Project management
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Students will undertake a group project (in teams usually of 3 to 6 people) relating to a public policy problem faced by an external organisation. Typical clients include public sector bodies, companies operating in the public management or public policy sector, international organisations or think tanks and NGOs. The group will work on an issue defined by the client organisation, investigating and developing a workable solution to the problem.
Useful preliminary reading: Charles E. Lindblom and David K. Cohen, Social Science and Social Problem Solving (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979; Martha S. Feldman, Order Without Design: Information Production and Policy-making (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989); Ray Pawson, Evidence-based Policy: A Realist Perspective (London: Sage, 2006); Common Causes of Project Failure (London: OGC, 2004); Howard White, Theory-based Impact Evaluation: Principles and Practice (3ie, 2011); Curtis Cook, Just Enough Project Management (McGraw-Hill, 2004); J. E. McGrath and F. Tschan, 'Dynamics in Groups and Teams: Groups as Complex Action Systems', chapter three in M. S. Poole and A. H. Van de Ven (eds) Handbook of Organizational Change and Innovation (Oxford University Press, 2004).