Implementation Games
This book “Implementation Games: What happens when a bill becomes law,” which I must have read maybe 20 years ago, enumerates all the various ways that big projects can implode. It’s a list that I’ve found very useful thru out my carreer.
The book was written after the author’s study of some large projects. The projects he studied are the really hard ones. For example trying to create jobs in a poor section of town. These tough problems are the ones that culture, structure, and markets have all failed to solve. The ones were Government is left holding the bag trying to create public goods from scratch. Needless to say most of these fail.
The author grows kind of pessimistic about these enterprises toward the end of the book. I don’t think he appreciated how hard the problems really are. But that said he collected quite a list of syndromes. These are huge help in diagnosing when things are going south. Useful for avoiding various tar pits in both public and private worlds.
For example one of the syndromes he names is “piling-on;” or the tendency for projects to accept an increasingly long list of goals and requirements overtime until such time as there isn’t a chance they can successfully execute on any but a small subset. This syndrome combines well with “Budget Games” since each time a new goal get’s added it is often possible to capture a bit more budget to help pay for it. Together they can make for some really amazing failures.
- Diversion of Resources
- Easy Money
- Easy Life
- Budget Games
- Pork Barrel
- Piling On
- Vague Mandate
- Keeping the Peace
- Tokenism
- Massive Resistance
- Incompetence
- Stubbornness
- Turf Battles
- Not our Problem
If you want to read this you probably have to go do a good Library. I doubt it’s still in print.