Conclusions

Projects are the key organisational form used to deliver transformational policy change and build new systems in the public sector. Traditional thinking has looked at the project as an exercise to carry out a defined task in a specific time, at a specific cost. The ‘paradox of the significance of front-end management’ describes how less effort is spent identifying the best conceptual solution than on estimating and improving performance against tactical success factors. There is plenty of advice and guidance for public decision-maker, but actual practice appears not to be so simple. As Samset and Volden showed a few years ago, there seemed to be a number of curious ‘paradoxes’ causing projects to be launched in ways that were later seen as not of the best. Some aspects are incorrect behaviours that need to be understood and avoided. Some, however, need to be understood and managed as paradoxes, as argued in emerging paradox theories such as Schad et al. 2016.