An insider's perspective: Governance of large ICT software projects in the Australian and New Zealand public sectors
Creators: name: Douglas, Grant
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 2021

description: For many decades, world-wide, and across sectors, large ICT software projects have experienced ongoing poor outcomes with industry research indicating that almost all will fail to deliver to original expectations, some spectacularly so. There is much existing research on the causes of both public and private sector project failure, such as poor project management. Despite all this past learning and research, the problems continue. To address an identified gap in literature this research differentiates itself from other research by a number of factors. Firstly, it will focus on the collective Australian and New Zealand public sectors, where it is argued there is a dearth of targeted research. Secondly, these large projects all operate within institutional frameworks that provide the rules, guidelines, and controls for these projects. These collectively form the institutional governance of large ICT software projects. Given that the Australian and New Zealand public sectors also continue to have poor outcomes, yet they have historically developed institutional frameworks, there is something amiss. Therefore, the research puzzle is, how effective are these institutional frameworks in providing the governance for large ICT software projects in these sectors? To address this puzzle the research further differentiates itself from existing literature. The thesis applies an institutionalist's lens. To obtain the data a qualitative, interpretive, and comparative research design was applied. Seventy-five elite interviews were conducted, stakeholders who have had and continue to have direct involvement in these large projects and therefore have a very personal perspective on the institutional frameworks. This in effect is a collaborative exercise to discover the perspectives of the institutional governance from those most impacted. The narrative to emerge is that the institutional frameworks are in a state of inertia. They are failing to adapt due to a number of institutional factors. Change is costly, and politically and organisationally not prioritised. The frameworks 'stick' to a path historically implemented. Governance is imposing structure over agency. Leadership in governance is failing to collaborate. Finally, there is a culture of forgetting, from one project to the next. All have public policy implications. There is a perception that the inertia will continue. Therefore, the dominant perspective was to reduce the complexity. Stop undertaking large projects as traditionally planned, where a 'superhuman' capability is required, break them down into a series of smaller component-based projects. Actors with agency and entrepreneurial skills have done so successfully. However, they succeeded by circumventing the institutional frameworks to address their weaknesses. These entrepreneurs are also rare. To address the rather sad perspective that nothing much is likely to change, and that success will remain dependent upon chance, a more practical proposal was identified. Undertake a brutal independent assessment at the initiation stage of the likelihood of the project to deliver as planned. The assumption is that given the likelihood is you will have poor outcomes, that the forecast is just a guess, the agency/project need to explain how they will address this. If you have planned as a single large project, you cannot start. If you do not have a skilled, trained, and committed sponsor you cannot start. If you do not have the project management capability and capacity required, you cannot start. The logic is simple, if you do not have the ability to enable successful delivery, it is better to stop the project at the initiation stage and work on a revised plan until you determine how you can. Project funding also needs to change to support this approach, to be iterative and progressive based on results, delivery, and revised forecasts for the next stage. Even this practical approach may be a bridge too far for the public sector.