Members' resources

Project management

Projects are time-limited endeavours that produce unique outcomes distinct from an organization's day-to-day activities. Successful completion of public health projects is critical to achieving population health objectives, however, project execution is often challenging due to scarce time and resources, rapidly changing environments and complex stakeholder requirements.

Project management is a formal methodology that addresses these challenges using a structured process for executing a series of activities. Health needs assessments, health promotion and disease prevention initiatives, environmental health risk assessments and evidence-based research agendas are just some applications that would benefit from effective planning and implementation using project management principles.

Unfortunately, though project management has a long history of successful use in private enterprise, the methodology has not been widely embraced by public health professionals. To address the need for a focused curriculum tailored to rapid skill development in project management for public health professionals, a one-week introductory course has been developed and successfully piloted. The main learning objective for the course is to "acquire practical skills to develop a Project Management Plan to effectively and efficiently achieve a health objective".

Course outline and downloads

Introduction to Project Management

• Project management approach
• Project life cycle
• Project idea and stakeholders 

Projection Definition 

• Project charter - Activity Module #1 
• Project design, work breakdown, apportionment - Activity Module #2

Project Planning 

• Scheduling, estimation, budgeting - Activity Module #3
• Gantt Chart - MIP Case Example

Project Execution & Close-Out 

• Execution and close-out - Project Management Plans

Course Conclusion 

• Team presentations and course evaluation

Course materials

Course materials are being made publicly available to encourage their dissemination and use. A qualified instructor would be required to deliver the curriculum and modification of the material may be necessary to meet local needs. Any questions or comments on the course materials can be directed to the author:

David Sabapathy, MD, MBA, PEng
Deputy Chief Public Health Officer
PEI Department of Health and Wellness
PO Box 2000
16 Fitzroy Street
2nd Floor Sullivan Building
Charlottetown, PEI C1A 7N8
dsabapathy@gov.pe.ca

* Original PowerPoint and Word documents (vs. pdf or similar) have been posted to encourage dissemination and use. Acknowledgement of the author's contribution is requested for use of the original materials and any modification of the course materials should be indicated as distinct from the author's work.

Project Management Education for Public Health Professionals by David Sabapathy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada License.