Preparing for your Deployment

WHY IS PROJECT MANAGEMENT IMPORTANT IN PUBLIC HEALTH?

While you're funded by the Center, we help fine-tune the skills needed by students to serve MCH populations. "An MCH leader inspires and brings people together to achieve sustainable results to improve the lives of the MCH population.” To get those results, MCH leaders need excellent project management skills to ensure services and programs are running smoothly and efficiently.

Your time at the Center or your deployment agency will build a great foundation for key skills that employers seek, among them are the ability to (1) communicate effectively and (2) plan, organize and prioritize work. The MCH populations you serve will depend on these skills, along with your programmatic grounding in MCH history, concepts and theories.

HOW TO USE THIS PAGE

Resources may come from a corporate environment or be geared for undergraduates; however, they still contain relevant "nuggets" that can be utilized as primers or refreshers depending on where you are in your professional journey.

Start reviewing these resources ahead of your start date. You can also ask your supervisor if you can build in some of these tutorials/readings into your deployment or Center-funded position time (15-60 minutes/week). Develop a plan to review and discuss ones that are helpful, and ask your supervisor and team members for their best practices and tips, as well as for other resources they may have.

STARTING A NEW POSITION

Review the SPH's Canvas site, with a focus on the Starting an Internship section:

SCHEDULING & TIME MANAGEMENT

If your organization doesn't offer time sheets, you might consider asking for or creating one to track your daily activities, especially at the beginning. This will help you and your supervisor with prioritization and task/time management right from the start. It's also a great historical list of all of the activities that should be included on your resume: when we get lost in the minutia of our day-to-day, we often forget all the "little" things we do!

Time Management Calculator (use and share the results with your supervisor/team)
Time Management Tutorial

PROACTIVE PROJECT MANAGEMENT & WORK FLOW

Project management is important because it helps ensure that projects are delivered on time, within budget and meet quality standards. It involves planning, organizing and controlling resources to achieve specific goals. Public health project managers use their project management skills to address complex issues like disease outbreaks, vaccination campaigns and health education initiatives. Take time to develop your project management skills during your time with the Center so you're ready for your first job post-MPH!

DO YOU HAVE OTHER HELPFUL RESOURCES THAT YOU'VE UTILIZED?

Please share them with Sara at mch@umn.edu so that we can add to this list!