Public Sector Projects - could they do better?

And as far as public sector projects go, we all have an interest. The eventual users of the system - citizens like you and me, and the public sector staff who have to use the internal systems - are often the last to be consulted when a new system is rolled out. 

The public sector is sometimes better than their private sector counterparts at doing this - but the NHS IT programme is a prime example of not getting this right.

So what can be done to improve performance? Well, good project management isn't rocket science and really embedding it into the public sector would help greatly (the National Audit Office is still reporting that a basic task like getting a business case approved is not being done).

Getting proper business ownership and being able to manage scope creep (and say ‘no’ if necessary) is vital, as is getting a good handle of what's happening in the business now, and what needs to change in terms of the business process before moving on to the IT systems.

Smaller projects might help too—instead of handing over a whole department to an IT supplier or consortium for ‘transformation’, departments or local authorities might like to think through what it is their citizens really want and what they need to do to improve their operational capability.

So yes, public sector IT projects could do better; but it is the very nature of the business that government organisation and priorities will change.

I can't easily see any end to the stream of negative NAO reports—but really adhering to some of the basic principles of project management such as getting the business case right, clear ownership and better stakeholder management would be a big step forward.

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