How To Use Integrated Critical Path Planning and Scheduling for Integrating Multiple Projects

Handling multiple projects in any project management environment can be stressful and aggravating, to say the very least. Keeping track of what should be accomplished and when it must be accomplished is the only way to successfully achieve your goals on time and within budget.

The only way I have found to manage the multiple projects which I must juggle is to use integrated Critical Path planning and scheduling. You may well know a bit about the general idea, but you may not realize how much difference a truly integrated planning database can help you in your day-to-day Project Management career.

It doesn't matter what planning and scheduling software application your planning and scheduling staff utilizes for critical path analysis of projects. Every effective software application available today allows this type of critical path analysis. The software should allow you to maintain all data in a single database and select data for publication as desired.

What is Integrated Critical Path Planning?

Truly integrated planning requires that all your planning and scheduling information be placed in a single, comprehensive database. The information must include predecessor and successor relationships between each related activity and between each project.

This may sound very complex at first, but it really isn't. You already know your deadlines and you know when you can begin each project. You know what steps must be taken to accomplish each project.

Integrated Critical Path Planning and Scheduling Examples

So, how do you develop such relationships between activities and projects? All this requires is a bit of thought.

Establish a Work Calendar: Define the calendar around which your particular business operates. If the organization takes holidays off, be sure you main project calendar does not calculate these days as workdays when calculating your schedules. Apply this calendar to every project. You should be able to generate exceptions by placing one or more tasks on a 24/7/365 calendar should you have to work during periods which are normally not worked.

Develop a Template Project for Similar Projects: Most of the projects you manage are likely very similar in the tasks which must be accomplished. These tasks generally require a similar number of man-days or man-hours to perform. Sit down with all the players and determine the average timeframe for accomplishing all standard tasks. Define the relationship between each task.

Some tasks can be accomplished in parallel with others while some tasks must be performed before other tasks can begin. Use this information to define your start-to-start, finish-to-finish and finish-to-start relationships between tasks.

Here is a diagram of a very simple flow chart of this type of planning:

Apply Template to Projects: Once you have developed a basic template, you may find that you have special tasks for some projects. Save your template under the project name you are planning and scheduling at the moment. Define the special tasks and ask your planning staff to add those tasks and their relationships into the template for that project only.

Use Identifier Fields: Your software application should allow you to input data to identify projects easily. Different packages handle this differently, but your team members probably already know how this is done. If they do not, develop an identification scheme which will allow data selection from the database for analysis, printing and publication.
Develop All Projects: You must develop all the projects currently open and add this information into your database. The deadline for each project should be set in stone and input into the database as a hard target against which all other project data will calculate.
Define Inter-Project Relationships: When managing multiple projects, you'll note that some projects may require completion before other projects may begin. Define and add these relationships into the database. Most software applications will allow you to show these inter-project relationships when publishing information for reporting purposes. Other may only take the information into account when calculating available dates on which tasks may be accomplished.
Apply Start Targets and Progress: Determine tasks which can or have begun already. Apply dates to these tasks and progress amounts to those which have begun.
Use Backward Scheduling: When calculating the dates on which the planning and scheduling software application calculates, first perform a forward scheduling pass and then end with a backward scheduling pass. This allows your tasks to be schedule as late as possible.

Analyze Results: Looking at each project which must be accomplished, analyze the calculations generated by your automated planning and scheduling software. Review task and project relationships and ensure they have been defined correctly and input correctly.

Keep Planning: As new projects arise, input the data and relationships into the database and again analyze the planning and scheduling results. Be sure to have your team update the progress on tasks which have begun and input start dates on those activities which have start dates assigned firmly.
In Closing: This critical path project management technique is used by Project Managers from small construction firms, to Healthcare Information Technology Developers, to the International Space Station Program. It's time-proven; it works, and you can implement in your own career to easily juggle multiple integrated critical path projects.


*Image from: http://www.free-logistics.com/images/rsgallery/original/PERT%20Chart%20or%20Diagram.PNG

Healthcare Information Technology Can Save YOUR Life and YOUR Money

Healthcare Information Technology (IT) has progressed by leaps and bounds in the last decade and today, it can easily save your life or the life of your loved one if you or your family member has to be hospitalized for any reason. Not only can healthcare IT save your life but your money, too.

The wrong medication can easily kill you. You might know you are allergic to a medication and have input that on your patient information forms. There might be a known medication interaction between two medications provided. Unless these facts are compared and taken into account, it is very easy for the wrong medication to be provided in a healthcare setting.

Doctors and nurses are only human. They work long hours; often working double shifts during crises. They get tired; their eyes become weary and they are frequently rushing from patient to patient. Even when well-rested and refreshed, mistakes can be made because these professionals are simply human and no human is perfect. Even with the best training, it is possible to misread a doctor's instructions, medication allergy information, or the name or dosage of a drug on the often small-print labels. The potential for error is enormous, at best, when human eyes and hands are the only method for dispensing medication to patients in hospitals or other healthcare settings.

One well-known example which received a lot of press was the incident with Dennis and Kimberly Quaid's twin babies. These tiny infants were given a dosage of Heparin which was 1,000 times the dosage ordered, and while they recovered, death was a clear possibility. There were not the only patients overdosed with this medication. They were just the famous ones that received press.

The solution to this life-threatening problem is added safety measures but no patient wants to pay the added cost of having multiple sets of human eyes check every single instruction and medication. Plus, even with two or three sets of eyes, the possibility of error remains.

So, how are you, as a patient, to be assured you are getting the correct medications while paying the least amount of money? The answer will sound simple but the actual implementation is quite complex. For this reason, let's look at the simple, easy-to-understand reason why healthcare IT helps assure your health and save pocketbook, too.

Computers do not get tired; they do not become distracted by the phone call from the children's school or other personal problems. They are, today, perfectly capable of reading medication labels accurately every single time by use of barcodes. Once told of an allergy or possible medication contraindication, the computer never, ever forgets or fails to compare the medication about to be provided to you, the patient, with these facts. And, this process is accomplished within nanoseconds rather than valuable minutes of a human's time.

Once medication is dispensed by the healthcare IT medication control solution, the computer bills your insurance carrier or adds the medication to your self-pay account. Instead of having many pieces of paper and many hands processing this information, it is handled efficiently and instantly. The right patient is billed for the right medication in the correct amount. The errors historically made of healthcare bills are reduced to virtually zero.

At the same time, the inventory of the medication is reduced by the amount which has been dispensed and, when the inventory becomes sufficiently reduced, a flag is raised and an order generated so that an order is generated for the supplier to deliver more. This way, human error does not result in shortages of critical medications.

The many legally required reports regarding dispensing of medications -- especially controlled substances which help you deal with post-surgical or post-injury pain and suffering -- are generated. These reports once required hours or days to produce.

It remains true that your healthcare professionals must input your patient information into the healthcare IT system correctly in order for these safeguard to work properly, but the time consumed by this process is only minutes compared to the hours eaten away in past decades by paper-trails and hand-dispensing of medication.

Healthcare IT systems are now being deployed into physicians' and other healthcare professionals' offices because they work just as well when prescribing medication to be dispensed at your local pharmacy as when dispensing medication in a hospital.

While these healthcare IT solutions require a substantial initial investment to put into place, the long-term savings to patients is enormous. More importantly, the peace of mind you gain when hospitalized or being treated by a healthcare professional is vast. Plus, consider what is your life worth when a single medication error could kill you!