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Project Management Practices in Small Projects: 5 cases in a Canadian Hospital Setting

Healthcare is continuously changing through means of project work. Small projects in healthcare settings are of particular interest since they are usually not adequately supported by the health institution, and present many challenges of their own. However, collective successful completion of small projects has the potential to significantly impact and improve health service delivery. This thesis examined the common and successful project management practices in small projects in Canadian hospital settings to acquire new knowledge on this understudied kind of project and propose basic project management practice guidelines for future small projects conducted within these settings. Data collection was conducted in two hospitals in the form of 23 semi-structured interviews with five interprofessional project teams composed of 4-10 healthcare professionals. Each project was considered as the unit of analysis. Qualitative within-case and cross-case inferential processes were applied and a consolidated list of 43 project management practices deemed important by the majority of participants from all cases was revealed and could serve as basic project management practice guidelines for future small projects conducted in hospitals. Findings also shed light on the beneficial value of adapting principles of project management to small projects in hospital settings. Given the bottom-up nature of small projects, results suggest it is of significant importance to clearly define and understand the small project, as well as perform a thorough stakeholder analysis to be able to gain the right approvals. Insufficient time dedicated to small project management governed these shortcomings, thus team members need to regularly allot time to managing their small project. Lastly, the presence of a team leader was a significant factor influencing continuous project execution. Future studies should take into consideration allied disciplines’ contributions such as organizational behaviour to help explain the interplay between group dynamics and small project outcome.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/36923
Date January 2017
CreatorsJasinska, Monika
ContributorsMignerat, Muriel, Chiocchio, François
PublisherUniversité d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Source SetsUniversité d’Ottawa
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis

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