Medical IS Vendor Medical IS Vendor Medical IS Vendor Medical .docx

Medical IS Vendor Medical IS Vendor Medical IS Vendor
Medical IS Vendor –––– Project Project Project Project
CharterCharterCharterCharter
Project Name: Health System ImplementationProject Name:
Health System ImplementationProject Name: Health System
ImplementationProject Name: Health System Implementation

PJM 6140 Troubled Health System Project Case Study
Background
Healthcare Unlimited, LLC a leading health services company,
embarked on a new product development
project. Healthcare Unlimited needs to expand its clinical data
warehouse (CDW) to ingest third-party
data feeds from medical IS vendor and onsite clinic data to
incorporate this information to downstream
employer group analytics and reporting processes. This
expansion will also be used to develop new
activity reports to message value on these products.
The nature of the company’s business is that it operates in an
extremely competitive environment that
necessitates fast delivery to market so as to prevent competitor
companies from gaining dominant
market share with similar competitive products. Therefore, the
key success factors of the project were
time to market and quality. Cost of delivery was not a major
concern.

Scope
The scope of the project was to create a modular software
package to handle medical IS vendor data to
ensure appropriate preventative care is being tracked for
members, including the systems changes, the
vendor medical IS database tables, and medical IS vendor
reporting. The project was divided into
modules consisting of: medical IS DB tables, promote tables,
and medical IS vendor reporting. A project
manager was appointed, but has since left due to personal
reasons.
Time Scales
The launch date was set as December 1, 2015. The product had
to be ready for launch on this date, as all
the marketing material would reflect this date and the launch
had to precede the launch of similar
products from competitors. The project kickoff was May 5,
2015. The tasks that had been completed
prior to May 5, 2015 were the business case compilation and
approval and the project team
establishment.

Technology
The systems development was to be done using the MS Visual
Studio programming language and SQL
environment, which was new to the development team. The
developers were sent on MS Visual Studio
programming training two weeks prior to the project start. The
developers were used to working in a
Java programming environment and had not worked with any
MS-oriented languages before. The new
medical IS vendor reports will integrate into the existing
system located behind the intranet. These new
reports, unlike the existing reports, will utilize both SQL Server
and Teradata. SQL Server will control the
security access and parameter selection for the reports. The
application will then send the selected
parameters to Teradata in order to populate the body of the
report.
Infrastructure
Database Servers
• MS SQL Server 2008 R2
• Teradata 14

Reporting Servers
• The system will use an SSRS deployment server.
Development Tools
• MS Visual Studio 2008 Shell
• SQL Server Business Intelligence Development Studio
• SQL Server Management Studio
Business Requirements
The current application will display the medical IS vendor
reports. The system generates SQL Server
Reporting Services (SSRS) reports based on user-selected
parameters. Users can choose to view reports
in three formats: Excel 97-2003 (XLS), Portable Document
Format (PDF), or Comma Separated Value
(CSV).
The exported data within Excel or CSV files will contain “user-
friendly” headers and not
database column headers.

Scripts will execute on a weekly basis to import the following
vendor sources into the target system:
• Chip Rewards
• Spire
Scripts will execute on a monthly basis to import the following
vendor sources into the target system:
MDLive.
Case Study Summary of Events
Business Case Development
The product development department developed the business
case for the proposed new product,
including projected cost/benefit analysis based on previous
similar products and current market share.
The business case was reviewed by executive management and
approved.
Requirements Definition

The product development department developed the
requirements specification for the new product.
These requirements were specified based on the understanding
level of the project team, which had
many years of experience in the company and an extremely
good understanding of the systems. Some
of the finer details of the requirements, such as the reporting
requirements and the final policy
document wording, were not defined at this initial stage. The
outstanding requirements would be
agreed upon during the project, once the users had decided
exactly what they wanted in this regard.
Project Team Appointment
Peter was appointed as the overall project manager. Peter had
been with the company for 15 years and
been involved in numerous projects for new product
developments in the past. He knows the existing
systems intimately and had good working relationships with all
the various departments involved in
product development and launch. The project team appointed
consisted of people from various
departments, all of whom had been involved in previous product
development projects. Their

knowledge of the systems and applications is extensive. After
delivery of Module Two, Peter left due to
personal reasons.
Project Kick-off
The product development executive, the sponsor of the project,
chaired the project kick-off meeting,
held on May 5, 2015. She emphasized the importance of the
project to the company, as it would ensure
good returns by getting the new product to market before its
competitors. She stressed that the delivery
date must not be compromised in any way, as this would open
the doors for competitive products and
the opportunity would be missed. The project manager and the
team were asked to get busy
immediately with their planning, and a follow-up meeting was
set for August 5, 2015 to review the
project plans.
Project Plan Development
The project manager had been involved in many similar projects
in the past, and thus knew exactly what
the project entailed. For this reason the plans were based on

previous historical information of past
projects. The project plans included only the systems-related
work. The interfacing to other areas, such
as the legal department, marketing, and operations, would be
handled by the project manager at the
specific time required for their input. Project plans were drawn
up using a scheduling tool. The phases
and tasks were detailed, but resources were not allocated to the
tasks. Task dependencies were not put
into the plan.
Project Plan Management
Management of the project plan consisted of updating tasks with
their percentage complete on a
weekly basis. Record of actual hours spent on specific tasks was
deemed not necessary. Each resource
gave an estimate of the percentage complete for each task,
which was used to update the plan.
Resource availability was handled in an informal manner
whereby each resource gave feedback on a
weekly basis regarding his or her workload on the project and
other non-project work responsibilities,

such as systems maintenance.
Progress Reporting
Progress reports were produced every two weeks. These
consisted of a progress summary, deliverables
attained, percent complete, risks, issues, and cost information.
(See the most recent Medical IS Progress
Report below.) Minutes were kept for some meetings. (See the
most recent Meeting Minutes below.)
Progress for Period May 5, 2015 – August 5, 2015
Initial progress was good, with all team members working well
together. Programming started almost
immediately, since the team knew the systems so well that they
were able to make some of the
required changes immediately. Some issues were identified with
the user requirements, since not
enough detail was in the requirements document. These issues
were resolved between the
programmers and the users. Some of the programmers
experienced problems when they discovered
they were working on the wrong version of the user
requirements. This was resolved when the users

printed out the current version of the requirements for all the
team members to make sure they were
all working on the current version.
Progress was not as fast as desired, due mainly to users
changing their minds about the requirements.
The programmers were very accommodating with such changes
and tried their utmost to keep the users
satisfied. Unfortunately, the number of changes and additional
requirements requested by the users
caused the work to fall behind schedule. When some of the
programmers complained to the project
manager, he said that it was essential that users received what
they wanted, so their changes must be
accommodated, even if it meant having to work extra hours to
catch up.
The programming was also delayed from time to time due to
technical problems experienced with the
new development environment. The company did not have
anyone experienced in the new
development software, thus had to rely on vendor support,
which was a bit lacking due to their
commitments at other companies.

Progress for Period August 5, 2015 – October 5, 2015 (two
months before live date)
The sponsor became concerned with the project progress, since
she felt there was a risk of not meeting
the required delivery date. The programmers were working long
hours to try catch up on the project
work, as well as doing their required maintenance and problem
fixing of the live systems. The legal
department said that they may not be able to provide the policy
document wording in time for the live
date, due to other priorities. They said they may have been able
to if they had known about it sooner.
The user department said they may have a problem getting the
test packs ready for user testing, as
some staff were going on leave over the Thanksgiving period.
Initial testing revealed that the performance of some of the
modules was very slow. This was resolved to
some extent when it was found that some of the programmers
had used inefficient coding, as they were
new to the programming language being used. There were also a
number of bugs reported, one of
which causes the product to crash at least once a week. There
are numerous change requests submitted

by users for enhancements to the product.
Peter, the project manager, has left, and the project team is in
complete disarray, and there seem to be
issues between the architect and database administrators on just
how the database supports the vendor
reports. As of now the two areas are not working together to
develop solutions for the issues. There also
seems to be a loss of a defined testing strategy, which has
cropped concerns with development and user
acceptance. There is no existing method of capturing reported
issues, or how to handle changes.
Management is unhappy about the project and there is no
established communications method to
inform them about the project status. The project is over budget
by 20%. The vendor is asking for pre-
payment in order to deliver the third and final module for the
final payment of $75,000, which was 75%
of the total vendor cost. The module has not been tested yet.
There is no communications plan, no risk
plan, no systems implementation plan (to define how system

implementation testing is handled), and no
total cost of ownership (TCO) fee schedule. There is a conflict
within the project team (e.g., team
members have conflicting roles, or experience time pressure as
a result of working in two positions
within the organization simultaneously).
Medical IS Progress Report
Client VP Operations Project Number W1005
Project Medical IS Vendor Type of Project Development
Project Manager Peter Johnson Reporting Period Start:
End:
1 Progress Summary
Programming work is almost complete and testing has begun.
Unfortunately, it is going to take longer than planned to
complete the programming
due to changes requested by the users and errors made by the
programmers using the new programming language. We are

hoping that this time
will be caught up by working overtime and reducing the testing
time planned.
2 Major Activities Completed before Reporting Period
Commenced
2.1 Business case approved
2.2 User requirements document completed
2.3 Programming underway
2.4 Unit testing underway
2.5 Test pack compilation started
3 Major Activities during Reporting Period
3.1 Programming continuing
3.2 Unit testing underway
3.3 Test packs complete
3.4 Implementation plan started
3.5 Changes made per user requests to date
4

Deliverables and Milestones
No Description Baseline End
Date
Forecast or
Actual End Date
%
Complete
4.1 Initial project plan
4.2 Approved project charter
4.3 Program code
4.4 System testing
4.5 User acceptance testing
4.6 Go live
4.7 Post implementation audit
4.8 Project acceptance sign-off
5
Risks

Contingency Plan/Actions
Impact
(1-10)
Probability
(1-10)
Score
(I * P)
Actionee
Status
5.1 Delivery date may be
missed due to changes in
user requirements
Work overtime to catch up 8 5 40 PJ Open
5.2 Project team members
may take leave over the
Thanksgiving holidays

Plan leave into project
schedule
7 5 35 PJ Open
5.3 Other departments may
not have resources to do
the policy docs and
testing when required
Agree tasks with other
departments
8 6 48 PJ Open
6
Issues
Impact
(1-10)

Actionee
Due Date/
Status
Action
6.1 Changes to requirements requested by the users are
causing delays in project delivery
9 PJ Agree final requirements
with the users
6.2 Currently behind schedule with some tasks, but should be
able to catch up without affecting the scheduled delivery
date
9 PJ Work overtime
6.3 Get final policy document wording from legal
department
8 PJ Agree date with Legal Dept.
6.4 Make sure Testers are available for required testing dates 8
PJ Agree resources and dates for

testing with user departments
7 List of Scope Change Requests
No Date Description Client
Approval
Impact
7.1 No official change requests to date
8 Major Activities for Next Period
8.1 Complete programming
8.2 Complete and get approval for project charter
8.3 Start system testing
8.4 Start planning for user acceptance test (compile test plan)
8.5 Fix errors and omissions identified during testing
8.6 Compile and agree implementation plan
8 Budget Tracking
Task/Phase Planned Cost
(Baseline)
Actual Cost to

Date
Remaining
Cost
Estimate at
Completion
Percent
Variance
Medical IS Vendor 441,650 230,892 210,758 529,980 20%
Meeting Minutes
MEETING DATE: May 15, 2015
PROJECT: Medical IS Vendor
SUBJECT: Weekly Progress
ATTENDEES: James Weary (JW), Peter Johnson (PJ), Tim
Drew (TD), project team members
APOLOGIES: Wanda Jackson (Sponsor)

Outstanding from Previous Meeting’s Minutes
Item
Minute
Actionee
Status / Due Date
1. PJ to discuss user requirements changes impact with sponsor
PJ PJ could not get
meeting with sponsor
Meeting Minutes
Item
Minute
Actionee
Status / Due Date

1. Testing plan to be drawn up and testers allocated by the user
department PJ
2. Leave schedule to be drawn up for all project staff to assess
project schedule impact PJ
3. Legal department to give expected completion date for new
policy document wording PJ
4. Machine needs to be booked and set up for training of testers
and running of the user
acceptance test
JW
5. Testers to be identified by user departments and allocated for
testing period required TD
6. Current problems with system performance of the Java code
to be escalated to vendor for
urgent resolution
PJ
Scope Change Requests
Item
Change request description

Actionee
Due Date
Status
1. No official scope change requests to date
Next meeting: 06/01/2015 (3pm. – 4pm) - Meeting Room 2.3
The Case of the Troubled Health System Implementation
at Healthcare Unlimited, LLC
The Confidential Memo
Along with you welcoming papers, you received the following
confidential memo from the PROJECT
SPONSOR:
From: Project Sponsor, Healthcare Unlimited, LLC
To: IT Project Manager (you)
Date: September 4, 2015

Welcome to Healthcare Unlimited, LLC and congratulations on
accepting the project manager
position for the Medical IS project. It is my sincere hope that
your tenure with Healthcare
Unlimited, LLC will be both productive and rewarding. In this
letter you will find a list of several
critical barriers you need to consider and address as you take
charge of this troubled project.
1) Both your Architect and the Database Administrator
representative on your team
are very competent employees. Unfortunately, during the past
two months they
have created a difficult environment on the team that spurred
higher level of
conflict.
2) Senior management is quite unhappy with the dynamics of
the team and its
inability to address the internal conflict. The rest of the
organization has already
expressed concerns over the lack of motivation and tangible
results with the
team. As a result, you must take this into account if you choose
to restructure the

team.
3) The strategic plan for our company highlights the importance
of quality and time-
to-market of all our services. The board of directors is anxious
to see results with
the Medical IS project since it will have a large impact the
strategic direction of
the company.
My door is always open and I look forward to a productive
relationship.
Regards,
Your PROJECT SPONSOR
After reading the memo, you contact the PROJECT SPONSOR’s
administrative assistant to request your
first meeting with her as the new project manager of the
Medical IS project.
Meeting the PROJECT SPONSOR
During your meeting with the PROJECT SPONSOR you realize

that her job security hinges on your success
with the project.
You also find out that your team is not fully dedicated to the
project, but team members still spend half
of their time working on other duties in their departments.
Moreover, each one reports to a separate
manager in addition to you. The PROJECT SPONSOR notes:
“The first project manager never considered negotiating with
the various managers to acquire
additional team members from the legal, marketing, and
operations departments to be assigned
full time. He also didn’t consider the early warning signs that
the team conflict was escalating as
a result of their other duties. Projects do not start as ‘red’ and if
they do, they are doomed from
the start. I have to admit, I expected a lot more from him, but
instead felt mislead. At this point,
the board of directors is really unhappy with the lack of
progress on the project. We all need
someone who can take charge, motivate the crew, make any
changes necessary to set this
project on the correct path and ensure its success. I know this
will be a difficult task, but I am

confident in your ability to resolve the conflict on the team.
I also have to be honest with you. The previous project
manager complained about not having
control over the decision-making process in the team, because
of the conflict between the
Architect and the Database Administrators’ representative. In
fact, he mentioned that their
competitive and stubborn attitudes about who should actually
make decisions on the project
were ‘out of control.’ As a result, the morale of the team is low.
There is no sense of belonging.
I will support any changes you decide to make, but I want you
to be cautious and think several
moves ahead as to how each of your decisions will impact your
team and our organization. Also,
keep in mind, if you need to train any of your staff, I will
approve the training budget. You just
need to act soon.”
You ask about the skills of your team members. Your PROJECT
SPONSOR informs you that:
1) The Architect has the most technical expertise among the rest
of the team and has

been on several prior system integration projects. He was on the
original Medical IS
project team;
2) The Database Administrators’ representative has well
established political
connections in the organization, but lacks credibility among the
rest of the team
members. He has background in project management, but this is
his first technology
project at our company and he is the most recent addition to the
team;
3) The Operations representative has great initiative and
ambition to be on the project,
but her availability is very limited. She is well respected in the
organization for her
ability to round-the-troops behind a common vision. She was on
the original team
that procured Medical IS system contract and knows the most
common issues that
can occur with modifications to such systems. Her current direct
supervisor is flexible
when it comes down to ‘loaning’ her full time to the project, but

he needs to be
informed;
4) Your Marketing representative has great problem-solving
skills and an excellent
attention to detail. She was on several prior system integration
projects with our
company. She has previously worked in the Legal team for 3
years before moving to
the Marketing team.
You ask what immediate changes would you like your
PROJECT SPONSOR to see. She reflects:
“One of the most important things is to make sure that before
the project starts, you have a
good plan since a project that is off track costs more to recover
than later. At the present time,
the company is not capable if designating any more resources.
The way I see this, the number
one challenge is the team. You won’t be able to start this
project in isolation. The team is the
key! Yet, since the morale is low that by itself can kill the
project.”
You thank her and promise to provide her with status as soon as

you meet with your team and make a
decision. Next, you schedule a meeting with your team.
Meeting the Team
At your first team meeting, the Database Administrators’
representative show up late. Before you even
start the meeting, the Architect comments how important it is
for all to show up on time.
Database Administrators’ Representative:
“From the start, I know this is going to be a team-roast meeting
for me. Before you even start, I
have to say one thing, how do you expect me to make it on time
when yesterday I was handed
ten new requests and had four back-to-back meetings since 8AM
this morning? I can’t clone
myself and you know we are understaffed. This isn’t my first
team meeting and I understand the
importance of being here on time. Perhaps, you can speak with
my Manager next time and ask
him to take away some of these requests.”
Architect:

“We all have other responsibilities, but if we are not here on
time, we can’t finish on time and
then we are late for our other tasks. You were aware that the
meeting starts at 10AM. You knew
about it since yesterday. Also, this is not the first time you are
late-”
The Marketing Representative cuts the Architect short:
“I think we should hear what our new project manager has to
say. So perhaps you two can table
this discussion for later.”
The Database Administrators’ Representative:
“I am getting really tired of this. I can’t stand each time either
of you two (the Architect and the
Database Administrator’s Representatives) come into my office
and tell me what I should or
shouldn’t do. We already had this discussion once and I don’t
want to repeat myself. When I
have a priority request, all else is set aside. I don’t think this is
going to change, considering how

important some of these requests are for the future of the
company.”
The Marketing Representative:
“I have to say that without many of the software initiatives, the
company will have a hard time
retaining qualified staff to assist with the work on the requests.
The same is true for the
architecture design and for functional units such as Marketing
and Legal. Now, the Medical IS
project is not less important than your requests. In fact, it is
strategically aligned with our fiscal
year’s growth projections and if it fails, none of us will be
around to have this discussion again.
Architect turns to the Database Administrators’ Representative:
“The Design department is in the middle of system design for an
application to assist them with
the software roll-out process. I have been involved with it from
the start and can tell you that no
other member of that team is as problematic and as self-
centered as you. In fact, when the
schedule began to slip on that project, all team members
hunkered down and worked extra hard

to meet the established deadlines. We all pitched in and acted as
one unit. No other task was
more important than the project-”
Database Administrators’ Representative interrupts the
Architect:
“Wait a minute! You are misleading the rest of us again. ‘We’
on that project was you, the
Architect, and a member of the Documentations department plus
the complexity of that system
was so low that it hardly mattered to the company. It certainly
is nowhere near the caliber of this
project. Besides, if you knew anything about project
management, you’d know that the intent is
to break down the work into smaller packages and estimate it
properly. Your project manager
had no experience with this and he underestimated the work. As
a result, you all had to work
crazy hours to meet the deadline. I can’t stand incompetence
when it comes to project
management.”
At this point the Database Administrators’ Representative turns

Medical IS Vendor Medical IS Vendor Medical IS Vendor Medical .docx

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Medical IS Vendor Medical IS Vendor Medical IS Vendor Medical .docx

Similar to Medical IS Vendor Medical IS Vendor Medical IS Vendor Medical .docx (20)

More from buffydtesurina

More from buffydtesurina (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Medical IS Vendor Medical IS Vendor Medical IS Vendor Medical .docx