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Better program and project management in the Civil Service is key to improving Public Services.

'Improving the management of programs and projects is high on the agenda across Whitehall for the effective delivery of government policies.'

Leeds, England, 1 February 2004 - Increasingly, policy-making is focused on reform and delivery, and the Office of Public Services Reform (OPSR) cites the appropriate use of program and project management (PPM) as key to executing complex plans such as large capital and IT programs as well as for more policy orientated objectives. But today's civil service organisations need the systems and information necessary to prioritise objectives, manage delivery and balance policy requirements against departmental capacity.'

Geoff Reiss, Director of Product Strategy, Program Management Group (PMG).

'We welcome the fact that 'delivery' has risen to the top of the Government's agenda and PPM is seen as a key ingredient to improving the Civil Service's capacity to deliver. The recommendations made by the Improving Programme and Project Delivery project (IPPD), led by OPSR and involving the Office of Government Commerce (OGC), Corporate Development Group (CDG) and other departments, is in our view making giant strides in helping public sector organisations bridge the gap between policy and delivery.'

'Today's public sector organisations are under increasing pressure to deliver more effective, efficient and quality services. Consequently, they need more flexible PPM skills that work in a policy environment - in other words, managing complex activities that deliver benefits of interrelated policy driven outcomes. As the OPSR rightly highlights, the policy process is not a linear and discrete set of stages, but an iterative and organic process, which PPM can help to manage if effectively implemented. It is our experience that public sector organisations must avoid the pitfalls of implementing traditional PPM solutions and prescribed set of rigid techniques and methodologies.'

'This is because, with traditional task orientated systems there is no direct and explicit association between the specific resource to perform a task and the task itself. This means a separate process has to be undertaken to allocate resources to each task, as task durations change manual calculations and allocations have to be performed each time there is a variation in task duration. Many public sector organisations attempting to implement these traditional models have observed real problems, for example the process of multi-project planning is highly complex, there is scope for error and the level of human intervention increases.'

'However, with a flexible, resource-centric PPM solution that supports the development of an end-to-end policy environment like Hydra, Public sector organisations can constantly align their resources and capability to deliver to PPM tasks. This means they can manage projects and resources that require work spanning across departmental boundaries. They can create formal governance and collaborative working processes that secure accountability and manage the escalation and resolution of complex issues. They can integrate individual action plans into the PPM environment and ensure objectives are fully embedded into the roles and responsibilities of each individual. And they can also assure delivery even when structural change or the use of external consultants may be necessary to support implementation.'

'The Hydra solution achieves this because of its patent, intelligent pre-emptive resource scheduling that allows organisations to successfully plan and implement multiple simultaneous projects without the limitations of discrete task-centric project management tools. This ensures work-streams are managed and resourced effectively and are constantly aligned with policy strategy and objectives. In addition, Hydra enables Client-Server, Web and/or remote working which means that wherever the participants of the Program Board are, Hydra can be used to delegate work, loan resources, and update their team on activities across projects, programs and resources.'

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