Project management as a tool for attracting investment
16 February 2018
Project management was the focus of the discussion ‘Project management as a tool for attracting investment: best regional practices’ at the Russian Investment Forum. Vladimir Pastukhov, General Director at the Centre for Project Management in Industry (FBU ‘Russian Technology Agency’) – Office of Projects under the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, was the moderator of the session. The expert noted that project management was implemented at three levels: federal, departmental, corporate and sectoral. In this regard, the following questions arise: how to find a logical relationship between these levels, what challenges there are to address, and how successful the exchange of experience is.
Andrey Badin, Deputy Director at the Project Management Department of the Government of the Russian Federation, shared the assessment of the maturity of Russian ministries in terms of project activities. The analysis was carried out based upon five main criteria: selection of a project by a ministry; achievement of results; decision-making and organizational support; development of competences and promotion of project management culture; motivation of project management participants. “This is a pilot assessment project. It was conducted for the first time. The Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation led the way in terms of strategic planning and portfolio management, the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Education ranked second and third, respectively. The top three ministries in terms of project management were the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry for Economic Development, and the Ministry of Transport. When it comes to decision-making and organizational support, the leaders were the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry for Economic Development and the Ministry of Energy. As for promotion of competences and project management culture, the top three included the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Industry and Trade. In terms of motivation of those involved in project management, the Ministry for Economic Development, the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Agriculture were the top three ministries,” the speaker said, commenting on the findings of the assessment and adding that the ranks were not as indicative as the scores.
Azer Talibov, Deputy Minister for Economic Development of the Russian Federation, said he was certain that competition and encouragement of competences were critical for project management. The Deputy Minister spoke about the principle of dividing projects into processes and projects proper and about the success of the project ‘Leaders of MinEc.’ “Owing to this initiative, we now have 75 viable projects in many areas: export promotion, regional development.” The expert also noted: “The Ministry is responsible for the environment for doing business; a lot has been done in this dimension and a lot remains to be done. The 35th place in the Doing Business rating may be satisfactory, but we must set ourselves more ambitious goals. It is important to create an appropriate framework for attracting investments and one way to achieve this is the project management machine.”
Anton Inyutsyn, Deputy Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation, spoke about the role of project management in the work of the Ministry and ways to integrate the regional component properly. “The results of project management in our Ministry include RUB 3 trillion of investments per year and an increase in the share of foreign investment – in the past 2 or 3 years, the share of foreign funds in oil production increased from 25% to 31%. Project management tools enable us to address two types of challenge: we form the energy infrastructure so that business can create and expand new production, and also ensure conditions for attracting investments into the fuel and energy sectors,” the speaker said. “The share of tasks that use project management will grow, including ones that require an agile approach and encouragement of results. Projects to promote the industrial Internet, provide connection to gas networks and upgrade the generating complex have proved successful,” Anton Inyutsyn added.
Then the speakers reviewed regional project initiatives. Alexander Konstantinov, Deputy Governor of the Kurgan Region, spoke about the tools for attracting investors to the Region, obstacles to and results of the work done in this regard and the role of project management in this process. “Regional teams often face excess paper work; not too long ago, some of them had no idea whatsoever what project management was all about,” said Alexander Konstantinov. The Governor is confident that the focus today is on the speed of project implementation. “It is extremely important to save time, particularly in public administration, and the digital economy contributes to this,” the expert believes.
Andrey Badin shared regional success stories in project management, such as the Belgorod Region currently implementing around 2,000 projects, including quite small ones. The speaker shared some statistics: “The Ministry of Industry and Trade continues to form a portfolio of projects: we have had more than 120 initiatives, including over 70 coming from constituent entities of the Russian Federation.” Also, the Russian Government representative underlined: “The projects have to be implemented at the grass-roots level, whereas today, unfortunately, many people face the fact that the number of projects is limited by the number the top executive can consider.”
The experience of the Leningrad Region in implementing project management was presented by Dmitry Yalov, the Region’s Deputy Chairman on Economics and Investment of the Government.
Dmitry Razumovsky, Minister of Economic Development of the Kaluga Region, told what has changed since project management was introduced in his Region. “We have always stood for innovative approaches but, for us, it is not the very fact of introducing something new that is important but the creation of a qualitative basis for implementation. In our Ministry, the project approach is one of the challenges we have accepted. The key is a step-by-step approach, the choice of a convenient platform for communication, accelerating processes, the ability to work with changes competently,” said the Kaluga Region representative.
The position of the expert community was presented by Dmitry Evstafiev, Professor at the Faculty of Communications, Media and Design at School of Integrated Communications; and Deputy Head of the Scientific Work Department at the Higher School of Economics. “Project management has shown its advantage over the linear approach and 2017 was indicative of the introduction of project management. Large projects are the tools of advanced development,” specified the professor. The expert also added: “The country cannot live on projects alone; there must be a balance between project and process management.”
The experience of the Government of the Arkhangelsk Region in introducing project management was described by Viktor Ikonnikov, the Region’s Deputy Governor for Strategic Planning and Investment Policy.
“2018 should be declared the year of project management in the regions,” Azer Talibov concluded the discussion.
Andrey Badin, Deputy Director at the Project Management Department of the Government of the Russian Federation, shared the assessment of the maturity of Russian ministries in terms of project activities. The analysis was carried out based upon five main criteria: selection of a project by a ministry; achievement of results; decision-making and organizational support; development of competences and promotion of project management culture; motivation of project management participants. “This is a pilot assessment project. It was conducted for the first time. The Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation led the way in terms of strategic planning and portfolio management, the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Education ranked second and third, respectively. The top three ministries in terms of project management were the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry for Economic Development, and the Ministry of Transport. When it comes to decision-making and organizational support, the leaders were the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry for Economic Development and the Ministry of Energy. As for promotion of competences and project management culture, the top three included the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of Industry and Trade. In terms of motivation of those involved in project management, the Ministry for Economic Development, the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Agriculture were the top three ministries,” the speaker said, commenting on the findings of the assessment and adding that the ranks were not as indicative as the scores.
Azer Talibov, Deputy Minister for Economic Development of the Russian Federation, said he was certain that competition and encouragement of competences were critical for project management. The Deputy Minister spoke about the principle of dividing projects into processes and projects proper and about the success of the project ‘Leaders of MinEc.’ “Owing to this initiative, we now have 75 viable projects in many areas: export promotion, regional development.” The expert also noted: “The Ministry is responsible for the environment for doing business; a lot has been done in this dimension and a lot remains to be done. The 35th place in the Doing Business rating may be satisfactory, but we must set ourselves more ambitious goals. It is important to create an appropriate framework for attracting investments and one way to achieve this is the project management machine.”
Anton Inyutsyn, Deputy Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation, spoke about the role of project management in the work of the Ministry and ways to integrate the regional component properly. “The results of project management in our Ministry include RUB 3 trillion of investments per year and an increase in the share of foreign investment – in the past 2 or 3 years, the share of foreign funds in oil production increased from 25% to 31%. Project management tools enable us to address two types of challenge: we form the energy infrastructure so that business can create and expand new production, and also ensure conditions for attracting investments into the fuel and energy sectors,” the speaker said. “The share of tasks that use project management will grow, including ones that require an agile approach and encouragement of results. Projects to promote the industrial Internet, provide connection to gas networks and upgrade the generating complex have proved successful,” Anton Inyutsyn added.
Then the speakers reviewed regional project initiatives. Alexander Konstantinov, Deputy Governor of the Kurgan Region, spoke about the tools for attracting investors to the Region, obstacles to and results of the work done in this regard and the role of project management in this process. “Regional teams often face excess paper work; not too long ago, some of them had no idea whatsoever what project management was all about,” said Alexander Konstantinov. The Governor is confident that the focus today is on the speed of project implementation. “It is extremely important to save time, particularly in public administration, and the digital economy contributes to this,” the expert believes.
Andrey Badin shared regional success stories in project management, such as the Belgorod Region currently implementing around 2,000 projects, including quite small ones. The speaker shared some statistics: “The Ministry of Industry and Trade continues to form a portfolio of projects: we have had more than 120 initiatives, including over 70 coming from constituent entities of the Russian Federation.” Also, the Russian Government representative underlined: “The projects have to be implemented at the grass-roots level, whereas today, unfortunately, many people face the fact that the number of projects is limited by the number the top executive can consider.”
The experience of the Leningrad Region in implementing project management was presented by Dmitry Yalov, the Region’s Deputy Chairman on Economics and Investment of the Government.
Dmitry Razumovsky, Minister of Economic Development of the Kaluga Region, told what has changed since project management was introduced in his Region. “We have always stood for innovative approaches but, for us, it is not the very fact of introducing something new that is important but the creation of a qualitative basis for implementation. In our Ministry, the project approach is one of the challenges we have accepted. The key is a step-by-step approach, the choice of a convenient platform for communication, accelerating processes, the ability to work with changes competently,” said the Kaluga Region representative.
The position of the expert community was presented by Dmitry Evstafiev, Professor at the Faculty of Communications, Media and Design at School of Integrated Communications; and Deputy Head of the Scientific Work Department at the Higher School of Economics. “Project management has shown its advantage over the linear approach and 2017 was indicative of the introduction of project management. Large projects are the tools of advanced development,” specified the professor. The expert also added: “The country cannot live on projects alone; there must be a balance between project and process management.”
The experience of the Government of the Arkhangelsk Region in introducing project management was described by Viktor Ikonnikov, the Region’s Deputy Governor for Strategic Planning and Investment Policy.
“2018 should be declared the year of project management in the regions,” Azer Talibov concluded the discussion.
