I sought initial guidance from an online course that discussed the key considerations for a successful project, being to manage time, available resources, quality, scope, benefits, and risk. The rate-limiting factor in our CSP project was very much "resources", in that we had limited man-hours in which to complete and launch the final product. 

Being remote from each other, communication between myself and my partner was key, and we could not rely entirely on spoken conversation to co-ordinate the workload, as this would risk both time efficiency and quality of the outcomes. The course offered some options of project management tools to explore, including  Work Breakdown Structures, Gantt charts, and KanBan boards.

I researched all three types of tool via Youtube videos. I found that a Work Breakdown Structure was helpful for identifying the individual tasks that needed completing and would help in assigning them, however, it did not communicate any idea of time allocation. I found KanBan boards did give a good idea of time allocation via the paradigm of "progress", which would be useful if several people were working on a project together. For just two of us though, this did not give sufficient detail on what the other partner was doing, and had the potential to create progress bottlenecks where one task was dependent on another being completed prior. Finally, with Gantt charts, I found this gave a detailed breakdown of tasks, a clear communication of time allocation, and clearly conveyed task ownership and completion status. 

My partner and I created a Gantt chart for the project, and grouped all the tasks in to domains of Data Collection, Review and Analysis, Resource Synthesis, Product Evaluation, and Product Launch and amendments. 

Using the Gantt chart was an incredibly helpful communication tool for this style of project, as it helped to breakdown at any time point who was doing what, what had already been completed, and what came next. Having it as a remotely accessible document helped us to revise it as needed, and reactively chip in to help the other person as required.

I did notice some limitations where the definition of tasks started to get a bit "wooly". This was apparent with tasks such as "Interview Stakeholders". Because these took place over several days, was dependent on the schedules of people outside the project group, and was difficult to define as "complete", my partner and I reverted to spoken communication for this element of the project as the more efficient option. 

Learning about these project tools, particularly about their theoretical and practical benefits and shortcomings, would be a directly transferrable skill to project management in a healthcare environment. Projects could be "formal", such as audit or service development, or "informal", such as getting through the caseload on the ward. I feel that my ability to communicate, co-ordinate, and delegate workload has improved through reading about these management tools and practicing use of the Gantt chart, but I am aware that I will need to apply this to different contexts in future in order to be able to adjust communication styles efficiently.