Start Projects Right: the Problem Statement, the Project Objective, and the Business Case

Projects that get off track are often not defined well in the initial meetings. Team members will have different ideas about the purpose, goals, and scope of the project. If those are not reconciled and agreed upon at the beginning, the result will be conflict and misunderstanding later on. A project charter will get the team on the same page right from the beginning and keep them there as the project moves forward.

One of the first meetings you have as a team should involve a discussion of the purpose and goals of the team. This discussion plus some data should give you everything you need to write a problem statement and a goal statement.

Problem Statement

A good problem statement will have the following items:

• What the problem is
• Where it is occurring
• When it occurred
• The extent of the problem
• How you know it is a problem

Here is an example of a bad problem statement:

“The hospital has too many patient falls.”

A good problem statement will contain the five elements above:

• What the problem is
• “Patient Falls…“
• Where it is occurring
• “Patient Falls on the inpatient floors at the hospital… “
• When it occurred
• “Patient Falls on the inpatient floors at the hospital during FY 2005…
• The extent of the problem
• “Patient Falls on the inpatient floors at the hospital during FY 2005 averaged 20 per month…” (Not bad)
• “Patient Falls on the inpatient floors at the hospital during FY 2005 averaged 20 per month resulting in one death and $500,000 in uncompensated treatment…” (Now we’re talking)
• How you know it is a problem
• “Patient Falls on the inpatient floors at the hospital during FY 2005 averaged 20 per month resulting in one death and $500,000 in uncompensated treatment. This rate is 50% above ministry average.”

The problem statement is short, concise, describes why and to what extent this is a problem. It should never contain causes of the deficiency or likely actions or solutions. And it also won’t contain all of the detail that came out of the conversation about the purpose of the team, but it will give a powerful reason of why the project is necessary.

Project Objective (Goal Statement)

The team should already have a list of goals for the project team. These will include all of the ways the team sees their work and the process improved at the end of the project. The goal statement will not include this detail, but achieving it should have the result of meeting all of those individual goals. For six sigma projects, a good goal will be SMART: Specific, measurable, aggressive, realistic, and have a time-frame.

A note about the realistic aspect: goals can be very aggressive and still be realistic. It often means that you will have to be more creative with your solutions. A SMART project objective might be:

· Implement a patient falls prevention strategy for inpatient areas that eliminates patient falls by January 1, 2009.

The word “eliminates” might raise some eyebrows. Naysayers will tell you that achieving zero defects is unrealistic. But for patient safety issues what is the alternative? How many patient falls are acceptable? We do not want patient falls to be an outcome of our standard way of doing business.

Business Case

It is also a good idea to establish a business case. The project objective and problem statement get the team on the same page. The business case gets the buy in of leadership. The problem statement establishes the extent of the problem, while the business case ties that in to the organizations key business objectives. This is fundamental to getting the resources and support you need to complete the project. If your project is not related to senior management’s goals, then you are going to have difficulty getting commitment from them to provide people and resources for the team.

· In FY 2006 the hospital provided 1.5 million dollars in uncompensated care to patients injured during the course of their stay. Patient falls accounted for $500,000 dollars of that uncompensated care.

Now that gets the attention of even the bean counters.

Leading projects is not always easy, but making sure that the team is on the same page regarding the problem and objectives, and that senior management supports the goal, goes along way toward ensuring success.