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.

Public sector performance enhancement

Let’s not get run over again

There are quite a few performance enhancing methodologies for administrations available on the market today. Most have not proven to be that successful all the time. However, under pressure to enhance performance, the public servants hope if or rather when someone turns government around, they don’t get run over again.

Potential added value of performance related methodologies

Can we integrate some of these approaches and methodologies into a comprehensive, sensible whole? There are four methodologies that can be integrated into one relevant, value added approach that has a real potential for adding value. The integration may prove relevant for administrations because most of the analyses executed in the past years can be used to feed this integrated approach. The investment in analysis and development of the past years will not necessarily go to waste. This reduces stress on the public servants that are trying to do their job.

Combining four existing methodologies in one new approach

How do we go about developing the best possible solution for the execution of a given role or responsibility? We aim to hit the optimal total cost to society for a public service or good. Which methodologies and/or tools would I use in what order?

1. Extended burden measurement - I suggest starting with an extended burden measurement in order to determine the actual total administrative burden to on the one hand the citizen and/or organization impacted by this responsibility and on the other hand the government charged with preparing the legislation, implementing it and ensuring compliance. Based on this initial calculation, we need to determine which activities or requirements can be cut at what level, where cutting is the most optimal. Important: I am not starting from the assumption that we need to cut burden to the citizen or the organization first. We need to cut where the effect of cutting is the most relevant, i.e. reduces the total cost the most. The burden to the citizen or the organization, as defined by the Standard Cost Model, is a function of the time invested in complying with the requirements and the out of pocket costs which are part of the compliance. These are very direct costs, as these are cash-outs directly related to the role of the administration, which is bothering you until you comply. The costs to government, while less direct in nature, are still cash-outs, as these are being paid for by our taxes. These costs to government are the subject of our second methodology.

2. Cost optimization at the level of the administration - When an administration is tasked to execute a role, it needs three elements: it needs people to execute, processes which these people need to follow, and technology to support these people and where possible replace them in repetitive work. This costing exercise exists under many names, but has been executed one time or another in the past years in most administrations. The data gathered here can easily be used to determine the cost elements internal to the administrations in calculating the extended burden. The risk of unchecked administration bloat needs to be countered using ideas on lean administrations.

3. Lean administrations governed by management contracts avoid administrative bloat: once beyond a certain size, traditional organizations in both public and private sector no longer exist to fulfill a purpose, but primarily exist to maintain themselves. Using management contracts limited in time which define SMART outcomes the relevance of which is questioned on a regular basis, and which can be achieved with the right resources while maintaining a positive cost/benefit balance, managed by risk metrics has been the subject of a previous post.

4. Risk metrics based on well-defined and researched risk management systems which are tasked with monitoring the weaknesses of and threats to the achievement of objectives by an administration are an essential tool to make sure that the effort of the administration, in terms of both budgetary means and resources, remains focused where it needs to be.

An approach well beyond window dressing

By integrating four of the most current public management methodologies, i.e. burden measurement, cost optimization, lean administration/lean government and risk management, we can develop an approach which makes sense to the public servants and finally gives them a shot ata structural improvement of their activities, which goes beyond current window dressing with maturity assessments which only identify a problem based on interviews and are not made for or capable of providing a comprehensive and pragmatic solution. Making the performance optimization effort transparent will significantly increase the credibility of the public sector as a whole.