What Government/Contractor PMs Really Want

 

I think that there’s a major management science issue inherent in managing projects for the government – any government – but I have never seen it addressed in the PM periodicals. It has to do with the nature of the real customer, and how far removed they are from the actual transaction(s). I’ll explain by way of example.

If I decide I want to buy a product or a service, I’ll do some research on the desired good or service, and will generally do more research as the anticipated price goes up. By the time I initiate the actual transaction, I’m spending my own money – based on how much I have budgeted (or can afford), balanced against the level of quality or capability I have determined best for my uses. In this scenario, waste is minimized – I have set the budget, and I have determined the parameters for a successful acquisition, so I’m in a position to let the competition among suppliers determine the best price for my target. This kind of purchase is known as a first-party transaction.

In those instances where I am spending my own money, but for someone else’s benefit (gift-giving, for example), the price is still important to me, but I’m a little less concerned about the “perfect fit” aspect of the transaction. In those cases where I’m buying a gift for a family member who has been very specific about what they want, I do my best to accommodate them, assuming their very specific request fits within my budget. Similarly, if I am the recipient of a product or service that I'm not paying for (like being given a gift), then I’m keenly interested in the quality of the product or service, but a bit less concerned about its price. These are known as second-party transactions, and they have an increased opportunity for waste or abuse since the spending versus expected quality parameters are not as precisely aligned as in first-person transactions.

Finally, in those instances where I’m neither the person paying for the product or service, nor the recipient or consumer, the opportunities for waste or abuse are magnified further due to the additional mis-alignment of an exact budget figure versus a clear picture of the precise nature of what is to be delivered. These are known as third-party transactions. Much of what most Western industrialized governments spend their money on falls in this category, as in government-furnished food, housing, or health care, and, predictably enough, much fraud, waste, and abuse is present in such programs.

Meanwhile, back in the project management world…

For managers in charge of government projects, such transactions tend to fall into the second-party category. Our government customers don’t actually pay for the projects out of their own pockets (“Do you have any idea how many points I get if I pay for that aircraft carrier using my Discover Card?”), but instead act as representatives for the actual buyers, those citizens who pay taxes. They can be counted on to become highly adversarial if the project looks like it’s going to bust its approved budget, but will usually be okay with the cost as long as that does not happen. Generally speaking, the customer will not be the actual person using or consuming the final product or service, but they are typically very closely related to those who do, and can be counted on to be extremely interested in the quality of the product. So, if the cost doesn’t mean as much as the delivered product, what can we expect our government customers to demand from their project managers? If you said “as much quality as they can wring out of the approved budget,” go to the head of the class. Because of this effect, the management effect most often associated with government representatives or PMs is scope creep (as opposed to a pathological focus on efficiency), since they seek the best value for their (somewhat fixed) budget.

Conversely, contractor PMs are responsible for delivering a certain level of quality at a (somewhat fixed) budget, so their worries are two-fold: if they believe that the product or service being delivered is consistent with the quality standards depicted in the Statement of Work (SOW), but the customer disagrees, then a lot of churn can be expected in the execution of the project. The other issue is whether or not the project can be delivered on-time, on-budget. If it can, then everybody has a good day. But, if it can’t, the contractor PM must determine if the fault is with the efficiency or performance of the project team, or if the government PM has added scope informally, i.e. engaged in scope creep. If they have, and will admit to it, then a Baseline Change Proposal fixes the problem. But, if they have engaged in adding scope informally without owning up to it, or if the problem lies with the project team’s performance, the only available remedy is to try to tap any reserves (e.g., Management Reserve, or Contingency) that may be available. If no reserves are available, well, then everybody has a bad day.

So, here’s the central focus of optimal government project management: well-defined scope. For the government PM, poorly-defined scope could allow an unscrupulous contractor to deliver sub-standard quality, while making a strong claim to having fulfilled the vague terms of the SOW and, therefore, the whole of the available budget. From the contractor’s point of view, poorly-defined scope could allow opportunistic government PMs to informally add upgraded quality or reliability standards that the contractor hadn’t planned nor budgeted for, leading (almost automatically) to the overrun condition discussed in the previous paragraph.

It would all be much simpler if we could just give Naval Officers Discover Cards with really large limits…