Our biggest challenge now within the Tasmanian Government is to fight the perception that (okay) we have done the project management ‘stuff’ we can go into maintenance mode with the Project Services’ activities and focus on other things. I have responded by using a very female type metaphor of, 'if you give birth to a baby and nurture it to early adolescence, you do not suddenly leave the child to fend for itself, as it probably will not survive!' In our case the Community of Practice would certainly keep things going, but without strong support and continual revision and improvement of the TGPMF, the rot would soon start to set in.

Referring to Wikipedia once again, there is a stated risk that where a strong culture exists another phenomenon can emerge, Groupthink. This is a state where people think so alike that they do not challenge organisational thinking and there is reduced capacity for innovative thought. Having an established Project Management methodology could lead to missed opportunities for innovation through reliance on established procedures. We are very conscious of this and constantly seek feedback from our practitioners, based upon their knowledge and experience. We also do our very best to keep up to date with the latest research and to keep our own professional development current. We have tried to create a ‘living’ framework where we are constantly reviewing and endeavouring to make sure that our resources, advice and support meet the needs of our practitioners. We have been told that our resources are very practical and useful, and this is what we strive to achieve. We also strive to keep a high profile amongst the practitioners, keep them in touch with each other, and continue to generate the sense of shared ownership of the resources.

Our standard response whenever someone mentions the DPAC Project Management Guidelines is to say, (nicely) 'No, they are the Tasmanian Government Project Management Guidelines and were put together by practitioners from all agencies, not just DPAC'. This continues to be one of our key marketing messages. We now have an extensive network of practitioners across all agencies and we use constant communication, formal and informal to keep this network alive. We work in partnership with our Government Training Consortium to ensure Project Management training pathways are provided and information sessions are held for new recruits. Agencies can also request in-house training tailored specifically to their needs, and we assist with organising this, sometimes delivering it ourselves, depending upon the need.

Our local TAFE has introduced Project Management training as part of the Business Services and Public Sector Training Packages. We are collaborating with them and they are using some of our resources so that government employees receive similar messages. One of our team is delivering part of the course.

We have begun to work with our Department of Treasury and Finance to incorporate the requirements of the budget submission process into the Project Business Case templates. This includes assisting with designing of training modules for budget submissions and aligning that with project management processes.

A number of Inter-Departmental Steering Committees have been formed to oversight major Tasmanian Government projects, and these committees apply the governance structures and methodology as outlined in the TGPMF. This includes

Our area has contact with each of these Inter-Departmental committees including the Inter Agency Steering Committee that also acts as the governing body for our Unit is activities.

We are beginning to explore, as a Government, the relationship between policy development and project management. As previously mentioned we already have good examples in government of major policy initiatives, which have taken a structured, project management approach in development and implementation. Tasmania Together has been mentioned as one such example. Our Social Policy Projects Unit, within DPAC, takes a project management approach to implementation of social policy. It is arguable that good policy development and implementation is achievable by taking a structured project management approach within the context of the strategic direction of the organisation. If project management is all about the management of change, so is policy development.

Team members continue to make themselves personally accessible and practitioners come to us for support and advice. We can also assist by putting project participants in touch with each other across government. As I mentioned previously, being small has its advantages. We often refer to silos within government but I argue that through our project management community of practice (CoP) and other CoP activities we are drilling so many holes in the silos that they should eventually crumble.

The Project Services team has also gained credibility with Senior Executives and through the provision of the Project Management Quality Advisory and Review Services, Steering Committees take quality recommendations very seriously and in at least two recent cases recommendations to halt and review large projects have been accepted.

There is no easy answer to keeping the culture alive. I think it boils down to sheer perseverance and the need for a central group to continually support the practitioners out there in whatever ways they deem useful. Passionate commitment to ‘the cause’ is a must as is a belief in celebrating every whiff of success. A sense of fun is also important and that is why we include a ’fun’ bit on our web site.

Project managers need champions as they ply their craft, often in the face of middle managers who put the pressure on to ‘just get on with doing the project’, none of this rubbish about taking time to plan and document before commencing the work. The Tasmanian Government Project Management Guidelines Version 6.0 (March 2005) state specifically that ‘considerable time should be allowed in the initiation phase of the project life for initial planning and scoping activities, as this is often the most neglected key element, due to pressure just to get on with doing the project. This pressure should be vigorously resisted’. ^[2]

We still have a big job to do in winning over that group labelled ‘middle managers’. We do have strong commitment from the practitioners, and strong support from the senior executive. But it is at the business unit level and with the business unit managers that we still have a challenge to convince of the usefulness of taking a structured approach to managing projects. There is still the perception that project management is all about documenting and far too much of it. We have to constantly fight that perception and stress that the purpose of the documentation is all about recording the decisions made for future reference.