Standard Project Management approaches used in different domains may not apply in Health Care. Please allow me to share my perspective out of my personal hands on experience. Thank you

1. Samir Sawli, PhD.
ssawli@yahoo.com
Hexpert.sharepoint.com

2.  Project management as a concept has many approaches
like PMP and Prince. However each organization adopts the
best fit approach. Some organizations choose a very
primitive project management approach, and some other
organization may choose a very detailed and as per book
approach.
 It all depends on the culture and kill set of your
organization, ranging from project management thinking
to operational thinking, but from experience in working in
both environments, I found using a moderate approach
may track and manage project efficiently.
 Efficiently means achieving the best results with the least
resources and time, and this is exactly what I mean.

3.  Detailed project management approach may
be time consuming and tedious, you may
spend 30-40 % of your time on updating the
project management e-paper work.
 On the other hand basic project management
plan may put the project vulnerable to be hit
by a train of issues and loose the track.

4. In health care IT project I found the following approach
efficient:
 1. Start with a Project initiation Document (PID), which
includes all the necessary details enough to secure the
signatures of the executive managers. Each executive
signature has essential requirements, which if not
provided, signature is not guaranteed. The Chief financial
officer essential requirements may be the financial figures,
analysis and return on investment. The executive director
may have another set of essential requirements like
availability of resources and timelines. There is no
standard PID which fits all organizations, for this reason,
be ready for sending the PID 2-3 times back and forth to
get those essential requirements from the signing
managers.

5.  2. Start a risk log, a good project manager
should be able to log all possible risks, and
not be surprised with an issue which is not on
the risk log.
 3. Start an issue log rule based so that issues
above certain threshold are automatically
escalated.

6.  3. Project Plan is the core of your project
tracking and management. Depending on the
nature of your project some project plan can
accommodate some buffer time lag. Insert
some buffer time periods for unexpected
events and delays. This measure will save the
project plan from frequent updating and
editing when it shifts from baseline dates.

7.  4. Status Reports: What to include in status report
depends on the upper management and what they
want to see and track, going back to primitive
approach, the status report was a verbal update on
the project during a weekly status meeting. The
extreme approach used a very detailed template,
which was not read by anybody. The moderate
approach which is efficient is to document status
against each milestone, achieved, at risk, or missed,
then document next to it what is your plan to
mitigate, resolve or close the milestone. Status
reports are time consuming because they are written
on weekly or biweekly basis, so be diligent what to
include.

8.  This article is based on my role as project
manager for five concurrent projects,
stressing on efficiency is my objective.
Writing too much non relevant information
may end up with zero readers for your report,
and this is frustrating. Writing too little and
get questioned by upper management is
embarrassing

9. ssawli@yahoo.com
Hexpert.sharepoint.com