It is well documented that public sector IT projects have not always delivered the expected benefits (although the problem isn’t specific to the public sector). However, improved government performance in programme and project management (PPM) is now considered essential if planned improvements to public services are to become a reality.

IT projects suffer from a number of specific difficulties – they often involve major organisational change, are highly complex and require people highly skilled in both the technical and management aspects.
PPM was once considered to be the sole preserve of specialists – today, however, it affects the work of people in many disciplines and at many levels.

As the people with ultimate responsibility for projects, ministers are affected by the success or otherwise of government PPM. Programme and project sponsors, as senior responsible owners (SROs), are accountable for delivering project within its approved cost and for realising the predicted benefits. And policy makers are now expected to include delivery considerations when developing policy, so they must utilise PPM skills.

Government stakeholders such as the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), the National Audit Office, the Strategy Unit and the Treasury agree that structured training and development are essential if people are to develop the many skills required to lead, commission, develop, manage and deliver government programmes and projects.

As SROs, project sponsors are accountable for the delivery and realisation of the benefits, and so need a clear understanding of organisational strategy and business objectives. They must be strong leaders, able to forge good relationships – especially with key stakeholders.

They must understand project and programme management sufficiently to act on information about the project’s progress, and they should appreciate the limitations of IT and communications technology and the constraints within which industry operates.

The project manager is also responsible for delivering the project within pre-determined time and cost constraints, and needs good leadership skills combined with strong commercial awareness. Methodologies such as ‘PRINCE2’ offer practitioners a framework and tools to help them maintain a critical balance between cost, time, quality and scope as they look to realise the benefits of their projects.

The practical application of these methods is crucial, and they should be adapted specifically for each programme and project, taking into consideration such factors as size, timescales and the culture of the organisation.

PPM is not simply about method, however. Increasingly it is recognised that, alongside processes and frameworks, successful delivery requires ‘soft’ skills such as effective management of people, teamworking, understanding of group dynamics and negotiation – by specialists and non-specialists alike.

A number of central initiatives have been introduced to improve performance in PPM. OGC ‘gateway reviews’ bring SROs the benefit of external review at critical points of their projects, while SRO training from OGC and the Centre for Management and Policy Studies (CMPS) equip project sponsors with the skills required to effectively own projects.

Departmental centres of excellence bring a more strategic approach to balancing a department’s need to undertake complex IT projects with its capacity to manage them, and to developing its PPM staff. The e-Government Unit is to bring in a team of IT specialists to oversee big technology projects and prevent them from failing. As well as overseeing ongoing projects, the team will be involved at the planning stages, advising on the feasibility of particular ideas and programmes.

Too often in the past, problems on major programmes and projects that should have been identified and acted upon have been missed. While the application of PPM techniques combined with this structured approach to organisational change cannot guarantee successful delivery of IT projects, experience shows that they can certainly go a long way towards reducing the chances of failure.