Written evidence submitted by Dr Kevin Tennent and Dr Alex Gillet (GMP0008)

Projects: Their Dynamic Ambience

Dr Kevin Tennent, University of York

Dr Alex Gillett, University of York

Summary

1. We argue there are several reasons why poor decision making and governance can happen within government major projects and programmes.
2. Some factors are unique to government projects e.g. changes in administration whereas others are shared characteristics for all large-scale projects, programmes and portfolios within any sector.
3. Projects operate in a dynamic environment and stakeholders can change over time.  It is well known stakeholders have varied levels of power and interest in projects, but we argue they also have different motives which can cause them to act in various ways.
4. There can be conflicting motives within a government project.  Private sector expertise is often brought in to fill knowledge gaps.  The conflict is that these organisations are expected to maximise shareholder value, whereas this could be seen by the public as profiteering from the public purse.
5. This can cause stakeholders to hide motives.  We believe that this creates a negative ambience within the project and consequently can cause poor decision making and governance. 
6. We actively encourage all potential motives, both imagined and realised, are discussed openly and document in an annually reviewed interest register.  This register should form part of core project governance and be considered as part of the annual review that National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) undertakes on all government major projects, programmes and portfolios.
7. The authors have an established track record of historically informed research on the topic of project management across the public and private sectors. We are active members of the academic community and are both employed full time by the University of York, School for Business and Society, part of Russell Group of Research-Intensive UK Universities.

Introduction

8. Projects do not exist in a vacuum.  Whilst you can learn how to apply a project methodology, managing a project is an art rather than a science due to the dynamic social environment it is operating within. 
9. Projects exist within a timebound, institutional context.  This short report adapts Flyvbjerg’s four sublimes (2012, 2014) into our concept of dynamic sublimes (Gillett and Tennent, 2017) to provide the Public Accounts Committee our interpretation as to several factors which mean “governance arrangements that look suitable on paper do not always work as intended in practice” within government major projects and programmes.

Key Findings

10. The strategic objectives of a government major project or programme may change to adapt to the technological, political, economic or aesthetic environment.
11. Typically, a government major project or programme is longer than an election cycle.  This can mean that projects or programmes can be partially completed when a new administration forms.   A new government will have fresh priorities and make alternatives choices.  They will need to form new relationships with project stakeholders and priorities may change.  These changes risk undermining decision making, project governance and can change strategic objectives. This does not always create poor outcomes, revised strategic objectives can generate better value for the public.  However, uncertainty in the middle of a major project, can be destabilising, create ambiguity, slow project progress and generate lower financial returns due to rework.
12. Whilst politicians serve the public, they have their own political agendas and need to consider the political party that they serve. Therefore, whilst major government projects and programmes are initiated for the public good, there are often political motives for implementing them.  Flyvbjerg (2012, 2014) utilises the concept of sublimes to explain how stakeholder groups may agree the project aims but have differing motives for participating.  The table below provides examples of this for each of the four sublimes:

Table 1: Four Sublimes of Megaprojects

Source: adapted and developed from Flyvbjerg, 2014, p. 8.

13. We argue in Gillett and Tennent (2017) that the sublimes can change over time as a project develops.  This can happen in any of the five stages of a project – initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and controlling, or closing.   For example, in a downward economic environment, funding availability could reduce part way through a programme, meaning that a project to build a new hospital changes scope and becomes a refurbishment project.
14. The power and interest of stakeholders in the project is a key concern to the project commissioning organisation (Bryson, 2004). As the sublimes are dynamic so are the power and interest of different stakeholders.  The long length of government programmes mean that stakeholders often change for example turnover of staff or supplier failure.  As stakeholders change, the power and interest of this group can vary.  For the purpose of this paper, we have named this the Dynamic Ambience of Projects (DAP). 
15. Institutional logic (Thornton et. al, 2012) describes how the practices of a sector repeated over time influences the norms that the industry operates within and this in turn can influence the DAP.  In situations where the DAP works well, the people will establish rapport, have clear overarching objectives, and be able to respect each other’s motives as long as they can benefit the overall delivery of the project (Gillett et al, 2016; 2019).
16. In cases where there is poor DAP, teams struggle to work cohesively because they cannot see how their competing interests can be reconciled with the strategic objectives of the project. 
17. In some government projects, there is a conflict between getting the best value for the public, e.g. the clash between utility (Marshall, 1890), versus private sector partners wanting to maximise shareholder value (Jensen and Meckling, 1976; Smith, 1776). An example of this is using private sector expertise in government projects.  This will benefit projects where there is a skill gap in the public sector, but may also be being utilised to reduce the government employed headcount and the negative public perception that creates.  This is where it is exceptionally important to consider the navigation of these competing motives to manage the DAP and ethical boundaries (Greenwood et al. 2011). We believe that a more useful approach is to proactively navigate these tensions and incorporate the ethics of both public and private sectors when making project decisions and implementing governance.
18. Levels of decision-making in projects are also relevant – projects are managed at the institutional, strategic and tactical levels.

Source: adapted and developed from Morris and Geraldi (2011).

19. Having a range of stakeholders can make it difficult to manage decisions at strategic and tactical levels.  This is because having a large range of stakeholders can lead to institutional complexity and ambiguity of responsibility meaning projects become difficult to control.  For instance, a government project may rely on a contractor to deliver the strategic capabilities of a programme, which the contractor will then subcontract the tactical delivery across the project lifecycle (design, build and operate). The various contractors will bring private sector logic which may conflict with the public sector logic and cause tensions within the project.  This can be amplified by the size of the organisations and resources such as the financial and human resources at their disposal (Gillett et al., 2019; Gillett et al., 2016).

Conclusion: DAP Synergies

20. The key conclusion is that projects are not static instruments, and they adapt through their lifecycles and due to evolving stakeholders’ needs and motives.  A positive DAP is essential to being able effectively govern and deliver major government projects and programmes.
21. A core factor in generating a positive DAP is a mutual understanding that different players have varying motives, and that in successful projects these can co-exist, be visible and even combine and become more than the sum of the parts and the overall strategic objectives of the programme.  DAP synergies are thus achieved.
22. A key example of where this has worked well is in the 1966 FIFA World Cup hosted in England saw the funding of a sporting event by government for the first time.  This was controversial at the time, attracting Public Accounts Committee scrutiny as the loans made to host football clubs were unsecured (The National Archives ED100/155, 1967), as well as attracting some political opposition due to its novelty but is now a source of retrospective pride (Gillett and Tennent, 2017; Gillett and Tennent, 2020). 

Next Steps

23. To support this, we recommend the implementation of a Sublime Interest Register (SIR).  The purpose of an SIR is for the project team to document the potential competing interests of key stakeholders.  To maximise input into the register, it should be triple locked:

a)      By being filled in from the perspective of a neutral party and be similar in nature to a risk register.

b)      Updated annually as a minimum to manage the dynamic environment

c)      Reviewed by NISTA as part of each major government project and programmes annual review.

The triple locked SIR facilitates openness without blame and enables the project to bring to the surface any potential ulterior motives which could derail it.  It also encourages the delivery of motivations that align with wider government missions. 

24. If you wish to discuss this submission further, please do not hesitate to reach out to us and we will be happy to answer any questions.

References

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Flyvbjerg, B., 2014. What you should know about megaprojects and why: An overview. Project management journal, 45(2), pp.6-19.

Gillett, A., Loader, K., Doherty, B. and Scott, J.M., 2016. A multi-organizational cross-sectoral collaboration: empirical evidence from an ‘Empty Homes’ project. Public Money & Management, 36(1), pp.15-22.

Gillett, A., Loader, K., Doherty, B. and Scott, J.M., 2019. An examination of tensions in a hybrid collaboration: A longitudinal study of an empty homes project. Journal of Business Ethics, 157, pp.949-967.

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