Regresando a la administración básica de ti

TECHNOLOGY John Glaser

back to basics
managing IT projects
AT A GLANCE

To minimize the likelihood of IT project failure, it's important to focus on five foundations of sound project management: *Roles *Committees *Charters *Plans *Status reporting

So you've developed an ITstrategy and assessed the potential value of the proposed projects to support it. Chances are, this point iswhenyou're most nervous-when it's time to let the ITprojects begin. You have good reason to be anxious. After all, the rate of failure of ITprojects is surprisingly high. It isestimated that one-third of all ITprojects are cancelled before completion and only 10 percent achieve their original plan. For the remainder, budget and schedule overruns approach 100 percent and the functionality deliveredisless than half of what was originally anticipated, according to Dennis Severance and Jacque Passino, authors of Making lIT Work:An Executive's Guide to Implementing Information Technology Systems. What can be done to reduce the risk of failure? One key area to pay attention to isproject management. Even though the basics of project management may not seem very exciting, without mastering these areasyou're likely to have your projects wind up insignificant distress. What Is Project Management? Project management isaset of management disciplines and practices that, if executed well, raise the likelihood that a project will deliver the desired results. Project management has several objectives: >Describe the scope and intended results of the project >Identify accountability for the successfulcompletion of the project and associated project tasks >Define the processes for making project-related decisions > Identify the project's tasks and task sequence and interdependencies > Determine the resource and time requirements of the project > Ensure appropriate communication with relevant stakeholders regarding project status and issues Different kinds of projects require different types ofmanagement strategies. For example, projects that are pilots or experiments require less formal oversight (and

34 JULY 2004 healthcare financial management

are not helped by large amounts of formal oversight) than large, multiyear, multimillion dollar undertakings. Similarly, projects shared by more than one organization have different decision-making structures than projects that involveseveral departments within one organization. There isno one way to manage projects. But all projects benefit greatly from having a well-defined approach to five areas: >Roles > Committees
>Charters
>Plans > Status

department. A project may need several business owners. For example, the success of a new patientaccounting system may depend on processes that occur inregistration and scheduling,and thus the director of outpatient clinics and the director of the admitting department would need to be business owners. Also, adequate physician documentation of the care provided would be a primary focus of the project. Thus, the medical group administrator would be a business owner involved inthe project, too. Business owners have several responsibilities: or function at project steeringcommittee and project team meetings >Secure and coordinate necessary business and departmental resources > Remove business obstacles to project timeline and deliverables as appropriate
> Represent their department

reporting

What Are the Core Project Roles? Several roles must be filled to effectively manage projects. Business sponsor. The business sponsor isthe individual who holds overallaccountability for the project. The sponsor should represent the area of the organization that isthe major recipient of the value of performance improvement that the project intends to deliver. For example, a project that involves the implementation of a new claims processing system should have the CFO as the business sponsor. A project that affects a very large portion of the organization may have the...