Over the years I have reviewed many projects at various stages of their lifecycle. It is fascinating how naïve some business cases are. Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner, in their book “How big things get done”, suggested that this was often due to strategic misrepresentation. The rational behind strategic misrepresentation is to get the project beyond the point of no return. I can’t sell the full situation, so I make the sell much smaller and deal with the consequences later. Does this sound familiar?
In other situations, the underestimation is based on unknowns and unknowables not being accounted for. The question is to whom are the unknowns unknown? This is where the research statement can play an important part in the more robust business case. The business case needs to demonstrate that proper research is conducted into past projects and that the lessons are incorporated into this case.
The common objection is that this project has unique conditions and past projects are not good examples. In my experience this is nonsense. The more data available the better informed the triangulation process of estimation is. It this argument were true then why does the research suggest strong patterns form in project performance?
The second objection is that reliable information is not available. Historically this was probably true but no more. Again, Bent Flyvbjerg et al. have published very good statically significant information. Others have followed suit including the Grattan Institute’s excellent paper “cost overruns in transport infrastructure.” The latter document includes 500 projects in its data set.
In future I suggest that all business cases include in the risk management section of the report a statement of the extent of research conducted into past projects, the lessons discerned and how those lessons are incorporated into this business case.
Further one of the major universities should establish an ongoing project to capture and publish project performance metrics in standardised form. This should be publicly funded and available to the public. All government and grant based projects should be compelled to provide their data while private enterprise should also be encouraged to participate. This will provide a great foundation for future business cases and database for better project management research.
A great model to learn from is International Consortium of Health Outcomes (ICHOM). It uses health outcome data in a standardised way to inform decision making, improve quality and reduce total cost.
Let’s get started!
