Developing Government Policy Capability
Policy Work, Project Management, and Knowledge Practices
Published on 1. February 2017
978-1-62825-180-7 (ISBN)
Description
The creation of public and government policy presents a "e;wicked"e; problem because it tends to be highly contested, involves many different stakeholders, and yields outcomes that change and evolve over time. Developing Government Policy Capability examines the role project management plays in supporting how policy work is conducted. Using Australia's controversial Tobacco Plain Packaging Act 2011 as a case study, the authors explore the question: Can project management practices contribute to improving government policy development and implementation capability? Their argument-that project management can solve even "e;wicked"e; problems-is not necessarily new. As they explain, that's pretty much what project management is all about. Project managers need to clearly articulate, acknowledge, and legitimize invisible work-the bridge between what is being done and what is supposed to be done. The project management tool set and the importance of recognizing the societal dimension when planning and conducting projects can make it possible for practitioners to tackle even the most complex policy work.
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Persons
Chivonne Algeo, PhD, is an experienced academic and researcherin the field of project management, and has more than 20 yearsof experience delivering a variety of projects for major financial,insurance, and health organizations. As an associate professorwith Monash University, Chivonne leads the developmentand delivery of courses for students and industry to advancetheir capability for managing projects. Chivonne's internationalaward-winning research focuses on acquiring and exchangingproject knowledge, individual and group reflection to improveproject practice, converting knowledge to make evidence-baseddecisions, and examining the interactions and roles of changemanagers and project managers. Her research has been publishedin international journals and books, and presented at leading researchand industry conferences and forums. Chivonne is a memberof the Project Management Institute, working on local andinternational initiatives to promote education and research. Sheis also a Life Fellow of the Australian Institute of Project Management,and served as chair of both the Council of Fellows and theKnowledge and Research Council. James Connor, PhD, focuses on the interactional processes within organizations that allow members to make sense of their activity. His research has included emotion processes within project life cycles, KBPs, and project leadership activities. He has applied these research interests to the problem of program failure in government to explicate how staff make sense of and communicate about (perceived) failure. His PhD in sociology was focused on how emotions direct social action, in particular via our loyalties; it was published as A Sociology of Loyalty (Springer, 2007). He is a senior lecturer with the University of New South Wales Australia, Canberra, and teaches project and program management, leadership, and organizational behavior. Henry Linger's research addresses how people do their work andhow information and knowledge can be deployed to supportthose work practices. He has codeveloped the task-based knowledgemanagement (TbKM) theory and has successfully applied itto specific industry practice (meteorology, food safety, defense)and outside organizational boundaries to address national policywork (health), sustainable development (climate change in developingcountries), and community empowerment (well-beingand productivity in the aged-care sector).He has a bachelor of engineering degree and a PhD in knowledgemanagement. He is associate professor in the Faculty of InformationTechnology, and holds senior research positions in theCenter for Organizational and Social Informatics (COSI) and theKnowledge Management Research Program (KMRP) at MonashUniversity and is a research associate at the Defense Science andTechnology Group (DSTG). Vanessa McDermott, PhD, is a research fellow in the Center forConstruction Work Health and Safety Research at RMIT University.Her research primarily concerns organizational causesof accidents and the implications for accident prevention. Shealso researches regulatory approaches to controlling deviant behaviorand whether community and stakeholder groups perceivethese as legitimate. She is interested in risk perception and theway that ideas around risk and responsibility inform regulatoryresponses. Currently, Vanessa is involved in a project funded bythe World Anti-Doping Agency to explore perceptions of the legitimacyof anti-doping work held by stakeholders in the Pacificregion. That project aims to identify whether there are any differencesin perceptions of legitimacy of anti-doping regulationbased on the role a person plays in sport and/or a person's culturalcircumstances.She has a bachelor of arts (first-class honors) degre...
