Question

Review Questions 1. This phase in the project life cycle includes clear objectives, importance of the project, and the expected outcome on the organization. a. Initiation b. Planning c. Execution d. Closure 2. A PI team in the radiology department determined that the wait time for procedures in their depart- ment is too long. This team worked through the steps in the PI process, developed a project and timeline, collected data, and made a recommendation to improve the wait times. The recommenda- tion was to implement a new procedure for the registration process in their department. This project streamlined the registration process and reduced the wait times for patients, but failed to collect all of the critical information necessary to accurately bill and collect payment for services. Administration was not happy because the billing issues they encountered were the first time they had heard about the registration process change. Analyze this scenario, and determine why this project failed.

Answer 1

1. b. Planning

Project planning is the second phase in the project lifecycle, which includes clear objectives, the importance of the project, and the expected outcome on the organization. In this phase, a set of plans are created to help guide the project team through the next two phases, execution and closure, of the project. These plans will help to manage cost, time, quality, risk, change, and issues.

2. Project analysis of the given process improvement (PI) and the reasons why it failed:

The issue identified for PI: The wait time for procedures in radiology department is too long.

Steps in the Process Improvement process include:

• Project development with timeline.
• Data collection.
• Recommendation to improve the wait times.

Solution to the issue: Implementation of a new procedure for the registration process in the radiology department.

Project merits:

• Streamlined the registration process

• Reduced the wait times for patients

Project demerits/failure reason:

• Failure to collect all of the critical information necessary to accurately bill and collect payment for services.

Lack of proper planning resulted in this PI project failure. Collecting all the critical information necessary for a process improvement project like this is of utmost importance.  Failure to track requirements and lack of detail in the project plans are considered as two major reasons for any project failure, which can be assessed as the reasons that lead to this PI project failure. Farsightedness, which is often cited as the quality of significance in any project management, is not seen in this case. This PI project also lacks proper risk assessment and risk management.