Professional Documents
Culture Documents
You are asked to read through the findings outlined in a document produced by the National Audit Office: National
Audit Office. 2013. Over Optimism in Government Projects. It discusses several factors that are key to reducing the
impact of strategic misinterpretation. You should be able to identify their key findings listed below.
Honesty and integrity are needed in managing major projects and organisations must have a culture which allows
challenges and issues to be highlighted, in order to prevent disastrous outcomes.
2. Accountability strategy
Having an accountability strategy is important in order to prevent poor decision making. As you have seen, there is a
natural tendency towards over-optimism which causes groups and individuals to carry forward ideas that are often
poorly considered. The report highlights that a:
To guard against this, it is recommends the “effective independent challenge of decision-makers and the importance
of clear personal accountability for the decisions made"(NAO, 2013, p.11).
3. Incentives
There is often more incentive to be excessively optimistic when making judgements and decisions. Decision makers
are eager to gain recognition and so make decisions at the start of a project, but may be in a different role once the
project commences. Therefore, they are no longer responsible for resolving problems when they emerge. There is
also little accountability for the behaviour of contractors and:
4. Authority
The National Audit Office stresses that the absence of a single authority figure (that has oversight of the whole
project) can contribute to the problem. In many cases, there is no single person who is accountable and responsible
for project delivery. The report highlights the findings of The Committee of Public Accounts, which observed that:
Restructuring and staff turnover adds to this problem. The report highlights that in the example of major defence
projects, the Senior Responsible Owners for projects move post every two to three years. Therefore, they are not
often held to account for decisions made during their employment.
These suggestions are explained in much more detail in: National Audit Office. 2013. Over Optimism in Government
Projects. You are encouraged to consult this document to find out more.
What can you learn about how to manage misinterpretation and optimism
bias?
There are two key factors from the UK National Audit Office report which may mitigate against the impact of
misinterpretation and over-optimism:
Additionally, you should always apply the reference class forecast. You will take a more detailed look at this in the
next few pages.
Please refer to the glossary to check any terminology you are unfamiliar with: Glossary of Project Management
Terms