Written by Nevella Paul

PMI Atlanta’s Healthcare August forum attendees were highly engaged and intrigued with the informative presentation delivered by Laura Visconti, Business Analyst at Philips Health Systems.

Laura Visconti is a Business Analyst with over 17 years of experience. She is currently an active contributor to the Business Intelligence System team at Philips. Her area of focus is in Data Analytics and Reporting. She is trained in the industry’s best practices for data warehousing and business intelligence, Kimball Dimensional Modeling techniques, and reporting tools such as Business Objects and Tableau.

Prior to Philips, Laura has worked in the Financial and Healthcare Industries where she was heavily involved in fostering support and growing the Analytics department. She has B.A. from Dalhousie University and a Certificate in Applied Information Technology.

The presentation “Business Intelligence (BI): A Prescription for Success in the Healthcare Industry” focused on how BI can help various aspects of the industry drive tangible business results. Laura began with an introduction to Business Intelligence; discussing the history of reporting and the evolution of tools used to produce reports, from Excel to canned reporting tools, to more robust BI Tools such as Tableau and Qlik. The newer tools allow for self-service and advanced analytics to provide more actionable insight into the data.

The presentation focused on how Business Intelligence reporting can provide actionable insight to drive business in these challenging times using specific real-life examples. Industry challenges include how the Affordable Care Act (and potential repeal) impact other areas of healthcare such as Big Pharma, retail pharmacies and service/solutions providers, regulatory reporting, and the shift of the reimbursement model from fee-for-service to value-based care in the hospital/provider setting.

Laura concluded with her views on how to execute a successful BI project, touching on each of the critical steps within the lifecycle of a project: problem definition; scope & staffing; requirements gathering; data modeling; dashboard design; validation & deliver; and business acceptance. Laura states “by leveraging tools, best practices and the proper resources we can ensure positive project outcomes and enable the business to drive results.”

Please join us Wednesday, October 17 from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Healthcare Forum for the: Keynote Presentation: “BRCA1 and Women’s Cancer: Discovery to Personalized Medicine” presented by Dr. Veena N. Rao, Morehouse School of Medicine / Professor and Director Cancer Biology Program, Department of OB/GYN.

Location: Philips Healthcare
PHA Academy One Deerfield Centre
13560 Morris Road
Alpharetta, GA 30004

By Alex Blench, PMP

The PMI Atlanta Governance Forum hosted a discussion with Amanda Sheehan, the Portfolio Manager at OshKosh. Amanda was instrumental in the foundation of the Retail Division PMO. She delivered a thorough, operational level seminar on how to efficiently implement governance and build a PMO. Amanda stressed that disciplined governance is essential, and this fact is shared amongst many business leaders. Leaders recognize that change is required and yearn for improved visibility to costs, schedules, and deliverables. Amanda championed the need at OshKosh for Project Managers to lead that change and how to efficiently implement the governance of that team. Amanda emphasized that it was the backing from management that gave her the support she needed to build a PMO.

Establishing governance is all about building standardized, repeatable processes. One of Amanda’s first tasks was to establish a common-core methodology for the organization to follow. This involved developing templates and other tools. These templates and tools served 2 purposes. First, they would allow her project managers to understand how the business operated and what was important to keep track of. Second, it provided leadership with visibility to costs, schedules, and deliverables because projects could be measured against a unique set of criteria.

Amanda clearly outlined the steps an organization should take when standing up a PMO:

• Crawl:
  o Establish a PM team
  o Establish basic governance
  o Manage top tier projects
• Walk
  o Create repeatable processes and templates
  o Map out how projects align with strategy
  o Partner with the business
  o Focus on business cases
• Run
  o Align portfolios around corporate strategy
  o Lead vs. Manage

Special thanks to our presenter Amanda Sheehan for an engaging discussion and for sharing her experience building a PMO from the ground up.

If you would like to learn more about Governance and the value it brings to projects, please join us at a future forum. The calendar can be found on the PMI Atlanta web site at http://www.pmiatlanta.org

Thank you to our sponsors at Global Payments for making this event possible.

ABOUT PMI
PMI Atlanta serves project managers in Metro Atlanta. Our Chapter is an active resource for corporations, community and government agencies throughout north Georgia. PMI Atlanta is the second largest chapter in the US and fifth largest in the world with over 4,000 members. Our professional expertise span across all industries. We’re the professionals building healthcare information technology systems, the engineers developing smarter public transportation, and the planners growing our communities more efficiently.

By Alex Blench, PMP

The PMI Atlanta Governance Forum hosted a discussion with Eric Klein, General Manager of Demand Planning at Delta Air Lines TechOps. Eric joined Delta as a contractor in 2011. A few short years later, he created a department to standardize Maintenance instructions. He brings his background in team building and process improvement to the Atlanta Governance Forum.

Overview: Managing an efficient organization is all about hiring the right people and trusting them to do the job. Eric emphasizes the value of certifications which demonstrates a commitment to self-improvement. He circled back to these core principles frequently and underscored them as the bedrock of a successful organization.

Eric went on to explain that he shifted his management approach from focusing on money to time management. He pointed out that money can be acquired, moved around, and increased. Alternatively, time is a constant and inflexible constraint. Eric manages his time like a bank account, and consistently stresses time management to his teams.

• Highlights
    o Challenge the status quo
    o Be persistent
    o Establish clearly defined rules and make them available
    o Always be kind
    o Have courage
    o Constantly pursue knowledge
    o Always tell the truth

“If you are producing results, people will recognize that”

Special thanks to our presenter Eric Klein for an engaging discussion and sharing lessons learned from over 36 years of management experience.

If you would like to learn more about Governance and the value it brings to projects, please join us at a future forum. The calendar can be found on the PMI Atlanta web site at http://www.pmiatlanta.org

Thank you to our sponsors at Global Payments for making this event possible.

ABOUT PMI
PMI Atlanta serves project managers in Metro Atlanta, and we're an active resource to corporations, community and government agencies throughout north Georgia. With over 4,000 members, PMI Atlanta is the second largest chapter in the US and fifth largest in the world. Our professional expertise spans across industries. We’re the professionals building healthcare information technology systems, the engineers developing smarter public transportation, and the planners growing our communities more efficiently.

By Alex Blench, PMP

The PMI Atlanta Governance Forum hosted a discussion with Kirk Talbott, Deputy CIO for the City of Atlanta. Kirk drove a PMO transition in Lake County, IL and brings his experience standing up PMOs to Atlanta and the Atlanta Governance Forum.

Overview

Building a PMO in an organization where siloes have established their own cultures is no small challenge. In culturally diverse organizations such as a city government, the PM cannot be the only person advocating for change. Kirk underscores the importance of a champion in upper-level management in achieving buy-in from your stakeholders.

• Keys to success
  o When dealing with large groups, cluster by area of interest. These clusters then elect delegates to represent their teams in the decision making process.
  o Benchmark project completions against prior years to demonstrate value and build consensus.
  o Remove ambiguity by creating criteria for success.
  o Limit Project Inductions to team capacity; keep WIP under control.
  o Gear your solutions to alleviate the pain caused by current processes.

“The cause of the pain that will get people in the room to talk about changing things”

Forum Highlights

Kirk stood up a PMO in 2 years by achieving high level support for his ideas and by adapting his solutions to the needs of the internal stakeholders. His tactics often focused on personal relationships, building consensus, and communicating the advantages of Project-based work over functional workflow. Successful sustainability is dictated by the extent to which internal stakeholders accept change and stick to new processes.

Special thanks to our presenter Kirk Talbott for an engaging discussion and sharing lessons learned from over 24 years of experience IT Governance.

If you would like to learn more about Governance and the value it brings to projects, please join us at a future forum. The calendar can be found on the PMI Atlanta web site at http://www.pmiatlanta.org

Thank you to our sponsors at Global Payments for making this event possible.

About PMI

PMI Atlanta serves project managers in Metro Atlanta, and we're an active resource to corporations, community and government agencies throughout north Georgia. With over 4,000 members, PMI Atlanta is the second largest chapter in the US and fifth largest in the world. Our professional expertise span across industries; we’re the professionals building healthcare information technology systems, the engineers developing smarter public transportation, and the planners growing our communities more efficiently.