In my point of view, Science is a vast field and it is never too late to try new things. If we think that something has the capability to make a future in the market as a device, it should be done. It is always not a good option to prioritize any project. if the companies have funding and proper resources, I think they should try out all the projects and if needed they can hire more employees which leads to the betterment of all.
I believe that if any project can wait to be done for that time it is not priority to complete it at that moment. Priorities are defined by timelines, if a project can wait while another project is currently been worked on and can't be left in middle. Then that project is not priority for now and does not require to hire new employees. But if timelines of the project does not go well and it has to be done then men force should be increased.
I would rather cancel low priority project that would save the company’ funds and resources which is going to be very good for long it would waste lot of money and for long term there would be loss of revenue. Giving preference to high priority project will be more ideal because there will be more profit and money will be saved from advertisement and time for hiring more employees.
This is a very interesting topic, as I personally had never imagined projects being outright cancelled due to low priority. In all honesty, I do not see any reason why there should be a cancellation of projects, no matter what the priority. I believe that this indicates poor management in a company. From the initial "pitch" of a project, if accepted, the company should decide the priority and resources it will allocate to the project. If it sees that there is simply not enough resources, then the project should be put on hold until the resources are there. To me, starting a project and then ending it before it is completed is a total waste as resources, as no product came out of the time and money put into the project. I believe that companies often bite off more than they can chew and it ends up costing then valuable resources. So, at the end of the day, I believe that if a company is seeing a large number of cancellations, then they should invest in a better management team.
In an ideal world a company would fully fund projects large and small, but I think priority will ultimately come down to a risk reward analysis, how much money a company is willing to put into a project versus how much money they expect to make off the project in the long run. In the original post I would assume that the hip and knee department was prioritized because those are more prevalent surgeries compared to the foot and ankle. Now I don't have any industry experience with devices in a project based work structure, but I would like to add an experience from an undergrad parasitology class. We had a simulation assignment where we acted as the World Health Organization and our task was to cure, contain, treat, or eradicate Malaria in a third world country. There were two different scenarios, one had a budget and the other did not. We could choose to use drugs, pesticides, provide sleep netting, education, water treatment, etc. all of which had varying cost per unit per day. Of course in the scenario with unlimited funds we saw that Malaria was quickly eradicated, but with the other, more real life scenario, there were limitations on what could be done and for how long. Staying on budget while trying to eradicate a deadly disease forced us to choose cheaper options which really only acted as a bandaid to the larger problem. Just as a company will be limited based on the funds they have and the stakeholder's interest.
In my opinion, it is very important that projects are properly prioritized and that every member of the team understands the details around priority that the project holds. Ultimately, successfully prioritizing tasks in each project will impact the success of the team and success of the project itself. The skill required from project managers is that they need to be able to distinguish between critical and important tasks and activities. Project managers also are required to ensure concurrence of prioritization of tasks amongst team members. Upon completion of prioritization of tasks, the project manager needs to monitor prioritized tasks to ensure any changes are made to the program and/or tasks deprioritized. This step takes into consideration assessment of appropriate resources, time, and effort from the team in order to accomplish the project plan. Reporting the project status to management is also a critical activity so they can make the appropriate decisions to move forward or kill a program.
The company I work at went through a similar situation in which we were performing two separate projects for two different clients, but only had enough supplies to fulfill one project. The materials we work with are highly expensive viral vectors that "reprogram" white blood cells to attack a specified illness that a patient may have (cancer, HIV, hepatitis, etc). Being that this material is very costly, requires a storage temperature of -80 Celsius, and does not have a long shelf life, the company would always take caution as to never accidentally order a surplus of this material. One day this resulted in a dilemma for my company when they had only enough viral vector to satisfy one project (and in turn, one client). Both projects were dependent on the growth of live cells and were therefore too time-dependent to undergo a delay by waiting for more viral vector, so a choice had to be made. Simply put, my company had bit off more than they could chew, and ultimately chose to satisfy the client that had just recently been acquired by the company. This choice was deemed to be the lesser of two evils since the other client who had a more long-term relationship with the company was already concluding their contract with us at the end of the year.
The decision made by my company at the time was done to make a good first impression to this newly acquired client in hopes of having a more long-term partnership. From what I learned, the decision to scrap a project is not always due to a lack of resources, but also by being too prudent as to not spend more than they have to on pricey materials. Other reasons that projects can fall short is due to a company impulsively accepting tasks to keep up with competition, only to come up short upon realizing that the work may result in its costs exceeding the revenue. This would explain why a large company such as Stryker would not consider hiring more personnel to complete certain projects. Furthermore, if Stryker had hired more staff, then what would have happened upon the project's completion? Would Stryker still keep those personnel around upon completion of this non-lucrative project, or just lay them off? In lecture we learned that project-based organizations are efficient at transferring knowledge from project to project. Can this characteristic reduce the likelihood of failing a project, or are there disadvantages associated with this type of organization that could instead increase competition between projects?
I believe it depends on the resources available and the size of the company. Larger companies like Stryker typically have the resources to hire more employees on lower priority projects. This will increase the expenditure, but wasting resources on lower priority projects that ultimately yield no results due to lack of proper funding contributes to a greater loss. Even if the project yields a successful outcome, overworking the employees will also delay the completion of the project to past the desired deadline. This will further delay the start of the following projects, cutting the amount of time available to work on them, leading to more failures. However, if the lower priority project has a high risk of failure to begin with and will not lead into progression of future projects, it should be dropped especially if the company cannot financially support hiring more employees.
I don't think that any essential projects should be cancelled or even put on hold due to them being "less of a priority." This slows down the overall design process. Unless however, the project is unessential, then there is no reason to waste manpower or resources on it. But to answer the question, yes I think that more essential projects, such as the knee as you mentioned, should hire more employees to make progress faster. The most essential projects being completed or progressed on slowly is what can drastically slow down the entire design process. For that reason I think it is not only ideal, but essential to focus a majority of resources on the most essential projects, but at the same time, not to hault any other areas of design or development.
I believe that in the case of prioritizing projects, a company shouldn't move everyone from one project to the next according to prioritization. But they should decrease the number of employees working on a low priority project. The projects themselves should not be cancelled because their prioritization might change in the future. For example, in my company when we have a project that's low priority this week, we move some employees around to make them work on higher priority projects. But we keep a few employees still working the lower priority project. This is because the next week might come and the priorities get shifted. I also think this should be based off how big that project is. If the project is very demanding (requires a lot of employees) and is moved to low priority, it shouldn't be cancelled or decommissioned. If a project is small and moves to lower priority, maybe the company should think about moving it out of scope.
This is a very interesting topic. Working at my company, I too have experienced project delays and cancelations due to multiple reasons. I think it is important to consider the finances when it comes to this topic. Every project is allotted a certain budget to be used for the duration of its development. This amount is determined based on the projected sales and profit of the end-product over a certain course of time. This careful determination ultimately limits the resources that can be given to certain projects. And with all of that said, the more ongoing projects there are, the more amount of money that the company collectively has to invest. Hiring more employees to be able to support all projects, including the low priority ones, eats away at the budgets of the projects and could very well require an increase in the budget for those projects as a result. With all of this spending, we may reach a point where we bite off much more than we can chew and wait extended periods of time for the end-products of all projects to payoff the increased spending costs. Therefore, I like to believe that there is some balance that needs to be determined before choosing to hire more employees for the sake of keeping projects ongoing.
The main objective of the priority Medical Device project was to identify gaps in the availability of preventive, diagnostic, therapeutic and assistive medical devices on the market. Mapping of gaps in the supply of medical devices constitutes a priority of government and key stakeholders because of the need to treat disease or disability. In addition, the project assessed potential barriers to innovation as well as generated a research agenda and action plan.
The success of the project depends on the priorities that you give to the tasks. You will probably have the best project management software, but you nevertheless need to use several techniques to prioritize your project tasks.
That’s why each department should layout the tasks and projects that it will implement during the year with the expected financial and human cost, as well as the duration of time for each task or project. Likewise, each department is supposed to determine the importance and priority of each project for it and the organization.
While prioritizing it is important to recognize what is important and what is urgent ,because all these factors matters when it comes to long term and urgent priorities in the project .As long term goals might have significant long-term consequence at the same time urgent matters should also be taken into consideration .This is where we realize it is very important to plan a project and also take worst case scenarios into consideration and plan accordingly (Having a back-up plan).Today lot of companies have back-up resources for these kind of scenario ,talking about Dr. Simon’s experience in Stryker it is important for a company to have a proper plan in this kind of situation and also having back-up resources might have helped avoid the complication in the project .
Dr. Simon said in his lecture, "Projects have a beginning and an end that are very well defined." During my experience at Stryker, I have seen projects put on hold due to lower priority, and projects being canceled. These projects were canceled due to low funding, or because management wanted to place these employees on a newer project. When looking at the greater picture, my team within foot&ankle was less
"important" compared to hips and knees. Due to this, there were not enough resources(employees) for my team to keep up with the strict deadlines given by management, and they were being overworked trying to keep the project running. I think if more employees were hired in this department, then the projects would be completed faster, and the company would be more successful. Do you agree? Do you think that low priority projects should be canceled to give more resources to other teams such as the knee replacement team? Or should the company hire more employees to keep all projects(high/low priority) running in order to be more successful in the long run?
The whole purpose of working on a project is to create or improve a product that will ultimately make the company money. If your team is responsible for developing a new product, the timeline for that project could be several years. In that time frame, demands from customers can change, causing projects to pivot or even be cancelled if the priority of the project is not high enough. With the end goal in mind of making money, it doesn't always make sense to hire more employees just to finish the project, since hiring people takes time and money. If the cost of hiring employees doesn't outweigh the projected profits of completing the project, it doesn't make sense to bring more people on board. Sometimes, it makes more sense to re-structure the current organization to cancel lower priority projects and place the individuals working on those projects on higher priority ones. That way, the high priority projects will be completed sooner and the company will start making money on those products sooner.
