Delivering Projects in the Public Sector

By: John A. Collins
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:23:29
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Introduction

Increasingly Public bodies are looking to leverage the internet to enable their operations and push more of the processing to the point of contact with the customer. This enables a more efficient and cost-effective model to be put in place which allows resources to be reassigned to activities which deliver additional value. This increased level of activity and demand in this sector means that even more attention needs to be paid to ensuring that the correct levels of Project Governance and Best Practice are in place.

What is meant by e-Government

e-Government can be described as the use of technology to improve the delivery of services and information to government customers and partners. e.g. citizens, business citizens, suppliers, employees, regulators, other government agencies, EU, etc. There are seven main benefits for e-enabling an organisation:

1. Improved Customer Service - e-Government allows organisations provide a better level of service in terms of availability and convenience, and it will allow government offer new services to customers that were previously not feasible.
2. External Cost Benefits - The availability of services and information on-line will lead to large savings for Government. Many organisations have seen 5 to 100 fold savings by putting self-service applications on-line.
3. Internal Cost Benefits - Much of the benefit of electronic government accrues from translating internal business processes to an online environment thereby significantly reducing costs.
4. Focus - The moving of transactions on-line allows organisations become more strategically focused and result in citizens getting value for money.
5. Improved Decision Making - Managers will have a wealth of transaction and customer information that will support them in their decision making and allow them make more informed decisions.
6. Collaboration - Many government services and processes are cross agency. Internet technologies allows different departments/sections manage and provide services and processes in a seamless way to citizens.
7. Revenue Generation - Some government organisations will be in a position to develop new revenue generation services that weren't previously possible. For example, the US federal Government generates more sales online than one of the leading online marketplaces.

Understanding the value-add of e-Government-based initiatives is now becoming even more important. Therefore technology needs to be viewed as a function that should enable the organisation to deliver services efficiently and effectively. Functionality such as Grant Management; Case Management; Document Tracking and Workflow are increasingly relevant to most e-Government initiatives.

Stakeholder involvement from the earliest stages are critical and Project Managers must be able to communicate effectively with a variety of interest groups, many of which are geographically dispersed.

Ensuring that the requirements (and expectations) are fully articulated and captured is absolutely critical. Knowing the limitations of technology while understanding cost-benefit is also important as some processes may well be better left uncomputerised.

Avoiding Pitfalls and Taking Corrective Action

It may be an obvious statement but Projects MUST be run as projects. This means that the correct levels of resourcing, governance and sponsorship need to be in place on BOTH sides. Many project failures in the past have often been due to over-reliance on the supplier to deliver the project, almost without the involvement of the public body (beyond the tendering and procurement process).

Issues and risks will always cause some change to occur on a project. How these are monitored and managed is of critical importance in enabling the Project Manager(s) to recognise that corrective action might be required.

There are any number of corrective actions that can be taken depending on the nature of the change. For example, if the schedule is under pressure it might be decided to deliver only those requirements / features deemed critical to the operation of the solution. Alternatively additional resources could be added - but this course of action needs to be managed carefully. Another course of action is to postpone implementation and re-evaluate the project.

Generally however, if good governance is in place, it is unusual for any significant 'drama' to arise without early warning signs that allow corrective action to be taken well in advance of implementation.

How to choose a supplier

Classically referencability. Has the service provider done this before? What is their capacity for delivering projects? Do they understand the business case for what we (the public body) are trying to achieve? Do they understand how this initiative may impact the current or planned landscape of other e-Government initiatives?

Summary

Public Bodies are rarely in a race to 'stay ahead' as they are not in competition. Rather, they are more interested in 'fitness-for-purpose'. The utilisation of technology, whether established (e.g. document management) or leading edge (e.g. biometrics) has always been driven by the business requirement.

Therefore Project Managers need to be more business-focused. They must have the ability to continually assess the projects alignment with it's original business case.

Additionally, the traditional measures of project success may not always mean that a project can be deemed to be successful. For example: A project that comes in on time, to scope and on budget may well be a failure if the correct stakeholders have not been engaged during the lifecycle of the project.

Therefore it is very important to ensure that additional, value-added measures of success such as the management of dependencies and the level of quality delivered are also part of the "mix".

Article source: Expert Articles