We have posted the following message on my LinkedIn account and is already generating quite a bit of discussion.
What do you think?
What is your opinion on establishing formal project management authority for a given state (emirate, muhafazah) or country?
The Mandate for an NPMA
The mandates for such an authority could vary, but it would resemble a strategic national project management office, (PMO or nPMO). Preferably an NPMA (National Project Management Authority). However, as a formal authority, it can provide guidelines or require compliance and accountability.
NPMA Links
- The original post on LinkedIn from 2017 is here; LinkedIn Post and comment there.
- A link to an Arabic version of the article, which includes links to Arabic videos is here: اما بالنسبة للدول العربية، رجاء مراجعة المقال السابق على المدونة
- English Video 1
- English Video 2
Closing Comments
I am resharing this information based on a couple of triggers. Recently, We learned about a megaproject in Saudi Arabia that is under consideration as PPP. PPP is a Public-Private Partnership. Today we saw a post about a similar situation in the UAE. I think in at least one of the cases, the situation is not a typical PPP where the core driver for the PPP is private funding. I think the issues and root causes are due to public authorities or government agencies not doing well enough on their infrastructure projects. As a result, they are seeking private sector support. In some situations in the GCC, the private sector is not totally private but companies partially or fully owned by the government.
In other words, instead of building the competence and capacity for project management instead of these organizations, they go the PMC route or the PMC route via PPP. We could be wrong but this is how we see it.