Dear Editor:
Let me start by stating publicly that I did not vote for Prime Minister Mark Carney in the recent federal election. However, I have to give him credit for finally bringing a business-like approach to government by not only stating objectives but by establishing target completion dates for those objectives.
Although that’s an admirable action, I’m not sure that he used the SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, timebound) structured approach to goal setting, especially with respect to removal of interprovincial trade barriers by Canada Day, considering how much baggage from the previous Liberal government his cabinet ministers, who are former members of Trudeau’s government, carry with them. Provincial leaders also may create unnecessary roadblocks to accomplishing this lofty objective in the stated timeframe.
That aside, I hope that he will be applying project management tools in his quest to address his seven priorities, as follows:
1) Renegotiating Canada’s relationship with the United States and strengthening relations with other countries;
2) Removing interprovincial trade barriers and expediting major infrastructure projects,;
3) Helping Canadians with the cost of living;
4) Making housing more affordable and catalyzing a modern housing industry;
5) Building the Canadian military and reinforcing domestic security;
6) Refocusing immigration; and
7) Reducing the cost of government operations.
If he hopes to achieve these desired objectives, each of them should be considered a project and a Gantt Chart would be extremely helpful in development a plan for success. Only by completing each of the tasks, on time, will the ultimate objective be achieved and the individual or department that failed to complete their task could be identified and held responsible for the government’s failure to achieve its objective.
A quality tool that could be used in government to improve effectiveness is root cause analysis, a problem solving tool that when properly applied, identifies the root cause of the problem for which corrective action may be taken to eliminate the likelihood of its recurrence. After all, isn’t fixing problems a significant portion of a government’s job? Most governments seem focussed on applying Band-Aids to symptoms of problems and never truly fixing them through elimination of their root cause.
By incorporating these two methodologies from business into government, Canadians could start to believe that their government at any level can be held accountable, knows what it is doing and has an effective plan to achieve objectives, on time and hopefully on budget.
A professional, designated quality engineer would be well-versed in the aforementioned tools and techniques and all governments would be advised to hire one.
Well run businesses do it, why shouldn’t government?
Jim Clark,
Fergus