Welcome to Module 4 of the Cardiovascular Program Coordinator course. This module is Project Management and the content is provided by Carl Blake and Kim Pfeiffer. We will be focusing on three learning objectives for this session. First, be able to apply project management skills to the accreditation process. Second, compare and contrast task-oriented and process-oriented behaviors. And lastly, we will assemble a sample budget and timeline for your accreditation project. The content is divided into four areas. Not all are equal in length, but they are all equal in importance. Part 1, Project Management and Why it is Important. Part 2, Project Timeline. Part 3, Project Budgeting. And finally, Part 4, How to Become More Process-Focused. Part 1, What is a Project and Why is it Important? The Project Management Body of Knowledge, as part of the Project Management Institute, clarifies that for an initiative to be a project, it must have a defined beginning, be designed to accomplish a stated objective, and finally an end. This definition helps us to distinguish a project from standard processes and operational tasks that you may have at your organization. These day-to-day activities or tasks may be a part of a job description, process and procedures, or otherwise part of your hospital's operations. Projects are unique. To emphasize this further, projects are not ongoing, repetitive activities, tasks, hospital operations, or standard procedures that are components of your program. So essentially, projects are less predictable and are constantly impacted by the dynamic, uncertain nature of most organizations. There are many faces of project management, and it is a discipline. It can be both rewarding and challenging. You may encounter each of these while managing your project. There will be competing demands, lots of stakeholders, communication needs with lots of work streams, and challenges along the way. What does it mean to have a successful project management at your hospital? It is important to recognize how your project is tied to your hospital's broader initiatives and goals. Support from key senior executives and leadership is absolutely necessary. There are five main processes of project management. Initiating, planning, executing, controlling, and closing. In the first step of initiating, you are figuring out what the problem is, what problem are you trying to solve, and what are the objectives. In the second step of planning, you and your team will be figuring out how to get the work accomplished to meet objectives. Think about what work lies ahead, who are the stakeholders who will work toward accomplishing the objective, and how this is to be communicated to all involved. The third step is executing, and this begins after your kickoff meeting. Your team gets moving with the tasks given to achieve the objectives. The fourth step is controlling. During this phase, you'll be managing your project, ensuring tasks are getting completed, deadlines are met, and the project is moving as anticipated. You may encounter challenges or issues that put your project at risk. It is important to identify these areas and mitigate any risks. Work with your leadership to overcome these. The final step is closing. You'll set up a project closeout meeting to review the work accomplished and celebrate. Now let's take a deeper dive into each of these steps. First is initiating. The two key components of a project, project definition, and the team that will be working with you for the duration of the project. Often stakeholders find themselves asking, what are we trying to accomplish? This initial phase of project management is where you can clearly specify and communicate the project goals and scope. Document this in your project charter. Your project charter is your cheat sheet for the project. It contains high-level information to include the project definition, objectives, scope statement, strategic alignment, and key milestone dates. The charter defines your project. The key stakeholders in your project are some important things to consider. They must agree on purpose, share a common vision, set goals, understand expectations, and collectively get results. Moving into part two, planning your project timeline. Just as we talked before of the definition of a project, that having a beginning and an end, there are lots of things that happen in between. Planning will define how you get from point A to point B. Set out the key milestones in between. Also, during the planning phase, building out the timeline. It is important to take into account some considerations to help you understand and evaluate how the project may fare going forward. Scope and deliverables, clearly defined and agreed upon. The work realistic, and are you tracking the progress related to the scheduled timeline? Do you have a focused and dedicated team who work well together? Are there sufficient resources available? Are there any challenges or obstacles anticipated and methods to overcome them? This will be extraordinarily beneficial to the team and project. Very useful technique that can be used during the planning phase of project management is the focused method. Find a process that needs to be improved. Be sure to look at metrics that may not be meeting your hospital goals. Organize a team that understands the process. Clarify what is currently known about the process. Understand the root cause or what the challenges are related to the process. Select the methodology for process improvement and executing the project. This will likely come from your quality department and leadership. Before we jump into the project timeline, here are some key attributes to know ahead of time. Again, start with the purpose, goals, and objectives. What does it mean to be successful? What is the scope? Who are the stakeholders? Do you have executive support? What are some of the dependencies? What potential risks or constraints will be faced? These are all important items to know so you can plan the deliverables and how the project will be managed. Plan the schedule and timeline as you begin to plan out your project. Consider work breakdown schedule if you have access to the software. This is a logical breakdown of work, plan, or schedule. Just write them down on paper or diagram or any method you choose. This allows you to segment out the different tasks. They relate to one another, how the work starts and ends. Then assign how long it will take to complete each item. See the schedule that starts forming as a result of this list? Timelines will start taking shape to form the schedule. Now build out a calendar to create deadlines and track progress. This example is a timeline with a list of tasks, durations, start and finish dates, predecessors, or dependencies showing how one task may relate to another, and the resources. You can use Gantt charts, which will be shown on the next slide. Using this method, there is a checklist where as tasks are completed, you can check off each row. You will quickly be able to assess if the project is ahead or behind schedule. To help you visualize your schedule, one option is to use a Gantt chart. This is a standard tool for project managers. A Gantt chart is typically displayed to the right-hand side of your schedule. This example is displayed in blue arrows and lines, allowing for visualization of dependencies. Showing which tasks link together, deadlines, milestones, and it offers a high-level view of where your project is at any point in time. We talked about the Gantt chart, and before that, the work breakdown schedule that was used to drive the project. What about the budget? It costs money to run a project. This means you must track costs and figure out where the money will come from. The point here is that the schedule drives your costs. Start with your basic schedule. If you are using a project management software, it will likely allow you to add columns for additional fields as necessary. Commonly, project managers will typically add a column for cost. In this example, there is a column for projected costs and one for actual costs. The projected cost column represents what you anticipate the task to cost, while the actual cost column reflects what the task did cost after it was complete. These are numbers you can work with and adjust during the life of the project. Part 4. How to become more process-oriented. Each stakeholder has a defined role to play, and responsibilities for them to champion and own. It is repeatable. This helps them to become more process-oriented and less task-oriented. What is a task and what is a process? Processes are discrete, individualized units of work that reside independently to accomplish only short-term goals. Process adds value. It can be repeatable. Processes can be improved upon to become more efficient, adapted more easily to accomplish a larger, common goal. Process is typically faster and can be taught to others. After the project kickoff, you are in the executing phase. This type of communication is key. There needs to be regular checkpoints to communicate both verbally and in writing. You get minutes from the meetings, which shows each team member and their role in making the project happen. You need to be cognizant of the ancillary stakeholders, and most importantly, appreciate the contributions from the team. The key area in executing is managing perceptions. You need to be aware of the perception gap. How things are going versus how others think things are going. As a project manager, you need to be mindful of any perception gaps and ensure the project is moving smoothly. You need to be aware of things jumping in and out of the project. You need to be aware of how to take action and the consequences of the alternatives you have. After the project gets kicked off, it is all about controlling, primarily managing change. What happens, so be ready for it. Managing change is managing the scope of your project. The force is pulling at the edges of the scope in one direction or another, and we often call this scope creep. The scope in the project actually grows slowly as the project moves further along. This is something to be controlled. Make sure you can manage this change and be aware of it before it happens. Managing scope creep is a key component of project management and something to anticipate. Before you know it, your project will be completed. It will be time to close the project, capture and document everything the team did to make it a success. This is the time to mark it and celebrate the accomplishments. Congratulations. This concludes Module 4 of the Cardiovascular Program Coordinator course. For more information, visit www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov For more information, visit www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Module 4

Project Management

Accreditation Process

Process-oriented

Project Accomplishments