This presentation describes how project success can be ensured in a public-private partnership in egovernment. The case study is of ByggaVilla, a construction portal in Sweden.

1. Ensuring Project Success in Public-private Partnerships in e-government A Pilot Study of Bygga Villa Presentation at Offentliga Rummet 2007 www.offentligarummet.se May 31, 2007 Robin Teigland [email_address] Stockholm School of Economics Inkeri Ruuska [email_address] Helsinki University of Technology

6. www.mittbygg.se Beta test January to September 2007

10. THPs are characterized by high conflict potential stemming from three primary sources Organizational conflict Task interdependence Scarcity of resources Different goals Adapted from Pfeffer 1981

13. … leading to a high diversity of underlying goals Time horizon Good produced Private Public Short Long Product firm Local govt National govt Service firm Theory Practice

14. We live in different worlds – researchers focus on creating new knowledge/ publications while companies want to develop products that can be sold. And it’s difficult to achieve real cooperation even if you understand one another. There are always culture crashes when researchers meet people from the public and private sectors…it takes time to build bridges between the different worlds.

16. The higher the interdependence of the actors, the higher the potential for conflict Pooled Sequential Reciprocal High Low Interdependence Thompson 1967

17. Differences in how the partners view the project: Where is the project in the matrix? Low visibility/importance High visibility/importance Open-ended solution Concrete solution Briner, Hastings & Geddes, 1996 Occasional Government actor Business actor

18. In addition to organizational level conflict, conflict may also arise at the individual level . Organizational conflict Adapted from Pfeffer 1981 Individual conflict Task interdependence Scarcity of resources Different goals

20. The participants have quite different understandings of the project’s goals. So, it’s really important to talk through everything and make sure that the right persons are there. And it’s important to remember that the right organization does not necessarily mean the right person.

23. The project was quickly on its way into the ditch. The members had not spent enough time in the beginning talking through things.

24. Why spend the time? Reducing complexity to something manageable Identifying priorities and importance, sequence of activities Highlighting interdependence between actors and tasks Creating a common language My view…. Making views explicit

26. Our project leader really understands the different worlds of the project since he has worked both as a practitioner and as an academic. He is good at networking and communicating with everyone.

27. 1c. Align the project with the development phase Basic research Applied research Market introduction Market growth Product/service development phases Project plan Flexible “ Set in stone” Involvement & decision making authority Academia Industry

29. What is collective competence? Group’s ability to work together to solve problems and achieve common goals Shared norms Shared routines Shared language Shared understanding Created in the course of joint action and problem solving

30. Collective competence It’s really important to get a collective perspective in order for everyone to understand the project’s core and to develop the project’s goals and outcomes…a critical point is when everyone is on the same page and is able to look at the project with the same ”set of eyeglasses”.

35. We started to draw pictures for one another. ”Let’s make a simple sketch, what should the website look like?” We started by drawing something on the computer, something visible around which we could discuss. And then we had 3-4 workshops and invited a reference group to which we presented the workshop results. It was important to get commitment and feedback and to ensure that the reference group had the same picture as we did.

37. What is project success? Two types of project outcomes 1. Objective – Fulfillment of objectives on budget and on time 2. Subjective - Satisfaction with project by partners Leverage differences among participants to produce innovative and synergistic solutions