An Interview with Marla Krakower
Post date: Jun 12, 2012 2:57:33 AM
Joseph Fernandes had a chance to interview Marla Krakower, the manger for the newly minted Project Management and Process Improvement Office at the Ministry of Health. Marla shares her insights as to how project management and process improvement can be encouraged throughout the Ministry with coaching, communities of practice, and hands-on support.
Marla, I was reading an article published in the Jan 24/12 edition of Inside Health on ' the recent creation of the PMPIO' (see http://intra.moh.gov.on.ca/Assets/infoweb/employee_toolbox/inside_health/Inside+Health+January+24.pdf ) I wanted to get a sense of how the Project Management and Process Improvement Office (PMPIO) is structured and what services it will provide.
The PMPIO reports functionally to the Associate Deputy Minister. Simon Trevarthan joined the branch as director in the fall of 2011. There are two teams in the branch. My own team is the Project Management Office. Kristina Lauesen is the manager responsible for the Process Improvement team. The PMPIO’s mandate is to drive some culture change with respect to both project management and process improvement in the ministry. We aim to build capacity for both project management and process improvement through learning, coaching, tools and communities of practice.
Can you elaborate about the Project Management Office’s role in the ministry. How will your team interact with clients?
Our mandate includes offering customized training and learning opportunities, coaching, and in some instances, hands-on project support. In some instances, PMO staff will go in and assist at a particular point of project, for a specified period of time. We use service agreements to outline what our role will be and the length of time that we're going to be involved. For some priority projects, we may be involved on a longer-term basis to provide support. There are a lot of talented people who understand and practices project management across the ministry. We would like to capitalize on that, and build on it. Ultimately, we’d like to increase project management capacity within divisions.
Can you provide an example of a priority project that your team is supporting?
We were asked to do some work on Health System Funding Reform project, which is a key transformation initiative. Much of the foundational funding policy work is completed, and it is moving into implementation. Although there will continue to be policy work needed over the next the next three years as various quality initiatives are rolled out. Initially, we did a diagnostic of the project and made recommendations related to the next phase of the project. Now we are actually involved in providing project management support to the team through the creation of a work breakdown structure, an integrated project plan and project monitoring. It is an interesting project, because it cuts across a number of divisions and it is incredibly complex. This is the kind of project where I see my team continuing to add value in the future. However, we are also involved in coaching staff working on small to medium sized projects.
In terms of providing training and educational opportunities, how will your office do that?
That's one of our key pieces of our mandate. We are developing a comprehensive suite of training for ministry staff, focused on both beginner and advanced project managers. The training will draw on examples from ministry projects so that staff involved in the training can relate to it. We will be offering a suite of courses that anyone can sign up for in the coming months. However, we have also been working ADMs and directors to offer customized branch and in divisional training. For example, we have delivered comprehensive training to all staff in the Health Human Resources Division. Every single person has taken part. There are also going to be separate sessions coming up for the ADM, the directors and the managers in that division. We're doing work with Facilities Branch in the Corporate Services division. Our training is dynamic and interactive. We want people to walk away with some new tools that they can use to make their jobs easier. A lot of people either have their PMP, are working towards it, or they want to maintain it. We’re able to provide them with PDUs when they participate in our training, so it is a win-win for everybody.
Where can staff go to learn more about the services provided by your branch?
We are building a branch portal that will provide staff with all of our tools, templates and information about training, coaching and communities of practice. It will be on-line in July. In the meantime, staff can contact myself at marla.krakower@ontario.ca to find out more about project management services and Kristina.lauesen@ontario.ca to find out about process improvement services.