Picking Up in the Middle

Kenneth has 14 years of healthcare experience in government and private industry. Over eight years of experience managing healthcare IT projects, operations, contracts, and personnel. His work experience includes project management, contracts and procurements, data analysis, claims adjudication, business writing, and business process modeling. Kenneth was certified in 2006 as a Project Management Professional.

  Communications Management  

Projects can last anywhere from two months to two years--or even longer in some arenas. Hopefully during that time, the leadership of the project will not change, as stable leadership will help the project maintain its course.

There are times though when change is inevitable--and it can be very difficult for the new project manager to pick up the pieces and keep things going on the project. Times of transition can cause a multitude of problems on a project. If you are the new project manager or leader in a project that has already started executing, you need to be ready to start running right away; there is no time for a warm-up routine.

No Loose Change
Loose change is little nagging items that pop up all throughout the planning and execution of a project. They are the emails and discussions from meetings and all the little items that a leader is expected to handle off the top of his head at any given moment. The system architect needs some help from a specific subject matter expert, or the customer wants to get a run down on outstanding action items for one specific business owner, or meetings cannot be held on Thursday at 9 a.m. because the CIO has a standing breakfast meeting with his staff then.

Of course, the easiest way to handle all of this loose change is to have good turnover meetings with the outgoing project leaders. If that is not possible, though, …

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