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Project Talk: OR Project

It has been a long time since I have posted an update on the PICIS OR Project deployment. The good news is that it has been a year since starting and we are in the final days before deploying the last major piece of the application suite. The bad news is that it has been a long year and specifically the last few weeks I have been spending many late nights at the hospital.

So what have I learned (reminded) so far in this project.

1) You are only as good as your suppliers. No matter how well you research, plan, and test out hardware if you can not get the right equipment in a timely manner you will spend a lot of extra time trying to get the corrected hardware that should have been ordered in first place.

2) Construction takes time. Just let it role. However, it would be nice if the champions of the project would really understand that sometimes there are things that are just out of your control.

3) Even with all the testing you do on hardware equipment, you will still get lemons. I had a high failure rate on a particular type of hardware. Sometimes it was bad design in hardware. Other times it was just installation oversights. When the dust settles I might go into more details. One phrase for companies; you can never do enough quality control!

4) At some point you have to ignore the pitfalls, poor design, and idiosyncrasies of the software. Learn the limits, learn the workaround, if any, and just deploy the darn thing. Later you can put together a team, build another product that is feature rich and fix all the “little” issues of the current software. Maybe you can sell it back to the vendor for a profit and revenue sharing.

5) Even with a great deployment team there are only 24 hours in a day. Sometimes one needs to sleep. Champions remember it is not that we don’t want to get everything done with a blink of an eye, we just have limits in an active hospital OR. It is on our list.

6) People will change their minds over and over and over and over...again and still expect to the time line to not change. Become Superman and make it happen.

...more later...

Happy Holidays. Looking forward to another exciting year.

Project Talk: Site Visit

Thursday a small group went to Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital to observe their deployment of PICIS. They are a few months ahead of our deployment. We enjoyed the first hand experience of a recent deployment. Everyone at Salinas Valley Memorial were great hosts.

Project Talk: ORIS Integration Testing

We passed! While we have a list of todos a half mile long, it should not preclude us from "Go Live". We are pretty much on track.

I am looking forward to this weekend. I have a gig in Sacramento with the California Repercussions.

Project Talk: ORIS Integration Testing

The ORIS project team has been busy preparing for this week with PICIS. It is integration testing time! It is time to see if all the parts and flow work together. So far, the testing has been going well. Some hiccups, but nothing, yet, that would be a show stopper. We have two more days to go to flush out the issues.

Next on my agenda is getting the needed construction signed off so I can order the needed equipment. Also need to work to figure out the proper application stress tests that we can perform on the application.

Where did July go?

I was looking at the calendar and realized that it has been over a mount since I posted on the blog. Where does the time go? I have to get better at posting.

Project Talk -- The OR project is kicking into high gear. We are progressing at a steady pace. I am learning so much. My goal in any project is to try to make sure that IT is not the sole reason that a project is behind schedule. By that barometer I am doing well.

Pleasure Talk -- While I have not traveled much this year, I have spent time going to Broadway Shows and plays.  Maybe later this year I will try to get a trip planned.....

I have been posting more to Facebook and Twitter. So, look for me there...

Camping at Tuolumne Meadows -- Yosemite

Just got back from a few beautiful days camping in Yosemite, Tuolumne Meadows area.  This is me after hiking to the top of one of the many "domes" in the area. This one is called Pothole dome.

It was nice to get away. Hopefully my mind is refreshed. I am looking forward to next year. Maybe I will sneak out a camping trip a little more local before the end of the year.

Sometimes I need a break

Sometimes I just need a break. Originally, this was the weekend for playing in the Jazz Festival in Sacramento, or even camping along the coast. But, I needed more than just some fun away. I needed some home time. This was made even more evident by the fact when I was setting my Out of Office Friday night, the last time that I needed to set it was January 6, 2009, Mac World 2009 time. Far too long between free days.

So, now I am now at home just hanging out. Wish that I could say that I didn’t bring work home with me, because I did, but I did limit the amount and I will be taking a hike in the Bay Area on Sunday.

Baby steps. This has opened up my eyes. I really do need to make more time for myself. I would love to continue and even expands some of my hobbies…..

Project Talk - Communication, Communication, Communication

Here is another semi regular post on my observations while being a tech lead on the implementation team of an OR system.

It has been said that many projects fail because of the lack of communication/organizational. While, this project is no where near meeting its demise, it has met what I would call its first communication speed bump. To get back on track meetings were called, issues were discussed and hopefully we have a better understanding of what is needed to keep the communications lines open and flowing.

The take away here is don't always take the academic approach to project management communication. Be ready to adjust communication methods on the fly. I am learning to make sure to communicate early and communicate often.

Dinner: An Oxymoron?

Natural enemies on one plate.