With major technology projects becoming an increasingly important feature of the public sector scene, Brian Wernham’s book on Leadership skills for implementation of large-scale public sector projects, makes a valuable contribution to understanding the issues.

The NHS computer debacle may have been the largest project of its kind in the world coming in at £12.7 bn but it was far from the first time that the tax payer has had to pick up the bill for the failure of a large scale government project. Despite detailed project management and intense technical scrutiny, the headlines regularly report IT projects self-destructing and simply being written off.

Change management expert, Brian Wernham thinks government should do more to progress the policy Francis Maude announced last year, and make their IT projects agile.

Agile Project Management For Government is a new in depth study into how agile leadership can reduce the risk of failure of public sector projects and vastly reduce expenditure waste. It includes reasons why many large change projects have failed and how to adapt agile methods for the public sector.

Commenting on his reasons for writing the book, Brian says, “In spite of so much support for the idea of agile management both here and in the US, the uptake is very slow in government. I believe that the more flexible and interactive manner of agile management could bring success in the public sector where so many traditional waterfall projects are continuing to fail.”

The book is essential reading for leaders in central, federal and local governments and within the private sector.

Published by Maitland and Strong . ISBN: 978-0-957-22340-0 . £38.99