Policy Success through Project Performance

In recent years New Zealand government has taken a specific approach to monitoring its major projects. Major projects in New Zealand represent government’s most complex, high-value investments. The Major Projects... [ view full abstract ]

In recent years New Zealand government has taken a specific approach to monitoring its major projects. Major projects in New Zealand represent government’s most complex, high-value investments. The Major Projects Performance Report July 2016 looks at 55 major projects being delivered across 33 agencies with a whole-of-life cost of $36B. Major projects make up 11% of the government investment portfolio, but account for 45% of the cost(Treasury, 2016) Projects are categorized into ‘Keep the Business Running’, ‘Grow the Business’ and ‘Transformational Change’.

Our interest is in the government’s approach to assessment of these Major Projects. The Government clearly states that the assessments are not a judgement about whether a project or idea is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but indicate whether a project is on track to deliver its intended benefits within existing constraints.

We intend to connect the logic of the project performance reporting (Flyvbjerg, 2011) with the literature on policy success (McConnell, 2010) with a view to understanding whether the New Zealand government is able to learn from policy failures (Bovens and ‘t Hart, 2016). Is major project performance reporting a way by which to establish systematic criteria for assessing policy success or failure (Marsh and McConnell, 2010)?

The paper is based on an interpretivist analysis of documentary sources such as evaluation reports, government policy briefs/reports, and some grey literature.

Selected references:

Bovens, M. and t’Hart, P.(2016) ‘Revisiting the study of policy failures’, Journal of European Public Policy, 23:5, pp.653-666.
Flyvbjerg, B.(2011) ‘Over Budget, Over Time, Over and Over Again: Managing Major Projects, in The Oxford Handbook of Project Management, eds. Morris, P., Pinto, J. and Söderlund, J. [online] DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199563142.003.0014.
Marsh, D. and McConnell, A. (2010) ‘Towards a Framework for Establishing Policy Success’, Public Administration, 88:2, pp. 564-583.
McConnell, A. (2010) ‘Policy Success, Policy Failure and Grey Areas In-Between’, Journal of Public Policy, 30:3, pp. 345-362.
New Zealand Government, the Treasury. Major Projects Performance Report 2016. [online] Available at: http://www.treasury.govt.nz/statesector/investmentmanagement/publications/majorprojects Accessed 4/10/2016.