Facing Cancer as a Project

Stratis is a results-driven and entrepreneurial business development and project management expert, leader and strategist.

  Healthcare   Risk Management  

In project management, some of the principles include fostering engaged project sponsors; having clear and objective goals and outcomes; documenting roles and responsibilities; and strong change management. These same principles also bring a better prognosis when applied to fighting cancer.

Cancer treatment is highly complex and involves a lot of stakeholders. This is more obvious in many European countries, where the absence of a general practitioner/family doctor is evident. Basically asymptomatic, I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer during the summer of 2020 and had to undergo a very serious operation and follow rigorous treatment. I decided very soon that tears and fears were not the tools to fight it—and that I needed a well-drafted plan to follow.

Some of the PM skills that I acquired over the years helped me manage the most difficult project of my life, one that is ongoing. I wanted to share some of my findings from this journey in order to help colleagues deal with the management of complex task interdependence while battling cancer.

I realized very soon that cancer care suffers from fragmentation and a lack of coordination across provider specialties. In other words, every specialty is bound by its own microcosm—yet cancer is a highly complex interdisciplinary disease, and you need to address every aspect of it.

Although it wasn’t …

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