Ideas on a project prioritisation system for public sector projects

Introduction

This is a rewrite of a post I published in November 2009 on another blog. I've reviewed and revised the text. While a number of ideas remain valid, I've made quite a number of changes.

Any project executed in a public sector environment has to face - by its very nature - a high level of scrutiny. Laws and regulations have been designed to ensure that the use of public means is as correctly executed as possible. The question that plagues many an administrator is whether he or she has invested time and effort in the right project. And while the decision remains complex, the following decision model aims at assisting the decision takers in a first project prioritisation.

By evaluating projects on the three axes of monetary impact, political feasibility and communicability, these projects can be prioritised in a way which answers legitimate questions on best use of means. These questions can, should and will be asked by the concerned representatives of the people, the politicians. The model which we propose below allows such a prioritisation.

Context

“Is this project the most relevant investment of my available resources, be these financial means, available people or my own limited time?” When prioritising a project financed by public means this is a legitimate question which a politician can, should and will ask of the public administration proposing a project. Whereas the question is legitimate, the answer requires an approach which is not always readily available to administrations.

The administration can answer this question from its own perspective, but runs the risk of missing one or more key elements which do not play a role in its own decision taking but are very important to the concerned representatives.

Method

The following three-dimensional model an administration can use to transparently present different projects or project options to representatives in order to develop a higher degree of buy-in.

The first dimension – estimated monetary impact

This dimension aims at providing a verifiable estimation of the monetary impact a project can have under different conditions. It must answer the question how much the project will actually save, gain or result in, either for the public administration or for the constituency (either citizens or companies).

This most traditional of measurements can be executed by means of different measurement systems, depending on the needs and nature of the project. For burden reduction projects for example, an analysis using a Standard Cost Model assessment of the situation before and after or the Regulatory Impact Assessment is most often used.

The second dimension – political feasibility

The second dimension assesses the feasibility of the project from a purely political point of view. "Can we obtain an adequate level of support to realise all the relevant goals of this project?" Even more importantly, "are there no indications of any resistance to the realisation of the project which can block it even before it gets started?"

This assessment requires a keen view on the current political reality or the expected political reality at the time of project approval and throughout the period of project execution. In order to correctly assess this, the administration will need the input and the support from the appropriate cabinet(s).

This need reconfirms the essential nature of regular communication and information flows between cabinets and the administrations.

The third dimension – Communicability

This dimension is for a politician the most important, and legitimately so. After all, visibility ensures continued political relevance, and visibility is often a function of how well a project can be communicated.

We often look down on politicians seeking the public eye, looking to "score" by going on TV. We actually forget that that is an essential part of the role of the politician. He or she needs to communicate to a wide audience and gauge the reaction of that audience to determine his or her position. I'm not naive in that I do know and realise that party pressure can influence voting behaviour, but I also believe this day and age, with social networks which enjoy a high degree of participation, provides the best possible situation for a politician to get almost real time feedback on his or her performance.

The purpose of this dimension is to evaluate the extent of the communicability of a certain project: how well can the purpose be communicated to a third party (citizen or company) and how large will the extent of political support be generated by this communication? Is it a viable news item? Will it be taken up by the news organisations, both written, spoken and/or tv?

Benefits

The proposed approach allows the public servants to be more proactive in their relationship with the politician(s) and member of the cabinet(s) as argued in a prior article (published on the original posting site, which I will repost later) on correctly treating politicians as stakeholders. It prepares the ground for decision for duly elected representatives without forcing a decision on them.

Independent business and the future of innovation

Following in the footsteps of our elders

Up until only a few generations ago, we used to be destined to follow into the footsteps of our elders. A son of a farmer was likely to become a farmer. If your mother had a small convenience store, you were apt to enter into that trade as well. Even now, a lot of lawyers are sons and daughters of lawyers. And if, like was the case for many of us, your parents worked for "the man", you grew up with an understanding that working for an employer was a good thing. Innovation was evolutionary. It was based on what we built on the shoulders of those who came before us. Because we knew those who came before us. There was an individual relationship.

And let's be clear, working for "the man" really used to be good. There was an implicit understanding that if you did your best and tried hard, your employer would take care of you too. There was reciprocity in the relationship. However, it mainly put the employer in the position of the parent an the employee in the position of the child.

The onset of employee puberty

While there were always those who were seeking independence from these structures, their numbers have increased since the onset of the 2008 crisis, which for all intents and purposes is still going on today. The crisis really appears to have pushed a whole group of people into developing their own small businesses.

Contrary to times past, the recent ruptures of the employee-employer relationship were most often not on the best of terms. It played out like a typical puberty scenario. Note I'm not taking positions here. But puberty is often a situation in which there is a total breakdown of any form of civilized communication with both parties feeling the hurt but neither of them having the maturity to do something about it.

There is a total rejection of the corporate world and its functioning by those stepping out and starting their own small businesses, showing the world they can manage on their own. And there is a lot of achievement in that. I have a huge admiration for people daring to go that path. It often involves facing a lot of fears and uncertainty. So I applaud that with all my heart.

BUT, eventually, going that path also involves the realization and recognition that no matter how much you may despise the corporate world, there are parts of it that make sense. As Umair Haque has pointed out, the corporate world is very good at solving large scale problems.

The advantages of smaller businesses in present day innovation

What small businesses bring to the table is their flexibility as well as their ability to propose their own unique view on a problem. Bringing in a networked structure of small businesses to look at a problem that has daunted corporate structures may actually lead to solutions that are unthinkable within that corporate structure, because the flexibility just is not available.

But certain results will never be achievable by small businesses alone, as much as certain solutions can never be found by large corporate structures. The key question that remains is how to capitalize on that understanding.

I believe that more and more independent, small businesses need to find each other. The flexible combination and recombination of independent structures into ad hoc solutions to problems the market has been struggling with retains both the quality of the independent expert and the combined force of the whole … provided it can be managed well. This would use a number of advantages of the corporate model without sacrificing the small business advantage.

The key to individual value creation will be good project management

In the industrial era, corporations developed to realize economies of scale. In the post-industrial era, this was copied to services. This led to our ability to produce a lot of the same things any times. What we need now is a way to create very specific, individual value to the customer. We are no longer trying to solve just a problem. We are now in the business of trying to solve "his" or "her" problem. That's an entirely different challenge, which can only be answered by the unique combination of specific expertise and the insight to combine this expertise to the point of successful project completion.

There lies, in my opinion, a significant opportunity. The bringing together is achievable by the tools and networks we're all linked into. The real in-project coordination, supporting these experts into timely delivery of a quality project within a budget, will be where the near future challenge lies. It makes me realize we have far too few project managers.

Answering that challenge will be a focus area for the near future. It's an issue in education, in product and services sales, even in development aid. And it is the prime area of innovation for the years to come.

The good news? We likely already have all the pieces of the puzzle. We just need to learn how to put them together.

Project versus outcome management

There is a hidden assumption among project owners, the ones that engage project managers to manage their projects, that any project they engage with will automatically succeed. The default position for project outcomes is, in their minds, success. Why else would they engage their time or means in that project?

The problem is that they fail to distinguish between project management and outcome management. In short, you can pretty much manage projects, but it's very difficult to manage outcomes. However, the project owner assumes that when the competent project manager comes on board, very thing will be fine.

Here's my take on where they make their mistake and why it is damaging.

Project management

We have pretty much figured out how to properly manage a project or a program of multiple projects. There are agood project management methodologies available which, when properly applied, will lead to a well managed project.

This is not to say that any project if supported by a good project manager and a good project management methodology will be a breeze. It won't. But it will be manageable and under control or at least out of control in a controlled manner.

For example, If the project owners are not aware of the key issues in the project, their investment in project management and the related reporting will need to be increased or improved to enhance transparancy. But that is a controllable issue. Even if the project management issues may not have originated internally, the management of the project can be managed internally or at least within the confines of the space or organization the project is being managed in.

So, the project can be managed provided competent people are combined with a relevant approach. That however does not garantee the envisioned outcome. Here's why.

Outcome management

The outcome is of course the result the project owner is aiming for. This is why they started or engaged with the project in the first place. They aim for a specific situation which is different from the initial situation. Note that the outcomes are (most often) not the deliverables. These deliverables are being produced by the project. They are the output of the project, an output which will assist in achieving the outcomes you were aiming for. However, they combine with other, often external factors to lead to a certain situation which is different from the initial situation you started from. So let's examine what can result?

• The best case is the situation where the outcome is what you were aiming for or better;
• However, realistically you may miss that outcome even if your best effort and the deliverables were there in a timely fashion.

The results combine with unexpected and often not manageable events which in turn determine with the final outcome of the project will be.

Are outcomes manageable?

In my experience outcomes are at best partially manageable, and will require a significant investment of time and effort with no guaranteed results. As an example:

Imagine your project deals with cost reductions in government operations. The results of your analysis are impeccable. However, because of the economic crisis the last thing government wants to do is to fire people. On the contrary, government feels they have a social responsibility, and starts to increase hires. Now imagine another project that, in conjunction with yours, had been working on automation to fill in reductions of workforce. In this scenario, it's unlikely that project will be taken to fruition.

So what to do?

In the course of any project, it's essential to have good, regular and transparant communication not only about the project and its results, but also about the impacts risks in the adjacency of the project will have on the required outcomes. While it may not save the project, it will put every stakeholder on the right page as soon as possible.