Project Management Project Management Program Transcript JAMES R. LANGABEER: Project management is very key to operations management. Your job is not to maintain status quo. Your job is to make improvements. NARRATOR: Dr. James Langabeer and Ronald McDade explain why project management is a necessary skill for operations managers. And they point to the value of data in managing a project. JAMES R. LANGABEER: To make improvements means to introduce change. And to introduce change means to develop a set of new processes, to introduce a new technology, to get a physician or a nurse or administrator to do something different. All of these have to be thought of in terms of discrete start and stop points. And which is the definition of a project. A project is something which has a beginning and an end. It's not operations. But it is something which we have to use in order to make change into operations. And so the better you understand how to define projects upfront, how to map them out in terms of Gantt charts and project plans and allocate resources to where people are hitting their deliverables in their timelines ensures that at the end you're going to get the success that you expect. The project's on time. It meets the other expectations. It's on budget. It's on scope. And it actually meets the needs of what you tried to do. And so managing projects is probably one of the most important skills that an operations manager is going to learn. RONALD MCDADE: From my perspective, project management in health care is everything other than the day to day care of the patient. You go in. You do something to change things, hopefully improve them. And the project is over. Projects have limited duration and finite outcomes. There are five distinct phases of working through the project. First is the initiation of the project. Somebody comes up with the idea that we have to do this. It could be the president of the hospital. It could be an accrediting organization. It could be a caregiver on the unit comes up with an idea on how to do things better. So we initiate the project. And then it goes through-- any well-run project-- goes through a very detailed planning process. Some bigger than others, depending on the magnitude of the project you're undertaking. Making a quick change on a patient care unit might be relatively easy. © 2016 Laureate Education, Inc. 1Project Management Implementing a new information system is extremely complex. After planning the project, we go to the execution phase of the project where we actually go make the change. Then after the change is implemented, we go into a control phase where we're really looking closely at how the project has changed our operations. Monitoring the metrics, talking to people about how it's being accepted. And then of course, there's the closing of the project. Once we've met the goals of the project be it to implement a change or change a metric or improve operations, then we formally close the project. That first part of project management where we initiate the project has to be a very considered conversation. What really is the definition of this project? What really are we trying to do? Vague definitions to the project will give you vague results and a very uncomfortable process in between. But by specifically defining what the project is, what its intended goal is then we're all focused around the same thing when we undertake a project. A key part of the project manager's role is monitoring that plan. Each plan has what we're going to do, who's going to do it, and when it's due by. And the overall function of the project manager is to make sure that plan is met. And any unexpected bumps in the road are dealt with in such a way as we don't impact those due dates and deliverable deadlines. In any project data is vital to the outcome. You have to know where you are in order to know where you're going. So the only real way to know where you are today is to understand the data. The metrics that talk about your cost, quality, and service outcomes, your satisfaction of your staff, your satisfaction of your customers. That data is important. And continuing to collect it throughout the course of the project is equally important. Because you have to know how you're changing the operation. There are sometimes projects that are meant to improve that actually end up detracting from the quality or service or cost of the organization. The most critical part of managing a project, especially in health care, is the people side of this. You're impacting people's lives, their priorities, their routines. And any project manager-- and I would argue that any health care leader is really a project manager. Any project manager has to be very skilled in the people aspects of business. Making people feel heard, helping them trust you and the direction you're taking the project. Health care managers are raised in a culture where if you see something's broken, it gets fixed. That's how I want my caregiver to treat me. If I'm not right, fix me. © 2016 Laureate Education, Inc. 2Project Management But when it comes to projects there are so many interrelated functions in a hospital on any given unit that if you just look at the one problem and go in and fix it, you frequently created a problem somewhere else. So that integrated project management, formal project management methodologies are very important. The basic principles of project management, how to run a good project, how to assemble a good team, how to make sure you're on target, how to preplan for the unforeseen. Those basic principles aren't going to change much. Data is the one big thing I think that is improving our ability to manage projects. We are far from where we need to be as an industry. But as more data gets automated, more data becomes available to managers and project managers, I think project management is becoming a little bit easier. Because it's easier for us to keep our eye on the target. [MUSIC PLAYING] © 2016 Laureate Education, Inc. 3