Researchers' experience with project management in health and medical research: Results from a post-project review

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Project management is widely used to deliver projects on time, within budget and of defined quality. However, there is little published information describing its use in managing health and medical research projects. We used project management in the <it>Alcohol and Pregnancy Project </it>(2006-2008) <url>http://www.ichr.uwa.edu.au/alcoholandpregnancy</url> and in this paper report researchers' opinions on project management and whether it made a difference to the project.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A national interdisciplinary group of 20 researchers, one of whom was the project manager, formed the Steering Committee for the project. We used project management to ensure project outputs and outcomes were achieved and all aspects of the project were planned, implemented, monitored and controlled. Sixteen of the researchers were asked to complete a self administered questionnaire for a post-project review.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The project was delivered according to the project protocol within the allocated budget and time frame. Fifteen researchers (93.8%) completed a questionnaire. They reported that project management increased the effectiveness of the project, communication, teamwork, and application of the interdisciplinary group of researchers' expertise. They would recommend this type of project management for future projects.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our post-project review showed that researchers comprehensively endorsed project management in the <it>Alcohol and Pregnancy Project </it>and agreed that project management had contributed substantially to the research. In future, we will project manage new projects and conduct post-project reviews. The results will be used to encourage continuous learning and continuous improvement of project management, and provide greater transparency and accountability of health and medical research. The use of project management can benefit both management and scientific outcomes of health and medical research projects.</p

Workflow in Clinical Trial Sites & Its Association with Near Miss Events for Data Quality: Ethnographic, Workflow & Systems Simulation

10.1371/journal.pone.0039671PLoS ONE76

An introduction to system dynamics

This chapter presents the important concepts underlying the system dynamics modeling method. Following an initial definition of the term model, a summary of a successful system dynamics intervention is described. The key concepts of system dynamics stocks and flows are explained. The process for simulating stock and flow models integral calculus is described, with an example of a company s customer base used to illustrate how stocks change, through their flows, over time. A summary of dimensional analysis for stock and flow equations is provided before the second feature of system dynamics modeling feedback is presented. The chapter concludes by summarizing the system dynamics meth-odology, which is a five-stage iterative process that guides model design, devel-opment, test and policy design.Peer reviewed2017-06-1

How do oil prices and investments impact the dynamics of firm value?

The purpose of this study is twofold: (i) to analyze the impact of investment policy decision on the firm value given the uncertain oil and gas prices and (ii) to propose policies that enhance firm value. The study develops a system dynamics model that integrates the financial and operational activities of oil firms. The simulation results reveal that, when oil and gas prices increase, positive future expectations lead to increased investments and reduced cash flows. Greater volume of investments over the firm's current investment policy decreases its future cash flows and the total firm value over the first 20 years of the simulation period; it increases thereafter. To support higher investments, the firm would issue a higher number of shares, and consequently the market price per share would be lower, and vice versa. The simulation results suggest a relatively lower volume of investments to increase the market price per share

Delay and Disruption in Complex Projects

In this chapter we discuss the role of system dynamics (SD) modelling in understanding, and planning, a complex project. In particular we are interested in understanding how and why projects can go awry in a manner that seems surprising and often very difficult to unravel