Eliminating Complexity Confusion

Paul has run a plethora of projects in multiple industries throughout his 20-year career, ranging from process improvement to agile to most recently cyber-security. Paul is also a reputable speaker, drawing practical and humorous conclusions from the "trenches" of his employers. Paul's dedication as a PM practitioner started decades ago, when he became one of the first 10,000 people to earn the PMP.

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Topics: Change Management, Organizational Project Management

Last month, I had the pleasure of attending the American Telemedicine Conference in Orlando. A significant portion of healthcare will be delivered “over the wire” in the near future, as opposed to in-person visits with doctors. Working for a major regional healthcare provider, I find this new modality of care delivery fascinating—and like any area of focus in healthcare, the usual project management services a PM can provide can be a game changer in ensuring the success of new initiatives.

There are opportunities to extend care to underserved markets like rural areas, but with them come the challenges of making telehealth a viable business model for any organization. As a program manager over my organization’s telehealth initiatives, I face an ever-present set of problems of a different sort (albeit business challenges this time), and we all know that our profession is calling us to go beyond on-time/on-budget/to-spec to solve the high-stakes business problems of today. If you can’t articulate the business value you’ve brought to projects you’ve managed, good luck on your next job interview.

In one of the sessions, the speaker used the term “complexity fetish.” The term was used in the context of obtaining funding for a grant (a large sum of money that a philanthropist sets aside for a specific purpose). Many …

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