Life with clients - The road ahead - Annual Review 2008

The road ahead

Central Europe faces significant, immediate infrastructure needs—from new roads and bridges to public utilities, to name a few. Modern infrastructure is essential for economic growth, but it comes with a large—and sometimes daunting—price tag. For assistance, many countries are turning to public-private partnerships (PPPs).

“PPPs are relatively new in Central Europe, and many government officials lack the specialized expertise to manage them,” says Deloitte Central Europe partner John Nicholson. “It’s difficult for them to set proper goals, ask the right questions, and make informed decisions that keep these projects on time and on budget.”

To help governments with PPPs, a team of Deloitte practitioners from several member firms developed a PPP toolkit, manual, and four-day workshop to provide public sector officials with the knowledge and capabilities to plan, roll out, and manage PPP projects. Training modules allow civil servants to engage in simulated events, where they think through hypothetical situations typical of infrastructure projects and make management decisions usually required of governments.

“In Romania, we have identified around 50 infrastructure projects both at the central and local levels, at different stages of preparation, procurement, or implementation,” says Livia Stan of the Romanian PPP Central Unit within the Ministry of Economy and Finance. “The Deloitte team educated our officials to manage these PPP projects effectively. We now have the tools to be able to put these large-scale plans into motion.”

Are wikis the key to improving government communication and collaboration?
Government—it’s synonymous with red tape and bureaucracy. So how can it be transformed to enable large teams to work collaboratively to improve policies, share information, streamline internal operations, and attract top talent? Wikis—and other Web 2.0 tools—might be the answer.

It started as their own online collaborative exercise. A Deloitte Canada public sector group set out to develop a collaborative point-of-view white paper to demonstrate how governments could use “Web 2.0” tools—wikis, blogs, etc.—to improve communication. Deloitte member firms in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia began contributing. People worked on their own time, adding to the wiki or revising each other’s comments informally.

“We added a structured framework, perhaps going against the organic nature of Web 2.0 collaboration, but which is essential for these tools to work in a business environment,” says Peter Hughes of Deloitte Canada, a coauthor of the project. “In the end, it enabled a diverse team to collaborate while working independently, regardless of geographies, time zones, or other commitments.”

Today, government departments such as Natural Resources Canada have launched wikis to help improve communication. Cross-agency collaborative policy submissions are likely the next step. “Our goal is to arm the public sector with tools to better serve its citizens,” says Paul Macmillan, Deloitte Canada public sector industry group leader. “Our report positions us to help public sector agencies adapt the technologies and processes that can help improve their departments’ performance.”

Wikis are also being used within member firms and across business units, an effort facilitated by Knowledge Management teams, to help practitioners and other users to directly input and share knowledge, thus forming collaboration-based knowledge communities.

Read more about Deloitte Canada’s wiki project in the team’s white paper.