FROM THE TOP: The success of a big project—or the prospects for rescuing one

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June 2005; Vol. 1 No. 2

FROM THE TOP: The success of a big project—or the prospects for rescuing one—starts with its leadership

By WYATT KASH



Wyatt Kash, editorial director

Large-scale turnarounds in the world of business invariably seem to attract more press than do comparable stories from the world of government.

That may be due in part to the sheer number of companies that stumble into misfortune and mismanagement each year. It might also reflect America’s fascination with the rise and fall of high-priced business executives.

But it is also true that government functions in a different operating world than business: where delivering programs matters more than profits; where senior executives serve many more masters; and where success tends to depend on the eye of the beholder.

As a consequence, even when government leaders do a great job turning large-scale projects around, their successes can be hard to measure—and rarely do they capture the interest that private-sector victories do.

It hasn’t helped that government has also earned a reputation for mismanagement— often on a massive scale. The list of government project meltdowns is long and illustrative.

It’s convenient to blame the size and scope of government projects, the endless turnover in leadership and ever-shifting appropriations. The challenges private sector leaders face, however, are often no less daunting.

What is it then about big government projects that results in so many projects running aground? And what does it take to turn these big projects around?

Clearly, as we discovered in reporting for this issue’s cover story (beginning on Page 12), it involves not only having the right leaders, but leaders who can make pivotal choices. Choices over how to break big projects into manageable components that people can “own”; that address the right underlying needs; and that ensure the best blend of talent gets assigned to tackle each of the major tasks.

Those are certainly some of the lessons former IRS commissioner Charles Rossotti imparted on the management team at IRS and on current IRS CIO Todd Grams. Both of them share their observations about big projects and turnarounds in this edition’s report.

There also are times when even the best offense requires a strong defense.

That was one of the takeaway lessons from a panel on project management at the recent Interagency Resource Management Conference. As former Treasury Department CIO Jim Flyzik describes it, that means having three things:

an executive steering committee composed of people who have the clout to control project resources
an integrated project team with accountability to fix what needs to be fixed
customer or end-user focus groups that meet quarterly to ensure that a project is staying true to its objectives.

Avoiding big mistakes requires a disciplined governance process, not just the best project managers.

Big project failures will always grab headlines more often than big project successes. But the tide may be turning. Management turnaround stories from the public sector may begin rivaling the lessons that have traditionally been the domain of the private sector—if not in number, then at least in importance.