Question: How can government be made more efficient with [1] project management software or by using project management in public administration?

Answer: Project management software provides a clear structure in which all steps of a public works project can be spelled out.

A basic break-down of the steps in a project can provide an effective operational overview of municipal or Federal government projects.  This gives executives or public sector employees a clear way to track progress, identify bottlenecks and learn from past projects -because the tasks involved and people or departments associated with those tasks are clearly identified.  This level of visibility in public administration can breed increased efficiency and transparency in the use of government resources.

[2] Public CIO and Governing.com picked up a recent Vertabase press release highlighting the City of Fort Lauderdale’s IT department as a great example of [3] project management software in the public sector.

“For us, the challenge was to implement a structured and formal approach to project management,” said Tim Edkin, Director of IT Services, City of Fort Lauderdale. “About a year ago, we started investigating our options. We looked at four or five project management solutions, including Microsoft Project. Eventually, we chose Vertabase because it is easy to use, it’s well designed and it’s well supported. In the past, if a project was late there wasn’t much we could learn from it. Now, we’re very analytical. We see what’s happening and manage accordingly. By providing an effective operational overview for City Hall, Vertabase has improved the way we manage our resources.”

As far as the technology involved, the City of Fort Lauderdale is running Vertabase with a flexible group of technologies that play well together, starting with Adobe’s [4] ColdFusion using an MS SQL back-end integrated with SAP/Business Object’s [5] Crystal Reports.