A project team is in the process of selecting a module for the upcoming iteration. They have identified three potential modules as candidates. Despite several rounds
of review, the team remains undecided on which module to select.
What should the project manager do?
A project manager is working for a multinational financial services company that does business in more than 100 countries. The company is rolling out a time
management system in multiple countries.
What should the project manager do?
A project manager of a software company is working with a cross-functional team to deliver a product to an important client. While preparing the backlog items, it
becomes clear that the responsibility for an important component lies with another product division. This division has not been involved in the project concept phase.
What should the project manager do?
Health Records Modernization at Hospital Case Study
A project manager led a health records modernization project at a hospital with a project budget of $US5 million and an 18-month timeline. The project involved multiple stakeholder groups including medical, administrative, and IT staff; board members; patients; insurance companies; external vendors; regulatory bodies; and union representatives.
Stakeholder management was complex and a major undertaking for the project manager, but it was critical to achieve a positive project outcome. When the project started, the project manager conducted stakeholder analysis, using the information to create both a power/interest and an influence/impact matrix. The analysis showed that while the hospital board members and regulatory bodies had high power but moderate interest, the medical staff (doctors and nurses) had both high influence and high impact on the project. Administrative staff showed high interest but lower power, while patients and insurance companies had moderate interest and varying levels of influence. Based on the analysis, the project manager created a stakeholder engagement strategy that documented expectations, communication preferences, and influence levels in a stakeholder register. The project manager also made a RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted, informed) chart to show roles and responsibilities; and created communication channels and frequency for each stakeholder group, an issue escalation system, and a feedback system for continuous stakeholder input.
To execute the modernization process of health records, the project manager realized that medical staff members would need to change their daily workflows. To facilitate change management for these stakeholders, the project manager created a clinical advisory committee, appointed department-specific “champions,” created focus groups for requirements gathering, started a training program, and developed key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure satisfaction.
During project execution, several challenges emerged. The doctors expressed concerns about the system’s impact on patient care, the nurses’ union raised workload concerns, the IT department faced resource constraints, the insurance companies requested additional features, and the administrative staff worried about data security. The project manager responded to these challenges by increasing the frequency of stakeholder meetings, implementing a change management program, creating a beta system for stakeholder testing, developing contingency plans for various stakeholder scenarios, and establishing an issue resolution process.
Despite these mitigation efforts, the medical staff required additional training, leading to a change request for a 2-month extension and a 10% budget increase. The board of directors approved this to help ensure high adoption and satisfaction rates among staff members. The project helped establish new good practices in future programs for stakeholder management in the organization’s project management office (PMO). The documented lessons learned became a reference for future projects of similar scope and complexity.
During the execution phase of a project to modernize a hospital’s records system, the insurance company stakeholders requested additional features to support integration to their systems.
What should the project manager do first?
(Refer to the Health Records Modernization at Hospital Case Study exhibit.)
A project is approaching the closure phase. The project manager realizes that the team has consumed more hours than what was budgeted because some nonfunctional security requirements were not considered during project initiation.
What should the project manager do to avoid this issue in the future?
A project manager conducts weekly virtual project meetings with all stakeholders to keep them updated on project progress and discuss key issues. Some stakeholders appear disengaged or are occupied with other work during the meetings. Other stakeholders have stopped attending.
What should the project manager do?
During the execution of a project, the product manager receives a new product feature request from the organization ' s highest revenue-generating client. The team
estimates the work will take three days.
What should the project manager do?
A project manager is responsible for building a new data center and developing new monitoring software before a fixed deadline. Although the software features are not fully defined, the project scope is set, and a contract has been signed.
What should the project manager do?
During the rollout of interactive digital whiteboards to several schools, a project manager is informed there are delays at the customs office that prevent the delivery of
the newest model of whiteboards from the overseas supplier as planned. The project timeline will be impacted.
What should the project manager do?
A project manager is leading a project to use Al to optimize the content moderation process for an online game. The project sponsor expects to make cost savings
with this optimization. The project manager sourced a few Al technology vendors, making a final decision with the team. After launching the product with the new Al
feature, a key stakeholder questions why the team did not build a custom Al module to save money in the long term.
What should the project manager do?