Table of Contents
Project Objectives
The expanded Clinical Data Warehouse (CDW) projects at Medical Informatics Health Services Company is aimed at enabling the receipt of feed from third party vendors and also include reports and analytics of the downstream employer groups. The product should be ready for launching by December 21 2017. The following objectives must be accomplished before the launch date.
- Integration of a wellness vendor reporting capability (retrievable in the forms of CSV, PDF, and XLS) into the existing system situated behind the intranet using SQL Server and Teradata.
- Development of a CDW using MS Visual Studio programming language and Structured Query Language (SQL).
The objectives will be achieved through the use of Teradata databases to store the clinical data necessary for the population of new reports; deployment of MS SQL Servers to control access to the clinical database; selection of the required parameters for the production of each report, and deployment of SQL Server reporting services to produce reports based on the selected criteria to retrieve information from the database.
The report focuses on the objectives, strategies, and communication techniques that should be employed to ensure that the problems that have been encountered before (in phase 1) are dealt with effectively. They should also help to ensure that the project progresses smoothly until its launch on December 21, 2017. Besides timely delivery, the project operations must be maintained within the budget. It is also important that communication meetings are scheduled so that the issues encountered in phase 1 do not interfere with the completion of the project.
Project Strategy
The main problems experienced in the project include difficulties in scheduling and cost budgeting. The project has already surpassed the original budget and is now standing at 20% more. To deal with these problems, the project tasks must be well defined using the Gantt chart. The right Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) must be used to plan the project timeline (Larson & Gray, 2013). The period between the predecessor and successor activities should be long enough to enable proper planning. Tasks involved in the project should not overlap to allow the completion of each task at a time. The existence of large time lapses in between activities minimizes the probability of completing a project in time (Larson & Gray, 2013). Since the previous project manager left, his position has remained vacant. The role should be taken up by a qualified and experienced person with the necessary qualifications. A qualified assistant can also be selected to co-work with the manager.
The project strength is dependent on the list of tasks to be performed as well as the goals and objectives. The tasks, goals, and objectives are very clear. The time and budget to complete the tasks are clearly indicated. There is time scheduled for project planning, interviews, and communication that engages stakeholders. However, the main weakness encountered was as a result of the failure of the project manager to properly schedule each task. He also failed to allocate resources for each task. Moreover, scheduling developers/programmers to develop software using a language unknown to them was a problem. Every task in a project requires adequate resources to deliver quality results (Larson & Gray, 2013). The project charter is capable of defining the requirements of every task and ensuring that every activity is allocated resources able to handle it till its completion.
Changing the layout of the project schedule is an opportunity to bring the project back on track. Training the programmers on the new programming language will be used to ensure progress. Completion of the project before the scheduled date would save a lot of resources for the company (Larson & Gray, 2013). Threats to the external environment include client requirements changes that also affect the project plans, possibility of computer hardware and software crash, and time off. Finally, the fact that the project must be brought back to course is yet another threat. Accuracy in scheduling and budgeting can be achieved by crowdsourcing of information from several people with knowledge and experience on previous projects (Kerzner, 2013). Different views from various ranges of experiences help in eliminating extreme time and cost estimate errors. It was suggested that funding should be stopped when an overshoot of 20% was reached. This is a control mechanism to avoid overuse of resources.
Since the project has been delayed for some time, a strategy to bring is back to schedule is underway. The first step is to minimize period gaps between tasks. The action may not save money but a lot of time will be recovered. The identification of risks and opportunity will help in coming up with solutions that ensure that neither hardware nor software fails during this crucial project. According to Kerzner (2013), correct scheduling ensures that time-offs, vacations, and sick leaves, are included in the Gantt scheduling chart.
The forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning stages are essential to ensure agreement during project developments (Larson & Gray, 2013). The disagreements and failures are likely to occur if these steps are not exercised in any project that involves a team. Support and teamwork were required in the case of CDW development. It is unfortunate that not all these steps were practiced among the project management team thus far. Upon the completion of this project, the payback period should not exceed 30 days. If the completion is as per the budget, then the period is enough to also include the scheduled profits. Payback period is a necessary determinant as to whether to or not to go on with the project. The model applied in project selection was numeric as it is labor intensive. The rate of work multiplied by the period taken gives the total cost (Larson & Gray, 2013). The customer charges cover the cost of the project including the profit. The project must stay within time and budget for maximum profitability. Otherwise, the infiltration of the identified issues will cut into the company profits.
Communication Plan
The communication should be to the management, resources, customers, users, and any other stakeholder (Binder, 2009). Everyone must be involved in project progress communication, whether bad or good. To embark on track, the communication and meetings should encompass the remaining process. The project manager and the project team will communicate first with the customer’s management team to ensure they are on the same page to commence the work. The team members will give daily progress reports to the project manager to fast track the entire process. Customers must also be given status updates every fortnight to assure them that the project will be completed on time. Any issue will be addressed before mentioning it to the stakeholders. Each step requires management and interviews signatures before moving on. The MS project sheet with the latest milestones will be availed for access through a cloud-based application such as Dropbox.
Conclusion
The objectives, strategic plan, and communication are important aspects of the project’s success. Project charters enable managers to define the exact tasks that need to be completed. MS Project sheets (Gantt charts) clearly define tasks, timelines, resources, budget, and communications involved. Project milestones require stakeholders’ interviews and signatures for approval to move on to the next phase.
- Binder, J. (2009). Global project management: communication, collaboration and management across borders. Strategic Direction, 25(9).
- Kerzner, H. (2013). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
- Larson, E. W., & Gray, C. (2013). Project Management: The Managerial Process with MS Project. McGraw-Hill.