The Art of Letting Go

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.

 

Executing a project, monitoring the work and leading the team can take over a project manager’s life, but at some point, the project manager will have to let it all go and hand over all of the hard work the team has done. A customer might be the recipient of a new system, or an operational team within the organization may be set up to use what the project has generated.

Whatever the case, the project manager will have to work to hand over the final product in a manner that makes everyone successful--both the project team and the operational team.

Setting Up the Structure
The project manager and stakeholders should be working throughout the project to set up the structure that will receive the handoff at the end of the project. The structure should include the organizational chart and the roles and responsibilities of the people in the operational phase, whatever that might be. The structure should also take into account the overall shape of the organization and fit into it naturally.

In addition, the team that worked on the project will need to be part of that structure, whether they provide subject matter experts on an ongoing basis or just help ease the transition at the beginning. The structure should work in tandem with what was done during the project--and also be open to providing enhancements and corrections as time goes on during the operational phase.

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