2 September 2002

Swift And Sound Project & Programme Delivery

By Connor Birch

The public sector is typically more efficient at delivering established services to its customers than it is at running projects effectively. To meet government objectives, projects (and programmes) which transform the public sector or develop services must be completed more swiftly and deliver a sound solution. Although the adoption of appropriate project management processes and tools has helped, effective delivery of projects is still elusive. This article outlines an approach to affect Swift And Sound project delivery, which complements accepted processes and tools.

Current Limitations to Project Capability

In this document, for the sake of brevity, the term project refers to both project and programme.

Although projects are often seen to go off the rails part way through, the seeds of their failure are usually sewn at the beginning. Seeds of failure include poor definition, lack of sponsorship, lack of user buy-in, insufficient secured resources etc. The problems become more apparent as milestone dates pass.

The most crucial time for any project is the beginning. Adequate staffing of projects is possibly the most difficult challenge at project commencement in the public sector; the following will be familiar to many:

	.	Project start is delayed, sometimes by months, while key staff are selected
	.	Initial progress is slow as further staff are sought
	.	Staff who maintain their operational responsibilities are co-opted into a project role. Although less important to the organisation’s strategy, operational commitments, are more urgent to current operations and hence take priority over project work
	.	Project roles are assumed by staff without the appropriate training or background
	.	Many staff ‘assigned to the project’ do not consider themselves to be members of the project team and may have loyalties to differing lines of management, including those who have not bought in to the project
	.	Many staff do not recognise the need to follow project disciplines
	.	Roles and processes are often misunderstood resulting in neglected activities.

The effect is costly projects, with inappropriate or unachievable goals, and with little prospect of meeting the original expectations. Some projects are abandoned. Some have to have their deliverables so watered down that they achieve little. Other projects, typically those carrying a high political need for success, go way over budget, deliver late, and usually still need watered down deliverables.

The SAS Approach

The Swift And Sound (SAS) approach is partly based on effective process, but the key discriminator is fast deployment of well equipped, high calibre personnel who are 100% committed to the project. In this respect, the SAS approach embraces a doctrine of the military unit that shares its initials.

Having a fully resourced team early in the project lifecycle is crucial since requirements need to be properly understood before time and money are sunk into solution activities. Fast inauguration of projects is less about process and more about having the right calibre people to deploy at the right time.

SAS is envisioned as a centre of excellence for project capability within each public sector organisation. Each SAS unit would:

	1	Recruit high calibre project staff, motivate them, train them in best of breed practice, and deploy them to where they are needed most. This includes Project and Programme managers, analysts, planners, and organisational change specialists.
	2	Recruit capable and flexible staff that is able to temporarily back-fill operations staff to allow them to be devoted to project activities for as long as their service knowledge is required by the project.
	3	Encourage use of best of breed processes, methods and tools.
	4	Operate a unified project support organisation providing practical backup to field teams (rather than bureaucratic intervention).

Financial effectiveness is largely a natural byproduct of the Swift and Sound approach:

	.	Swift implementation confines costs to a short duration. Prompt completion allows benefits to be realised early
	.	Sound project management minimises wasted effort and ensures a close fit between what the organisation needs and what is delivered.

An SAS unit should not be seen as just another skill centre, cost centre, or profit centre. One factor that usually limits the full benefit of skill centres is the requirement for these units to achieve a high staff utilisation level. While high utilisation does maximise the profitability of such units, it necessitates a corresponding low availability of staff to the rest of the organisation. The SAS units, instead, would have the mission of achieving fast deployment of appropriate numbers of suitably qualified staff. To maximise flexibility in staffing, SAS units may contain a mix of permanent and contract staff.

The SAS units would implement some elements new to each organisation and draw together various disparate people and staff. These might include the current process methods and tools groups, existing programme and project managers, and staff from the existing project office(s).

The SAS unit for each organisation would need to comprise:

1. Project and Programme Management

There are significant benefits in having Project and Programme managers in the SAS management reporting line rather than reporting into business areas. These are:

	.	SAS would act as a centre of excellence for project management, developing the skills of individuals. SAS mentors would assist each manager as they worked on their project, both supporting the individual and improving the success of their project
	.	SAS would provide a clear career progression path and easy relocation, potentially improving the retention rate for key staff
	.	Managers would be encouraged to observe best practice at all times. SAS would operate an accreditation scheme with a re-earnable bonus based on adherence to the standards and methods for achieving Swift and Sound project delivery
	.	While the SAS organisation would improve prompt project delivery, Project Managers would feel freer to be honest with internal customers about what can realistically be delivered, and feel more comfortable in challenging assumptions
	.	Managers would be fully supported by the other elements of SAS (see below).

Taking project management out of operational line management and placing it in a centre of excellence can generate some political resistance, but the approach has many benefits that outweigh natural desires of line management. Sponsors of programmes and projects would become customers of a quality service rather than having the added responsibility of managing project staff who have particularly unique requirements.

2. Organisational change specialists, project consultants, purchasing experts, business and technical analysts.

Understanding the requirements, the impact on the business, impact on service, human issues as well as solution design is crucial before serious development activity begins. Insufficient analysis leads to ‘essential’ changes being introduced into the project downstream with significant impact on time scale and budget. To help ensure that requirements are really understood and effectively addressed, appropriately skilled staff would be deployed by SAS with the following benefits:

	.	Specialist staff would not have to be ‘spared’ from operations, which may have their own resourcing issues to contend with
	.	Staff would be deployable in the same timeframe as project and programme managers
	.	Staff would be used to working on projects, be familiar with project managers, be accustomed to project processes and understand the SAS approach
	.	Staff would receive the same career benefits listed above.

3. Process, Methods, and Tools.

There are many good processes, methods, and tools in place. The objective of SAS would not be to change these where they work well, but to ensure that they are properly adopted.

4. Project Support Unit.

Having a project support unit constituted within the SAS would help to ensure its focus on providing the right support to Project Managers so that they can spend their time managing projects well. This would include:

	.	Advising managers on process
	.	Assisting project planning including what-if scenarios
	.	Providing PM technical support, for example, conversion of plans from one format to another
	.	Providing non-standard reporting where there is a need
	.	Administrative support.

Although it is anticipated that public sector organisations would create their own SAS units, a national SAS agency could assist individual units to gain the required level of effectiveness, or even to monitor the performance of those units. A national agency would help in the transmission of best practice from one organisation to another, and assist in the creation of common tools. Through its connections between public sector organisations, such an agency could provide increased job mobility for high calibre project staff; this is particularly useful in the project arena as projects and programmes have short lives and often a particular organisation would not be able to provide appropriate challenges to staff on project completion.

Conclusion

Effective project delivery has proved elusive in many public sector organisations. Although process, tools, and methods have much to offer, organisational issues have prevented them from delivering the anticipated benefits.

The ability to deliver projects swiftly and soundly is crucial to achieving government objectives. The SAS approach is our best chance at rapidly improving project capability across the public sector. In addition, it provides an organisational structure for ratcheting up future project performance. This is particularly important in the public sector where the ability of an administration to effect change within a specific term aids democracy.

This can work. For a rapidly expanding European outsourcing company, I defined the Project Management Process, improved project finances (including the introduction of Earned Value Analysis), developed the electronic tool set, and ran the project management accreditation scheme. These developments greatly improved the company’s project capability, increased speed of reaction to customer expectations, and allowed faster organisational change. “The most important project in the company” delivered better services for the same cost. These benefits are transferable to the public sector.

Connor Birch’s extensive experience of implementing change programmes for public and private organisations have allowed him to improve the success rate and timely delivery of major programmes. He welcomes feedback and questions on this article and can be contacted at Connor_Birch@Yahoo.co.uk.

Connor Birch’s independent opinion appears courtesy of Prospect – a recruitment consultancy committed to ‘enabling better features’ and sourcing the people to drive eGovernment. For further information go to http://www.prospectmsl.com/ or email info@prospectmsl.com