By applying project management techniques, from waterfall to agile approaches, organizations can systematically plan, organize, and execute a series of tasks to maximize resources and achieve specific goals.
Next, this article provides a practical approach to implementing project management in healthcare organizations and explores the considerations when applying these techniques.
Waterfall Project Management in Healthcare
Waterfall project management is a continuous, linear process consisting of several distinct phases. In waterfall development, each phase of the project has clearly defined requirements and deliverables. Progress is regularly recorded during the process, and each phase is completed before the next phase begins.
In healthcare, many people are familiar and comfortable with the waterfall approach. Especially when healthcare executives want to look at a sequence of tasks in their organization, a Gantt chart provides a visual overview of the project.
They can see a timeline of events and have a good idea of how long each phase of the project will take. Waterfall project management does a great job of communicating the entire project scope, tasks, and timeline. Senior executives within a large hospital system can know what the work is, what is required to complete a project, how the work is broken down and the approximate time each phase can begin and end.
But as the waterfall model transitions to other industries, such as software development or process improvement projects, waterfall project management tends to be structurally rigid, which can impede the speed and efficiency of projects.
For healthcare process improvement projects that use only the waterfall approach, it may be difficult to adhere to a continuous, step-by-step project process. In fact, most improvement projects are iterative by nature and use Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA) iterative cycles. These PDSA cycles allow teams to iterate and show progress earlier, the results are typically better, and the customer is happier with the end result.
Waterfall project management has been used successfully for decades on large projects that are often over budget and behind schedule. Stakeholders can also be dissatisfied with the end result because they are often not as closely involved in the process and often don't see the end result until the project is complete.
With the economic pressures facing healthcare organizations, it is more important than ever to continually incorporate stakeholder engagement and feedback throughout the process to deliver faster results. This is where process improvement teams can use lean methods like agile project management to achieve faster, higher quality results.
Agile project management in healthcare
Agile is an iterative project management style derived from lean principles that encourages collaboration and frequent adaptation.
Agile project management is characterized by the following:
1. Iterative - Projects are typically divided into multiple iterative phases, with the project team completing a certain amount of work in a specific time period (usually two weeks).
2. Project Manager - The project manager or project leader brings everyone together and asks team members to commit to what will be accomplished during each iteration.
3. Stand-up meeting - The agile team meets regularly (daily or twice a week, etc.) to see how they are progressing. The team checks in on commitments, progress to date, and any impediments to progress.
4. Review - At the end of each phase, the team gets together to review what they've accomplished and what they've learned from the process, which will hopefully be reflected in the next phase. Ideally, the process is continually improved throughout the life of the project.
Focusing on frequent communication, removing obstacles, and delivering on commitments within a set timeframe makes agile project management a very effective tool for process improvement teams.
The team wanted to demonstrate the value of Agile project management early on and incorporate ongoing feedback from executives and clinicians in an iterative process.
Agile is growing in popularity because of the benefits: fast results, continuous improvement, and stakeholder buy-in, but there are potential pitfalls. If teams can't get a longer-term view of the program from a Gantt chart or similar diagram, they can easily get stuck on enhancements or do work that has little or no value to users-sometimes referred to as "gold-plating.
While Agile is a great technique for dealing with project management on a day-to-day basis, it's easy for teams to get lost in the details without losing sight of the project as a whole - and that's where teams can benefit from a proper waterfall structure.
Healthcare project management with a hybrid approach
Waterfall and Agile project management techniques each have their own strengths and weaknesses, so a hybrid approach to healthcare project management in a hospital system is often the best option.
In a hybrid approach, the team utilizes the best aspects of both techniques, with a greater focus on agility, but with enough waterfall planning to provide a clear roadmap for key stakeholders and senior leaders. This was very successful in ensuring that the final deliverable was one that the stakeholders were happy with and engaged with throughout the process, and that the product was completed in a reasonable amount of time.
While unique to each organization and project, this hybrid approach can be effectively applied to outcome improvement projects. It looks like having a team create a Gantt chart that shows a high-level timeline for the project, a general breakdown of the work in each phase, and any dependencies that exist. This chart is then presented to senior leaders and clinicians for approval.
For improvement teams, each phase of work is broken down into more detailed task sets, often using Agile principles, outlined iterations, and specified team member commitments. For example, if the team is developing a sepsis outcomes improvement app, they might set out to complete this work in three months, and the project could be broken down into three separate phases, each lasting about a month.
Achieving the best results with modern project management software
Modern project management tools such as 8MSaaS PM can help healthcare project managers manage their projects using waterfall, agile, or hybrid methods.
Modern project management software, such as 8MSaaS PM, has real-time transaction processing that protects the integrity of project data in the healthcare industry.
Without data integrity protection, your project management system is exposed to useless inputs and useless outputs, and can't stay honest. And once someone starts "cheating" the system, and the project becomes more and more misinformed, your ability to manage it declines, not only affecting management decisions, but also leading to project failure.
8MSaaS PM keeps project members honest and up-to-date on the parts of the project they are responsible for. The system's new model of information capture and delivery is very efficient, effectively ensuring that project scope, time, cost, quality, human resources, communication, procurement, risk, and integration information is captured and delivered in real time.
Project members' responsibilities are clearly defined and the context of the data is clear, ensuring that information about healthcare projects is accurate, reliable, and traceable. You can keep an eye on project status at all times, as well as track project resources and assign tasks based on staff availability and skills.