Analyzing The Foundations of Public-Sector Project Management

Unity 2

2.1 The public sector project management

Any effort that is creative is a project. Any attempt to change something or create a new outcome
is a project. In government, a budget is a project, process improvement is a project, and creation
and deployment of a new program are projects. All a project takes is a start, an end, and a unique
outcome, and even though projects have different dimensions and challenges, as discussed later,
they can be managed using the same principles.

2.2 The problem with projects

Many (some even say most) projects fail in both the private and public sectors. Public-sector
projects come in over budget, sometimes by massive margins. Projects get finished late, and—
more often than you might believe—they do not get finished at all. Projects do not deliver what
they were intended to deliver.

2.3 Why do public sector projects fail?

Project-sector projects fail for all of the normal reasons that any project fails. Projects in all
sectors of the economy fail because they:

 Fail to identify the needs of customers or users of the product or the project
 Create overly optimistic schedules and fail to anticipate the impact of late deliverables
 Do not get the resources necessary to complete the project
 Do not devote enough time to project planning
 Are subject to changing management priorities
 Employ technology that does not work as expected
 Do not get good performance from vendors
 Get overwhelmed by competing projects and do not apply solid project prioritization
 Do not adequately identify, analyze, and address project risks
 Make assumptions that are not validated and agreed to
 Dissolve in the face of conflict among stakeholders
 Get overtaken by unexpected events

Page 1 of 7
 Analyzing The Foundations of Public-Sector Project Management

 Do not apply solid and repeatable project management methods

 Do not have the benefit of an experienced project manager
 Do not engage and involve stakeholders throughout the project
 Do not identify lessons learned from prior projects
 Define an overly broad project scope that cannot be well-defined

In addition, public-sector projects can fail for a set of reasons related to the unique character of
public-sector projects. In that regard, they:

 Run afoul of political processes

 Lack the necessary resources because of requirements to use existing staff rather than to
contract for the right expertise
 Are constrained by civil-service rules that limit assignment of activities to project staff
 Lose budget authorization
 Lose support at the change of administration due to electoral cycles
 Are overwhelmed by administrative rules and required processes for purchasing and
hiring
 Fail to satisfy oversight agencies
 Adopt overly conservative approaches due to the contentious nature of the project
environment
 Are victimized by suboptimal vendors who have been selected by purchasing processes
that are overly focused on costs or that can be influenced by factors that are not relevant
to performance
 Are compromised by the bias of public-sector managers and staff toward compliance
over performance
 Fail to identify project goals given the wide array of project stakeholders in the public
sector and the challenges of identifying publicsector goals and metrics for success

Doing projects right in the public sector requires more than knowledge of project
management methods. It requires creativity, communications, organization, conflict
management, and hard work. It requires management of the unique constraints imposed by
public-sector organizations, which will be discussed at length later As projects get more

Page 2 of 7
 Analyzing The Foundations of Public-Sector Project Management

complex and as the number of people impacted by the projects grows, those projects will
become even more challenging.

2.4 Project management standards

Project management can be learned. That does not mean that anybody can become a great project
manager. Being a great project manager requires knowledge of project management, knowledge
of the technology being employed, and the ability to communicate, empathize, and manage
conflict. Anyone, though, can become a better project manager.

Because all sorts of organizations recognized that they could not keep shooting themselves in the
foot by failing at project management, they began to try to get better at it. They started studying
project management, buying project management training for their employees, and developing
project management methods and tools. Good project management became a competitive
advantage for private-sector organizations, and project management began to be viewed as a
necessary skill for managers at many levels of the organization.

Soon after, project management became a recognized discipline in organizations, universities,

and professional development programs.

The project management method developed by the Project Management Institute (PMI1) is that
standard, and its Project Management Professional (PMP1) Certification is the gold standard in
project management certification. The PMI project management Knowledge Areas are described
in A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK1 Guide—Fourth Edition),

Recognition of the importance of project management in the public sector has also grown. PMI
has also recognized the value of government project management and has done two important
things:

1. Established a government project special-interest group to allow public project managers to

share best practices and develop their skills

2. Created a Government Extension to the PMBOK1 Guide Third Edition which provides
information on project management within the unique environment of the public sector and
accumulates good practices that have become widely accepted in the field

Page 3 of 7
 Analyzing The Foundations of Public-Sector Project Management

Public-sector organizations have also recognized the value of good project management, as
indicated by:

 The creation of project management training programs at the state and federal levels
 The increasing recognition of the PMP1 certification as a necessary qualification for
public project managers and minimum requirement for some positions

2.5 Value of project management to the public organizations

Project management can help a public organization adapt to the changing dynamics of the
environment within which those organizations must function. Project management works under
those circumstances because it:

 Defines outcomes to be achieved

 Identifies the minimal resources necessary to complete those objectives
 Allows the organization to move quickly and to hit schedule targets
 Manages the risks of goal achievement
 Focuses the organization’s attention on the goal and the required outcomes
 Creates change

In the public sector, creating a focus on outcomes is particularly important because of the
challenges public-sector organizations face in identifying and reaching definable goals.

One of the most useful attributes of disciplined project management is its ability to make
managers and team members engage in ‘‘adult thinking.’’ Adult thinking is different from
‘‘magical thinking,’’ which many organizations and managers like to engage in. Magical
thinking allows a manager or an organization to imagine that they do not have to make choices;
magical thinking implies that an organization can have things two ways at the same time.

The downward side of Project Management

Despite its being a potent tool to improve the operations of public-sector organizations, project
management is not perfect. Its downsides include the facts that:

Page 4 of 7
 Analyzing The Foundations of Public-Sector Project Management

 Project management can encourage short-term thinking in that the focus on task
accomplishment that project management provides is a strength and a weakness.
 Project management can require new skills that may be difficult for some managers to
adopt.
 Project management can increase stress by requiring accountability and performance,
although it can reduce stress by ending the magical thinking that public-sector managers
might have engaged in.
 Project management can provide an incentive for focusing on measurable, tangible
benefits ahead of long-term strategic needs.
 Project management, poorly applied, can create new management processes that do not
add enough value to offset their cost.
 The deployment of project management processes and methods may irritate senior
project managers who prefer to ‘‘do things their way.’’
 Project deadlines can wear out staff.

Too much project management discipline and too many processes can be applied to the extent
that the benefits of project management are no longer worth the costs. To avoid that over
commitment to project management, project management processes must be scalable based on
the risk of the project. That is to say that if a project is of low risk (e.g., it is a type of project that
the organization has had substantial success with or can expect easy success with), the project
management methods applied to it do not need to be extensive. A little project management
discipline may add value, but extensive processes will not. For high-risk projects, the project
management methods of the organization need to be applied with greater discipline.

2.6 Critical serious factors for public sector projects

Best practices can increase the probability of project success. Some general project critical
success factors for public-sector projects include:

 A project management methodology built specifically for the needs of the projects of the
organization that is scalable based on project risk
 An interactive dialogue among stakeholders that continues throughout the process
 A detailed process for identifying user and supplementary requirements

Page 5 of 7
 Analyzing The Foundations of Public-Sector Project Management

 Management support of the project management process

 Capable project managers with both hard and soft skills who have the ability to:
 Envision the project as a community endeavor and enlist a broad group in problem
resolution
 Share credit for success
 Manage complex processes that may be required by law or administrative rule
 Respond quickly and positively to adversity, which is a constant of public-sector projects
 Manage conflict among stakeholders and to recognize the interests of even those who
might oppose the project
 Deal with the press when necessary

2.7 Scaling project management methods

Not all projects require detailed project management methods, and unnecessary processes that
are a burden to project managers should be avoided. The goal is to create project management
processes and methods that provide cost-effective reductions of project risk. That is, the goal is
to find a set of project management strategies that increase the probability that projects will be
successful. That is usually defined as being on-time and on-schedule, with the necessary
functionality the product of the project requires.

The best way to make certain that project management methods are cost effective is to identify
the risks of the project types engaged in and create a set of project management methods that
should be used for each risk type. That is a two-step process:

1. Identifying the project management methods to be applied to the various risk classes

2. Analyzing the risks of projects and fitting them to the risk classes

2.8 Use of software for project management

There are a variety of software that can help a project manager track details of the project. For
large projects, the use of software is almost required. A few comments about project
management software may be appropriate.

Page 6 of 7
 Analyzing The Foundations of Public-Sector Project Management

First, no software manages a project. People manage projects, and the use of software can create
tunnel vision for project managers. Instead of being actively engaged with project stakeholders,
project managers can become focused on the software and conclude that the software models are
the project.

Second, software has the capability to assist the project manager in two ways. The first, which is
the purpose of most project management software, is to help the project manager deal with the
high volume of data. Project management software can create a schedule, track performance, and
create project status reports that might have been beyond the capability of the project team. The
second use of software in project management might be even more important. A new generation
of software allows the project team to communicate easily, share documents, and engage in
disciplined brainstorming. This software (e.g., Microsoft’s SharePoint) allows web portals to be
established for a project team and its stakeholders. Access can be controlled to that project site,
and stakeholders can use the site to share information and store current versions of key
documents.

Third, enterprise project management software can be purchased and applied to coordinate the
management of projects across a large enterprise. This software can allow senior managers to
follow project status across the enterprise from a management ‘‘dashboard.’’ Enterprise project
management software can also be used to coordinate and control resource utilization across the
enterprise. For best results, consult with an expert in enterprise software deployment prior to
attempting to install one of these systems to ensure that your organization is ready to employ the
many features of these systems.

End of unity 2 lecture notes

Page 7 of 7