There are some important lessons in the history of big projects in Australia and overseas.

First, in the conceptual phase of the project it is essential to establish and agree the business need among all stakeholders. Failure to agree and accept the business need is at the root of many poorly performed public projects. The business need should be clearly distinguished from the political need (where appropriate) and offered to stakeholders to obtain consensus before any planning is commenced. Where a strong business need cannot be established and agreed, decision-makers would be well advised to resist the temptation to proceed, but to seek alternatives. A valid alternative is always to do nothing. If only the Queensland Government had not persisted with the magnesium project despite the lack of commercial partnerships, then the taxpayer would not have seen several hundred million dollars wasted and small investors would not have lost considerable funds they had so hopefully invested in a project seemingly guaranteed by government.

Second, in setting up a project management structure, there should be a clear separation between the project sponsor (often individual politicians or the government of the day) and the project director/manager. The project sponsor’s role is to provide political and other support to the project management organisation, not to manage the project. The project sponsor should prepare a project charter or directive and, in it, assign specific responsibility to the project director for decisions on cost, time and performance. The Hindmarsh Soccer Stadium Redevelopment Project provides clear evidence of the problems when this distinction between project sponsorship and management is blurred.

Third, there should be increased emphasis on project definition and planning to ensure that adequate consideration is given to how the project objectives can best be achieved. The temptation to plan on the basis of ‘ready, fire, aim’ should be avoided. Additional time spent in planning may not satisfy the need to appear to be doing something, but it can provide an opportunity to consider how best to award contracts, how to deal with complex, technically demanding projects and how to identify, assess and manage risk. The Federation Square project could have benefited from these basic guidelines.

Last, there should be an improvement in the procedures for identifying, assessing and managing risk in big projects. A common thread of numerous adverse reports by the respective auditors-general is inadequate risk management. Measures for avoiding political embarrassment, an area where the public sector frequently outperforms the private sector, are an inadequate replacement for disciplined project risk management techniques. There needs to be more realistic assessment of the risks involved in big projects, not least because the costs of doing otherwise are so great. The Adelaide Port Flower Farm highlights the need for this risk analysis.