“Some of the proudest and most enjoyable times of my career have been major APS policy implementations for which I was project sponsor, such as implementing a new national program that affected the lives of millions of Australians.

The best of these projects started from a firm foundation of project planning, with clear objectives and an appropriate timetable and budget. On the other hand, some of the more difficult times were projects that lacked a foundation of proper project planning.

When I was first promoted to the Senior Executive Service, I found that a huge volume of material went through my hands – so I had to learn how to focus on the most important things, and delegate the detail. I was now responsible for major decisions. To assist, staff provided me pages of detail, including alerting me to all the ‘ifs, buts and maybes’. Then I had to balance all the shades of grey, and crystallise them into yes, or no.

The relevance of that to my later role as a decision-maker on many projects across the Division was that I needed to work out the most important things to focus on in a project concept planning session or in a draft project business case, to help make that yes or no call. Over time, I privately boiled it down to four questions and two habits. The four questions (with variations) are:

• Do I understand the project outcomes? What are the tangible measures? What exactly do we get for the money?
• Who cares about the outcomes? How important are the outcomes to the department or Minister? Will partners work on the project enthusiastically?
• Do I believe the time and cost? Who costed it; what is their track record; have they allowed for the inevitable problems? Will that money really deliver the outcomes?
• What are the fallbacks? If along the way a ‘show stopper’ appears, is there a graceful exit or tolerable fallback?

The two habits are:

• Make time for planning – a calm day of planning now is far preferable to a hectic week of problems later. I made time for stakeholders, guidance and review, and I allowed staff enough time for planning.
• Pursue doubts – I found that if I had a hunch there was a weak spot in a business case, when it was looked into there often was a problem. So, if you are making the decision – listen to your inner voice. Better to ask the question and have it settled, than decide with a nagging doubt.”