Summary of a video
In the introductory part of the video, the necessity is explained for a health care facility to have an entirely new hospital for women and babies because the capacity limit of the neonatal intensive care unit has been reached. After conducting analysis and holding discussions, the facility’s administration chooses a hospital and initiates a building project. This story leads the viewer to the exploration of the very concept of projects.
A project is defined in the video as “a series of related tasks directed toward a major output.” It is explained that, in each project, there are people who administer and head it; these people are called project managers. Their contribution is identifying necessary activities, establishing their sequence, planning their interconnections, and ensuring that all those activities are conducted properly according to the established sequence, budget, quality requirements, and schedule designed before the project implementation stage begins. It is also stressed that project managers are responsible for the motivation of the members of project teams; in other words, managers should ensure that team members receive all the necessary information and incentives.
Further, the process of breaking a project down into major tasks, subtasks, and particular activities within subtasks is described; this is a major component of planning the implementation stage of a project. Further, the video takes the viewer back to the example with the hospital introduced at the beginning; in a short interview, VP Karl Hodges speculates on the importance of a facility’s environment for patients’ recovery and happiness.
Also, Mr. Hodges mentions that one of the main goals of the project was to build the new hospital cost-effectively and to have a cost-effective hospital (in terms of operational costs) in the end. Executive Director Kathy Swanson explains that many different user groups were involved in discussing the project plan, including health care providers, specialists in environment service, social workers, and others.
The next interviewee, Administrator of Obstetrics Cathie Brazell, describes the process of engaging patients and families in the design process; Ms. Brazell explains the need for this by the recognition that “this [the hospital] is the family space, this is the patient space, and then this is the caregiver space.” Based on reflections and feedback from those who had a chance to test two initial mockup rooms, the project team made additional modifications to make rooms more comfortable and more positive.
Further, an example of a project management task is mentioned; the director of the facility’s development approached it with the use of project management software that the facility had been using extensively.
When the project was finished, the team acknowledged it as a success. Ms. Swanson calls it “an experience of a lifetime” and claims that, along with other members of the project team, she is proud of the project because it gave the community an extremely valuable legacy: a place where new life is born in an environment that is good both for the babies and their mothers. At the end of the video, Professor Barry Render explains the significance of project management in the presented case. The project took four years, and, without a properly designed project management approach, the administrative team could not have “stay on top of the hundreds of often conflicting activities.” Professor Render then suggests tackling the video case study at the end of the chapter.