Project Work Area – Sitting Together, Succeeding Together

How many times have you been involved in a large project where you feel as if your teams are working in silos?  Well intentioned project members work diligently on their assignments – teams for pharmacy, orders, registration, and clinical documentation, all work hard to design and build – yet they seem to lack the confidence that they are building an integrated system that makes sense and works seamlessly.  That’s because integrated systems require integrated design, integrated tailoring, and integrated testing.  And how do you get at?  By incorporating integrated seating!

Whenever a hospital undertakes a large implementation project, Atlanticon suggests the creation of a common work area to help your team deliver an integrated system.  Projects suffer from communication issues all the time, and a good Project Manager will step in to encourage good communication and even install methods and tools to help the right hand be aware of the left hand’s activities.  But there is no better way to accomplish a cohesive work team than to designate a common work area and require your teams to perform key tasks together.  The synergy that is created by working in a common area is unbelievable.  Teams feed off one another, they learn how each team is progressing, and the result is a more integrated system.  

Expect some pushback and be prepared to deal with it.  First, everyone has their own office / cubicle and doesn’t like to leave it.  Second, designating a common area may not be easily feasible in your organization.  And third, it may seem difficult to coordinate.  But you need to overcome those obstacles, as there is a big payoff to having your teams spend time together daily. 

Atlanticon recommends the following for all large projects:

• Establish / reserve a room large enough to house the IT members from each of your key application teams, as well as some additional spaces for invited guests (liaisons, interface, or conversion staff for example.)
• This room will probably be used ultimately for testing, training, and maybe even your activation command center.
• Designate a time each day (8 am – 12 pm or 1 pm – 4 pm) for your team to collect there so schedules can be built around that time.  Require your key application teams, Pharmacy, Orders, Clin Doc, HIM, Registration, CPOE, etc., to plan on working on their project related tasks in that room.
• Enforcing the use of the Project Work Area for the design and build phases make the most sense, as these are phases of the project where it’s essential that the teams develop an integrated project.
• Your PM should drive this cohesive approach, and encourage / schedule “show me” sessions – allowing each team an opportunity to present what they are doing with design or demo portions of their build to insure that other teams can ask questions, compare, and most importantly, be confident that they are creating a system that will work together FOR the user community.

While most sites have initially been reluctant to enforce Project Work Areas, every single one has been very pleased with the outcome.  All of us are inherently resistant to change – and we’re uncomfortable giving up our ‘turf.’  But project teams need to look at the bigger picture and recognize the value of this minor, yet important, approach.  Very recently, one former client from Virginia called to say, “We hated it when you made us do it, but it turned out to be the best thing for this project and for our users!”  They now designate Project Work Areas for all their projects.