Project Management - Case Study Example

TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 1 INTRODUCTION 2 2 BUSINESS CASE 3 2.1 Business Case and Risk Mitigation 3 2.2 Risk Assessment 4 2.2.1 Risk Monitoring and Control 4 2.3 Risk Mitigation 6 3 PROJECT PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT 8 3.1 Outline of Available Tools and Techniques 8 3.2 Assessment of Tools and Techniques 8 3.3 Application to the Project 10 3.4 Proposed PM Project Structure and Improvements 12 4 MONITORING AND CONTROL 14 4.1 Outline of Available Tools and Techniques 14 4.2 Assessment of the Tools and Techniques 14 4.3 Application to the Project 15 4.4 Areas of Improvement 16 4.4.1 Proposed Monitoring and Control Strategies 17 4.4.2 Raising, Resolution and Reporting of Issues 18 5 IMPLEMENTATION OF CHANGE 21 5.1 Outline of Available Tools and Techniques 21 5.2 Assessment of the Tools and Techniques 21 5.3 Proposed Change Management Strategy 22 5.3.1 Forces of Change 22 5.3.2 Strategy of Change Management Employed 23 5.3.3 Monitoring and Feedback 26 6 CONCLUSION 27 1 INTRODUCTION The project management technique is increasingly becoming useful for small scale phased management. Using the underlying practices highlighted by it, the paper provides a project management oriented solution for the implementation of an ERP system to an inpatient and outpatient healthcare facility. The sequential phases of project management are depicted along with the management risk and change in the organization specific to the project. Conclusively the paper provides key factors for the successful management of the project and how change can be effectively managed in the organization. 2 BUSINESS CASE 2.1 Business Case and Risk Mitigation The City Hospital suffers the problem of being worked overtime while being congested for the servicing of the patients. This is partially due to the large influx of patients and the lack of management and control exercised by the administration. Automating the tasks would better enable the hospital management to keep up with the required quality of service in the industry. The challenge in the healthcare arena has been getting ERP systems to integrate with legacy systems in the hospital that might have been in place for a decade or more. The project aims to design and propose a project management plan to support the ERP implementation plan at City Hospital. The specific ERP modules covered under the scope of the project include the following: The scope of the project includes the determination of business requirements, the development of requirements document and development of systems design, running data conversion, implementation of the system and the delivery of training for resources. 2.2 Risk Assessment 2.2.1 Risk Monitoring and Control The control and monitoring of risks is crucially important with weekly reviews held by the project management level at departmental and steering committee level to identify, adjust and resolve risks and their dynamics in the risk related documentations. The departmental heads of the project modules are responsible for meeting and reviewing their respective identified risks, while the Master Risk Management Plan held by the Project Manager is called to confer and adjust any changes in the dynamics and the effects of the identified risks. The risks that can prevail during the course of this project include the following: Incomplete requirements provided by the users and the management resulting in inadequate requirements assessment Limited or restricted involvement and enthusiasm shown by the top management towards the implementation of the project Lack of communication between the project team, and the end users which can cause discrepancy in the system requirements assessment, BPR as well as the expectations of the users Presence of a complex business process that is hard to comprehend The existing system of the company is outdated and incompatible with the new solution creating problems for data transfer and transformation The end users may be resistant to new technology Inadequate or incomplete training provided by the project management to the end users resulting in inefficiency of the system operations as well as wastage of company resources on a project which provided an incomprehensible solution for the end users Inadequate BPR performed which can result in a short life for the proposed solution due to presence of gaps and discrepancies in the reengineered business processes Using Barker and Cole’s technique, the probability of risk occurrence along with the project impact was assessed for the identified risks With respect to the Barker and Cole analysis of the identified risks, project management should focus on mitigating the high probability risks first as they are due to impact the project in a negative and significant manner effecting its rollout and sustainability. 2.3 Risk Mitigation Some of the risks that were identified are depicted below along with their mitigation strategies: 3 PROJECT PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT 3.1 Outline of Available Tools and Techniques For project management and scheduling a myriad of different tools and techniques are available that can be effectively employed to management of projects. Some of these include Work Breakdown Structure Gantt Charts Events and Milestones 3.2 Assessment of Tools and Techniques The benefits that are associated with using WBS is that it allows for easy management of the project. The tasks when divided into smaller tasks become easier budget and assign while making it possible to perform reasonable scheduling for the activities involved in the tasks. The actionable tasks a result are easily identified making it easier to understand the structure of the project (PMI, 2006); (Schwalbe, 2010). WBS can be deceiving for users as it does not provide a sequence for the tasks. This can complicate scheduling and comprehension. The criticality of the task is not depicted by the WBS. The number of levels of the WBS depicts its detail, and can lead to unnecessary detailing when mismanaged. The WBS tends to get outdated quickly (PMI, 2006); (Schwalbe, 2010) as WBS is developed at the initial stages of the project, and the scheduling and deliverables can change during the course of the project resulting the WBS getting outdated. Gantt charts are useful for reporting project status as per their schedule and can depict the completion of the project as per the time and project phase. Useful tool for presenting the project schedule in a comprehensive yet pictorial manner which is easily comprehended (Conrow, 2003). The disadvantages include the complexities involves, the difficulty to fit it on one page (Jefferies, 2009) and the setting up of deadlines for tasks and lack of task dependencies being depicted through the graphs. When using Gantt charts, the user has to identify and set the dates for commencement and completion of different phases and tasks in the project. These forecasted timelines may not be accurate and realistic, making the Gantt chart ineffective (Raza, 2012). The Gantt chart depicts tasks involved as exclusive entities not allowing for overlaps where they may incur causing lack of association between tasks in terms of dependencies making the graph less accurate. Elements of the WBS which are most likely to be delayed or depicted as failures are not shown in the Gantt chart (Raza, 2012). Setting up specific parameter for milestones in terms of frequency, timing, visibility, accountability and fallibility (Edwards, 2011) can make milestones powerful tools in project planning. They can be useful in the broad perspective, but provide little help when managing large projects as large projects have multiple tasks and smaller. Aggregated management of this task can be inefficient and difficult to perform making the use of milestones and events complex for this purpose. However milestones can be employed to depict the deliverables of WBS as they can mark the delivery of the respective results that are sketched out by the WBS (PMI, 2006); (Edwards, 2011). Through the assessment of the available tools, and the nature of the project at hand, it is concluded that the use of WBS with supporting Gantt charts would be most suitable for the planning and scheduling of this project. 3.3 Application to the Project The following sections depict the application of the project management stage based WBS as per the PMBOK guidelines and the supporting Gantt Chart applied to the project Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) The following table shows the hierarchical description of the project work break down structure. The diagram below depicts the work breakdown structure with its different levels applied to the project. Gantt Chart The following graph depicts the Gantt chart to support the WBS provided above 3.4 Proposed PM Project Structure and Improvements While the application of the WBS and the Gantt chart as planning and scheduling tools and techniques is relevant, the above depiction is in the form of Project Management style. As the City Hospital is a small establishment, the functional orientation could also prove to be useful and easier to carry out. The following diagram depicts the organization of the project in terms of the project flow and the structure of the project as per the tasks in a business function manner which is easier to relate to. The different phases project management would be catered to while the change management in City Hospital specific to the changes in the operational processes as well as the integration of the system would be employed. The deployment of ERP modules to a business can only be beneficial if it is supported with business process changes for efficiency. The project management organization is set up such so it would enable the ERP to go through the different phases of the ERP system design, development and deployment in City Hospital. 4 MONITORING AND CONTROL 4.1 Outline of Available Tools and Techniques The tools and techniques for the monitoring and control of the project can take the form of software based tools that can be employed on forecasts and budgets as well as intangible strategies. These can include Meetings Variance Analysis and CPM Earned Value Management 4.2 Assessment of the Tools and Techniques Meetings are an important tool for feedback and information in project management. Routine meetings for updates, idea generation as well as discussion of mitigation strategies can be employed as per PMBOK and the PRINCE2 (Nayab, 2011) to provide information regarding the existing progress and the future requirements that need to be satisfied. Main disadvantage is subjectivity as they cannot be employed in a stand alone manner. Variance analysis can employ an estimate to plan or an estimate to actual perspective (Spafford, 2003) to highlight the progress of the project while depicting the discrepancies which exist in terms of exceeds from expectation or where the performance falls short in front of projected estimates. Applied to other models of monitoring it provides a comprehensive solution for controlling and monitoring a project. Use of variance analysis can be flawed when the source data is subjective in nature or not cleaned for processing. It also does not provide the reasons for why discrepancies exist. Earned value analysis is a strategy that can be employed to determine the progress of the project in terms of how much of the project has been completed and how much of it is still pending. Under the EVA, calculations are made to determine the performance. In project management EVM can be employed with the application of EVA, as a useful tool for assessing the budgets of the project relative to the actual cost of the work that incurred (Marshal, 2007). The advantages include in-depth analysis of the costs involved, highlighting overindulgence and underutilization. The specific WBS tasks can be measured through EVM in terms of their costing and resultant performance. In short EVM can help depict whether the project is operating under the budget, within the budget or ahead of projected schedule (Kerby and Counts). Limitation includes the tool being complex with significant valuation of elements. Being highly quantitative it does not take into account subjective elements of project management (Christensen, 1998) like quality. EVM is also highly dependent on a quantified project plan and any miscalculations in the project plan effect EVA. 4.3 Application to the Project EVM can be applied to the project through an integration of the technique in the project planning phase. To apply EVM, the proposed plan of the project would be quantified in terms of the resources employed. This would take the form of assigning the cost values for the project management team, their salaries, the equipment employed by the project management team, the cost of the ERP software involved for implementation purposes as well as the cost of operation specific to rent and utilities for project management. They would then be attributed to the specific tasks of the WBS over the course of the project. The project management team would then ascertain the earned value for the project per the individual WBS tasks performed as well as the planned values that have been ascertained in the planning document of the project. For the same WBS tasks, on the completion of the tasks as per schedule, the Earned Value can be assessed with the allocated costs to determine whether the project is operating with a variance. A variance of the Planned Values being higher than the Earned Value would that the project is behind schedule in terms of time and falling under budget when Earned Value is assessed in terms of costs allocated. When the Earned Value would be above the Planned Value the project task would be ahead of schedule. 4.4 Areas of Improvement A standalone technique would not be helpful in managing and controlling the project. As a result combinations of techniques along with the use of EVM are proposed. 4.4.1 Proposed Monitoring and Control Strategies The monitoring strategies employed for the purpose of this project include financial monitoring, performance monitoring and ad hoc monitoring. Financial monitoring is undertaken through EVM to monitor the use and deployment of the funds through the project at the different aspects of the project. Performance monitoring is for the purpose of determining the effective of the department in their progress, while ad hoc monitoring is conducted as per special requests by a stakeholder or senior management. The tactics that would be employed in the monitoring strategies include the following: Inspections: On a routine basis inspections conducted to assess compliance and progress Document Tracking: This is to ensure that the correct process flow is adhered to with the appropriate authorizations. Observation for anomalies and discrepancies through variance analysis and reports In addition analytical monitoring is also to be performed whereby the highlighted needs and requirements of the project are assessed as per the project progress and products to ensure alignment in all modules of the ERP system in all phases of the design to implementation process. 4.4.2 Raising, Resolution and Reporting of Issues Process involves identification of the issue categorized into the significance and priority category. The issue is then raised for attention and resolution. After attempts are made to resolve the issue, it is tagged with a status of either being resolved, pending or unresolved. 4.4.2.1 Raising an Issue Issue can be raised by any member of the project management team along with supportive documents. The priority of the issue would be set by the issue identifier stating whether the issue is critical, high, medium or low. Degree of the priority will depend on how seriously the issue affects the project progression sustainability. 4.4.2.2 Assignment of Issues Raised issues will be communicated to the Project Manager who would be responsible for determining the ownership of the issue which would reside with correlated departments. The flow of the issues will be logged as per the communication process with a status corresponding to it. These statuses take the form of received, open, in progress, deferred, waiting approval or resolved. 4.4.2.3 Management of Issues The issue owner would be responsible for determining the stakeholders of the communicating it to them. The resulting issue resolution process would involve actionable tactics and dialogue with the issues being monitored. A resolution timeline would be set depicting issues with a high importance to be resolved in 3 working days, medium importance issue in 10 days, and low importance issues can taking longer period of time. Issues that go past their due accounted time for resolution will be treated as overdue, with an overdue of 3 days resulting in reporting to the issue owner, an overdue of 5 days resulting in escalation of reporting to the Product Manager, while a 10 day delay resulting in reporting to the steering committee of the project. 4.4.2.4 Reporting Issues For the controlling purpose of the issue management process, the issues will all be tracked and updated by the Project Manager and issue logs finalized at the end of the resolution process. This is to enable a centralized documentation reserve for the issues, while creating a framework for effective communication and control in the process which withholds integrity. Status of the issues will be managed on a weekly manner for issues that are not highly prioritized with crucially important issues of high priority reported daily.. The updates in the issues will be communicated on a week by week process. A decision tree approach can be employed to determine their probability of occurrence and impact on the project. New risks will be identified and recorded as per the Risk Control Document which provides information on the risk identifier, source, conditions for risk to arise, impact, probability, exposure and the associative risks that can generate from it as well. The Risk Control Document is drawn by the risk identifier with a copy provided to the Project Manager. 5 IMPLEMENTATION OF CHANGE 5.1 Outline of Available Tools and Techniques The change management models that are available for employment for the purpose of this project pertain to the following: Kotter’s model for change Lewin’s Model for change management McKinsey’s 7S framework for change management. 5.2 Assessment of the Tools and Techniques The main advantage that is associated with McKinsey’s model for change pertains to its effectiveness in providing comprehension of the organization and its processes. It can be used as a guide for change and combines rational as well as emotional elements in the model to arrive at a change strategy. Moreover all parts of the model are linked to one another making way for cohesiveness. The main disadvantage of this model however is the fact that when change occurs in one of the parts of the model, the other parts also require significant adjustments to reflect the change (Morgan, n.d.). The Lewin’s model for change on the other hand is easy to comprehend as well as due to its sequential nature can be implemented with ease as well (Syque, 2007); (Baulcomb, 2003). The disadvantages associated with the model however deal with the fact that this model takes time to execute, and that significant problems relating to shock can occur in the refreezing period with the changes having been implemented (Syque, 2007). Kotter’s model for change is beneficial in terms that it is also sequential allowing for ease of management (Pamela, 2003). Moreover it also provides insight into management of people for change by preparing them for it as opposed to the Lewin’s model (Rose, 2002). The disadvantages that are associated with the model pertain to fact that if any step of the model is skipped of left incomplete, it results in the ultimate failure of the model (Nguyen, 2003); (Ceptureanu, 2009). 5.3 Proposed Change Management Strategy 5.3.1 Forces of Change As per Lewin there exist specific forces of change that generate or drive change in the business. The forces that are provided by Lewin include forces that cause change, forces that drive the need for change, forces that are resisting to the change and the forces that are already revolting or retraining against it. Specifically for the City Hospital, the forces for change take the form of increasing the efficiency of the facility, reducing the congesting in the inpatient and outpatient departments, reducing the delays in the time to serve patients in the emergency and the I/O patient facility as well as updating the system in place in the organization to a digital and cohesive one that can be centrally managed and supervised. The resisting forces pertain to the lack of ready acceptance of part of the employees’ specific to the use of real time solution for operations as they fell no familiarity with the procedure due to lack of experience with the technology. 5.3.2 Strategy of Change Management Employed The proposed change management strategy for the project comprises of a combination approach employing principles of both Kotter’s and Lewin’s model for change. The unfreeze, change and refreeze model best suits the undertaken project, however to reduce the risks associated with the model particularly to the reception of change and shock in the end users, the Kotter’s model principles are employed to prepare the end users and the management for change through training and discussions on progress and results throughout the project. The following depicts the proposed model to be employed. Through the undertaken project two types of changes are being implemented. One on the technological platform which is going to affect not just the technology but the operational and decision making process flows as well. The second change being implemented is in the staff and people at the City Hospital who need to be supported for the acceptance of the technology. Specific to the technology platform a two form change strategy is employed, with a module being run by the departments in a pilot test manner, to test the implementation and functionality of the module in real time. However as the City Hospital has sensitive operational activities, the phased change for the technology was not possible, which is why after the initial pilot testing a completely step change method is employed whereby the facility shifts from their existing business system, to the proposed ERP modules for facility operations at the established date. The staff however is being conditioned, trained and supported incrementally to help them change their acceptance and usability of platform as its not possible for them to commence operations on the new platform in an immediate manner. Roger Everett’s philosophy of different types of technology adopters is employed to determine whether the users belong to the early adopter, or the laggards category. Their technology adoption preference is then taken into account to develop the training program for them. User Training: The end user training program is employed using Everett’s adopter’s model, with a pre-training assessment conducted for the end users. The assessment is used to determine the orientation of the end users in terms of technology competence, reception and capability. Those with high orientation, and critical job descriptions are assigned as Master Trainers with training on the new system provided to them. The rest of the end users are provided routine training on the new ERP platform to make them aware of the operating processes and enable them to use the new system with its specific tools. The master trainers are assigned the additional responsibility for teaching the other staff about the system, and supporting them where they need support. Data Conversion: All the data and the historical data are loaded on to the new system with the use of a DBMS approach which is employed to support the data management needs. The data from the legacy systems is coded, computed and encoded into the ERP modules as historical data. The process for this takes the form of data reception, completion, transformation, and encoding, uploading and test report generation. 5.3.3 Monitoring and Feedback After the deployment of the ERP modules, weekly monitoring meetings are to be conducted in the first two months of operation after the changeover. The feedback of the staff, the end users as well as the stakeholders is taken into account along with the performance of the system in the period. After the first two months post deployment, monthly monitoring meetings for 10 months is proposed to facilitate and manage the changeover process. Dedicated support lines are proposed whereby the Master Trainers can approach the project management team in case of problems with system usability that might be beyond their control or comprehension. 6 CONCLUSION Employing the project management approach has enabled planning of an effective solution for the implementation of the ERP system at the hospital facility. The evaluations of the risks associated with the project have aided the identification of the key success factors for the project pertaining to the need for effective planning and control in the project. The strategies for planning, scheduling, control and managing change in the organization as a result of new technology implementation have been explored highlighting the importance of people management and business process reengineering to support technological change Conclusively it is provided that in order for effective product management, feedback and monitoring is essential at all stages of the project in order to assess performance while contributing to the positive results and project efficiency. 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