Think dolphins, not whales with public sector transformational change

The adoption of digital technology has made, and continues to make, a valuable contribution in the development of public sector services. However, the sizeable public investment in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and infrastructure initiatives ubiquitously continues to either partially or totally fail in the delivery of planned objectives within time and/or budget parameters.

Delivering large scale, high-value ICT and infrastructure initiatives (commonly referred to as mega programmes or projects) on time and on budget has become a rarity rather than common occurrence despite best intentions. The desired outputs, capabilities, outcomes, benefits and/or value - to the public - are often delivered over several months, if not years using a linear sequential delivery approach which regularly fails the agility test to rapidly respond to changing public demands and expectations. The outcome is that the return on public investment and value for money is often below expectations; particularly where sunk costs and accumulative overspend could have funded critical public service initiatives.

The Public Value Framework by HM Treasury acknowledges the challenges of assessing public sector productivity where traditional approaches have focused on measuring the quantity of inputs used and services provided to the public. Whereas in the private sector, the output of services is valued using their prices; the free-at-the-point-of-use or subsidised nature of public services prevents an equivalent method for valuing output.

APMG-International’s Managing Benefits by Stephen Jenner guidance highlighted that Mike Cross (Why Government IT projects Go Wrong, 2002) promoted that governments should focus on dolphins, not whales. It ought to divide programmes and large projects into a series of distinct phases or stages – similar to how dolphins breathe. This is to ensure achievement of phase or stage goals with sufficient control points in place to inform continued investment decision-making about how best to proceed to continue, discontinue or vary the scope for implementation against return on investment and impact to benefits realisation. In nature, whales tend to take long breaths, dive deep and stay submerged for long periods of time – with the level of effort to surface for another breath significant. Dolphins instead surface frequently to take short breaths, communicate and ensure regular contact with the rest of the pod. The level of effort required for each breath is negligible.

Where business, service and external risks exist, breaking work into manageable phases or stages makes sense as ‘short dives’ invariably offers more control. While ‘deep dives’ reduces the burden on the program and project board governance authority, but only where the practice of manage-by-exception is in use. Having shorter distinct phases or stages allows us to take heed of where we are now (the “baseline”), where we want to be (the “desired target state”) and determine how best to get there with a flexible plan. Hence why, planning to the horizon or to what you can see is so important. By having firm start and end dates for shorter phases and stages, it enables programmes and projects to pause, reflect and improve - when subject to independent oversight and scrutiny and where recommendations are promptly implemented. It becomes evident that the “whale” or mega programme or project approach is no longer appropriate when delivering transformational change in the public sector, at least not without frequent independent reviews linked to robust boundary, funding release decision points.

A business case ought to capture the reasoning for initiating a project or program. It should be seen as the primary document for describing how the case for change, economic and financial analysis, along with sound commercial and management analysis inform the decisions and actions for any investment proposal. The APMG Better Business Cases™ certification provides a practical “step by step” guide to the iterative development of a programme or project business case, using the Five Case Model. It promotes iterative development in a scalable and proportionate way, allowing controls points to reassess at the strategic outline case, outline business case and the full business case. It also provides a clear audit trail for purposes of transparent investment decision making.

While the benefits of transformation can be significant, particularly in the public service, delivering these programmes and projects can be incredibly challenging. By their very nature, complex transformations usually involve significant organisational and cultural change, introducing new ways of working, and experimenting with new and innovative technology. Hence why whatever industry best practice portfolio, programme, project management or product delivery framework that is adopted and used, it’s important to contextualise to the environment for the people who will ultimately direct, manage and deliver the intended outcomes and benefits. The need to provide guidance on the management of change is therefore also needed when developing the business case.

With senior management and organisational commitment to best practices, the programme and project management methodologies provide pragmatic guidance.  They provide ways for large, complex change initiatives to be broken down into manageable phases, where tranches of inter-related projects are continually aligned to the target operating model, vision and the business case. As such, program and project information ought to clearly articulate to key stakeholders the model of the future organisation, its working practices and processes, the information it requires and the technology that supports its operations. When the desired change is delivered in stepped improvements in capability, the organisation is better placed to achieve the desired outcomes that enable the forecast benefits to be realised. It is this increased capability that will enable the final realisation of benefits that often occurs well after the programme or project has been delivered.

The Home Office in the UK recognises that it’s often hard to tell how transformational change is progressing against agreed spending objectives and scope. So, the bigger the transformation, the harder it becomes to assess and keep track of it.  As such, the “7 Lenses of Transformation” was developed to help design and evaluate large government transformation programmes and projects in terms of – vision, design, plan, transformation leadership, collaboration, accountability and people. It’s these people and cultural aspects of transformation that are harder to assign a ‘red-amber-green’ rating. As a result, the National Audit Office also released a “Framework to review programmes” that should be used as part of robust governance arrangements prior to a key decision point. These frameworks help teams reflect on how their transformation programme and project is performing today and agree an ambition for where it should be by the next phase or stage. It ensures that scope and business requirements are realistic, understood, clearly articulated and capable of being put into practice.

In summary, major programmes are expensive, high profile and carry great uncertainties and risks particularly in the public sector. Like the Jemima Principle, after the nursery rhyme that ends “when she was good she was very very good and when she was bad she was horrid”. It is not surprising that many public sector investments fall short of their objectives in realising the forecast benefits and operational efficiencies. The danger of disregard and failure to heed history condemns public sector transformational change to repeat it. The solution is to adopt benefits-led change initiatives that ‘start with the end in mind’ and where the scope of the initiative is rightfully determined by the required forecast benefits stated in the business case. In short, the benefits required should determine the scope (and requirements) of the initiative rather than vice versa.