I believe this is a very good conversation in understanding that different cultures can be seen in project management. What I have understood from experience of myself and friends is that management plays a very critical role in the companies environment and strategy. Relating to what I have currently seen in the medical industry in comparison to you, bnb6, I believe that the conception, development, and closure of projects are highly influenced by the company’s management style. What I mean by this is that priority of projects are dependent on the company’s business portfolio, market share, profit, resources, and opportunity. If a company is more focused on profit, then minor projects may suffer due to resource or budget constraints. If a company is primarily focused on opportunity, then the maintenance of launched projects may suffer. I believe to have an overall successful portfolio, a company needs to have a balance between all aspects of project management and development.

I am very surprised to hear that projects at Stryker were cancelled. I currently work for a global blood glucose systems company that has been developing medical devices for over 70 years. We have a project development standard that classifies the requirements for project inception, development, verification and validation, production, country submission, launch, and maintenance. I have asked this question about the termination of projects, and even employees that have been working at this company for over 30 years could not recall a project ending in the middle of development. We have had projects reach it’s end of life, but it was due to technological advancements from other products that we offered in the market, not from the lack in resources.

So I don’t agree that low priority projects should be cancelled to provide more resources to other teams. A delay in schedules in lower priority projects is understandable due to the implication of constraints in resources. I believe that the standard we practice at my company helps us prepare the allocations for our entire project portfolio for the next 5 years to come. When resources are expected to be tight, adjustments (i.e. new hires, contractors, schedule or budget shifts) are expected to be made so that each project can continue moving forward.

In my opinion, the inception phase is the most critical in determining the projects future. Extensive market research, R&D innovation, budget, schedule, and overall influences to the company portfolio are considered in the inception phase. Projects are not initiated unless there is a market need or opportunity. Once a project has successfully passed the first phase, the idea of terminating a project would only be brought up if there was too high of a risk in the development and validation stages. To my knowledge this has never occurred due to the companies focus and passion of the market needs and quality.