Reflection on “Connected Care by Cabanis Brewin, May 2014”

The article “Connected Care” discussed another PMO implementation to one of the firms in the healthcare industry, but this time the firm was in Canada. A non-profit corporation funded by the government, Infoway invested with its territorial partners to accelerate the adoption and development of digital health solutions in Canada.

The PMO implementation process included different phases; Phase Zero was breaking projects into phases. Phase One was concerned with planning. While Phase Two was the actual implementation. All the phases were reviewed by expert in risk management to make sure that the phases were within budget, scope and schedule comparing it to the objectives and benefits. The implementation was supported by change management process that was crucial to achieve a cultural commitment, the process included; a representative group selected the software product, and a change management strategy was put in place, the communications department worked with the PM office as part of the team. The implementation was very successful, and the company ended up winning the PMO of the Year Award, and delegates from around the globe started coming to the firm to have a better understanding of the processes used to manage different investments.

Some of the lessons learned from this article is that having more than one data source within the organization can be problematic and can cause a lot of confusion. Additionally, a PMO needs to be built on best practices, strong governance plus a commitment to excellence in order to achieve the targeted goal. Finally, it was very interesting to see the feedback system in the Infoway project, how the feedback from each region was used to make improvements before moving to the next region, and how that made them avoid redoing a lot of work.

I personally think that the Infoway project was a very good example about the effective PMO implementation; the firm was very good in knowing which project management components to apply in order to add value, instead of using every single tool in the project management guide, and that from my own experience is where many companies get it wrong. I have been dealing with a lot of planning experts who try to apply every tool that they know, without taking into consideration if this makes sense or not, they take the Guide as to-do-list, and I completely disagree with that, the Guide was meant to be a starting point and a reference, but any process should be adjusted to work well. Also part of the project manager personality which reflects his/her project management philosophy should be included in the theme of that project.

This issue I faced in the design department as well, we have design codes, and it works as a good guide, but if I want to completely depend on them to get my designs done, I will never be able submit any designs; it was developed by engineers, and I am an engineer, and I should have the engineering sense that took me years to develop as my main guide, not a set of books that were written by other engineers who wrote is based on their engineering sense; instead of being a follower, I try to be more creative but also logical with my designs, within the acceptable limits of course.