quotes are excerpted from The Wall Street Journal of December 22, 2006.
To set the scene: Mr. Mulally recently took over as CEO of Ford and began implementing weekly Thursday meetings for senior management to get everyone focused on the same goals, track progress, reward success and to keep people accountable.
Visibility Brings Consistency
His first Thursday gathering at Ford went badly, underscoring the challenges he would face. After Mr. Mulally asked each business head to present his results and forecasts, he complained that the numbers didn’t make sense. “Why don’t all the pieces add up for the total corporate financials?” he recalls asking.
“We don’t share everything,” he says one manager replied, explaining that Ford executives ran their units without meshing with other divisions, occasionally holding back some information. Mr. Mulally was floored. The next week, executives came back with complete figures.
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The current space shuttle mission STS-116 is a great window on project management in action. On NASA TV you can hear the live management of an ongoing process –managing in real-time, on the fly, a complex operation that’s rife with opportunities to deviate from a sophisticated project plan.
While the scale might be different, it parallels, in a lot of ways, the activities that go on in any creative, engineering or scientific project. It provides a view on the types of information, visibility and project communication that make any project a success.
Here are some of the random clips we heard on NASA TV:
“Thanks for the great big picture words.”
“1:51 Central Time power down expected.”
“Good insight into the system.”
“I have the steps here.”
“Trouble shooting task procedures.”
“Blocks of activity.”
“Ready to proceed to step three – it is good to talk to you.”
“OK I’ll stand by, appreciate the help.”
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Educational institutions, e-learning companies and providers of educational curriculum face specialized challenges in project management. A coherent project management strategy can increase the efficiency of developing educational product and educational programs. Project management software can be the foundation for this strategy.
Product development groups in these companies can work on upwards of 120 new projects at any given time. These projects are generally the development of new educational programs that will be offered to hundreds of thousands of students overtime –programs that are crucial in those students’ academic or professional development. The programs can range from vocational or technical programs to graduate and undergraduate courses.
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There are two general approaches in project management software to planning and managing tasks and projects.
- One is a calendar based approach.
- The second is a task based approach.
As a quick rule-of-thumb, a calendar based approach is best suited to planning and managing small projects with a relatively few number of resources. Web based calendars and software offer a quick and intuitive way to see tasks over a period of time in a familiar format. Calendars themselves are so common that people generally have an easy time in using web based calendars to schedule projects, tasks and resources. Think of programs like Microsoft Outlook or BaseCamp.
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Project planning and project scheduling can be valuable tools in business intelligence (BI) or business performance management (BPM).
On the solutions side, project management software, particularly easier to use online project management software tools can generate powerful business intelligence and process optimization conclusions.
A previous post discussed the three key variables used to set a realistic due-date.
1) A defined process
2) Defined task durations
3) Resource availability/performance
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A due-date separates a project from a goal.
A goal is something you’d like to accomplish. Once you put a due-date on it, it becomes a proejct. Once you put a due-date on it, you can begin to plan the steps necessary to accomplish that goal.
3 KEYS TO SETTING A DUE DATE
There are three keys to set a realistic due-date:
1) A well-defined process;
2) Clearly understood task durations and;
3) The availability of resources.
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Major sporting events can get in the way of even the best managed projects, particularly a best of 7 type event like the World Series of Major League Baseball that can go on for a week.
Take this year’s series between the Cinderella story Detroit Tigers and the St. Louis Cardinals. It can definitely take its toll on the productivity (measured in sleep deprivation) and morale of fans involved in the whole event.
For those inclined, coffee or Diet Coke can make-up for the sleep.
The morale component, though, is harder.
There is no magic pill. It is not something easily assuaged by project managers, project management software or a therapeutic cursing-out and finger point on play by error-filled painful play by the water-cooler or coffee machine.
While the kind of visibility and replay that project management software or reports offer can sometimes be valuable to a project (and certainly to know who to hold accountable -like a young pitcher or two, perhaps) when your team is down -and there’s no reason it should be, it doesn’t seem to help.
Sometimes, it just takes time and the commitment to keep putting one foot in front of the other, moving along the path to get the project or deliverable done.
Communication is one of the biggest challenges in project management.
Its bad enough when a project manager has trouble communicating with the team that will be doing the project. But it can be down-right dangerous for a manager when there is a lack of clear communication with the project sponsor the person who navigated corporate politics to get the project approved.
The problem stems from not understanding what each person is looking for or unrealistically expecting the other party to speak your language. This can be aggravated by the project manager’s insistence on using only the project management tools which suite their needs, regardless of whether the project management solutions generate the kind of information the political sponsors of the project are looking for.
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