Microsoft Word - PMIT Assessment 2 Research study.docx
Copyright © XXXXXXXXXXVIT, All Rights Reserved.
Project Management
XXXXXXXXXXAssessment 2 Research Study
Copyright © XXXXXXXXXX, Victorian Institute of Technology.
The contents contained in this document may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, without the written permission of VIT, other
than for the purpose for which it has been supplied. VIT and its logo are trademarks of Victorian Institute of Technology.
Copyright © XXXXXXXXXXVIT, All Rights Reserved.
Assessment Details and Submission Guidelines
Unit Code PMIT
Unit Title Project Management
Assessment
Type
Assignment 2
Assessment Title Individual case study assignment
Purpose of the
assessment
(with ULO
Mapping)
Develop skills in Project communication planning. Communication is Key to Successful
Project Management. The cases illustrate different approaches to promote
communication among multiple groups of project stakeholders
Weight 10%
Total Marks 50
Word limit 1000
Due Date As advised by your Coordinator
Submission
Guidelines
• All work must be submitted on Moodle by the due date along with a completed
Assignment Cover Page.
• The assignment must be in MS Word format, 1.5 spacing, 11-pt Cali
i (Body) font
and 2 cm margins on all four sides of your page with appropriate section headings.
• Reference sources must be cited in the text of the report, and listed appropriately
at the end in a reference list using IEEE referencing style.
Extension • If an extension of time to submit work is required, a Special Consideration
Application must be submitted directly to the School's Administration Officer, in
Melbourne on Level 6 or in Sydney on Level 7. You must submit this application
three working days prior to the due date of the assignment.
Academic
Misconduct
• Academic Misconduct is a serious offence. Depending on the seriousness of the
case, penalties can vary from a written warning or zero marks to exclusion from the
course or rescinding the degree. Students should make themselves familiar with
the full policy and procedure available.
Project Management Page 2 of 8
Copyright © XXXXXXXXXXVIT, All Rights Reserved.
Assignment Description
Consider the following business case study on Improving Public Health Informatics. As a competent project
manager working for a consulting company, the Program manager has called you in for advice on the cu
ent
project communication plan. Please bear in mind that you are acting independently, and as an experienced
PM write a report on the following points:
1. Report your assessment of the cu
ent project communication plan.
2. Compare your assessment with sound project management practices.
3. Recommend a communication plan for future project involving stakeholders from different
sectors
4. Justify your recommendation
Case Study: Improving Public Health Informatics
In the event of a major disease out
eak, senior managers need to respond in a timely fashion. To be able to
do so, one needs to have all the latest information and data to make an appropriate decision. The County
Health Department (CHD) ’ s strategic plan specifies increasing capacities for the program evaluation and
esponse to major communicable disease out
eaks. Senior managers have identified the need to improve
informatics capacity as an important step toward meeting these goals.
Cu
ently, each community health services program of CHD has information systems that effectively track
specific information for their assigned work. However, the systems were designed reactively without
considering future expansions or an updated public health data plan. Each data base is almost a standalone
system. While the state data bases are linked to CHD ’ s data bases, the environmental data bases are not
linked with communicable disease data bases. Representatives from the Tuberculosis (TB) program, for
example, had to enter identical client information in four different places. Moreover, the state mandates the
public health department report the health conditions of its citizens and control infectious diseases. In order
for this to happen, one needs informatics systems that are capable of tracking infectious diseases and
eporting all investigations in a timely manner.
While the benefits of an integrated data base stand out, most employees in CHD are reluctant to change,
particularly with regard to adopting and using a new technology as evidenced by the implementations of the
EMR systems and other specifically designed data bases. To ensure success of the implementation, the
project manager must provide relevant information to the stakeholders on a regular basis. This case focuses
on project communication management, especially within the communication plan.
THE BIG PROJECT:
It all began when a new epidemiologist, hired by CHD, articulated the need to have an integrated public
health informatics system. With the new system, the reporting of infectious diseases as well as possible
future out
eaks could be done in a timely fashion. The decision makers can then make an appropriate
decision.
The communicable disease section of the county health department has taken the lead in championing this
project. The team includes two IT engineers and the epidemiologist, who will be overseeing the project. The
team is responsible for gathering business processes and information system requirements, working closely
with stakeholders, and at the same time, training IT engineers using the best practices developed by the
Public Health Informatics Institute (PHII). The project duration is expected to be from six to twelve months
Project Management Page 3 of 8
Copyright © XXXXXXXXXXVIT, All Rights Reserved.
and the team will provide monthly updates as well as ad hoc updates whenever specific information is
needed by the stakeholders.
The team has extensive experience in working together on previous successful projects such as the EMR
implementation, EPIC implementation, and the communicable disease data bases ’ state wide expansion. It
is the team’s firm belief that this project, to integrate a variety of data bases into a system that can
communicate to one another, is doable.
PM: The initial idea of this project was formulated several years ago but it did not get the support it needed.
Now we are
inging it back to life. And I know that you guys (IT engineers) are in favour of it and are ready
to take the lead in this, with interoperability and data sharing in mind, while at the same time conforming to
Public Health Informatics Institute ’ s best practices.
Dan: Co
ect. However, I am wondering who is going to fund this project as the health department is
struggling and cu
ently lacks the necessary resources.
PM: There is a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) which is affiliated with the Public
Health Informatics Institute who specifically funds the struggling local health department ’ s public health
information systems to meet their daily operational needs. I am going to put together the grant proposal
and I need inputs from you guys.
Tim: Let me know what you need.
Dan: Do we have full support of the department leadership this time?
PM: Yes, this time we have the absolute support of the entire leadership team. However, we have to make
sure that we keep them updated with project status. In fact, learning from past projects, communication is
very important for system implementation. We have to make sure that we communicate well with all project
stakeholders.
Tim: I agree. But, all stakeholders? That will be tough.
COLLABORATIVE PROCESS AND COMMUNICATION PLAN
To engage project stakeholders, the team followed a collaborative process (Figure XXXXXXXXXXBy following the
process, external and internal stakeholders understood the information system’s support role as well as how
it worked. The team also developed a communication plan and used it to avoid communication
eakdown
and, more importantly, to ensure that appropriate co
espondence existed between all stakeholders in the
project. An example of the communication plan is shown in Table 10.4
Project Management Page 4 of 8
Copyright © XXXXXXXXXXVIT, All Rights Reserved.
Figure 10.3 The Collaborative Methodology Process
Project Management Page 5 of 8
Table 10.4 Communication Plan
Project Management Page 6 of 8
Ref: CASE STUDIES IN PROJECT, PROGRAM, AND ORGANIZATIONAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT Dragan Z.
Milosevic, Peerasit Patanakul & Sabin Srivannaboon Copyright XXXXXXXXXXby John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights
eserved.
Project Management Page 7 of 8
Marking criteria:
Example of marking criteria is shown in following table. Marks are allocated as follows:
Note: The marking criteria varies for each assignment
Section to be included in
the report
Description of the section Marks
Introduction Executive summary and background of the case study 5
Case Study Assessment
1. Report on the
cu
ent
communication Plan
2. Communication Plan
assessment Vs
project management
practice
Discuss if the communication plan adopted in this project
is realistic enough in terms of communicating to all
stakeholders of the project.
Comparison of assessment from the case study and
project management practices.
10
10
Recommendation Publicly run projects are quite different from privately
un projects. Recommend different communications plan
that would be needed in a project involving stakeholder
from different sectors, example unions, government
agencies, contractors etc.. opposed to a private
organization project.
10
Evaluate/justification justification of your proposed communication plan
ecommendation
5
Conclusion Write summary of the report 5
Reference style Follow IEEE reference style 5
Total 50