During my corporate career, I had the occasion to work closely with a number of project managers. These individuals, generally overseeing large software development or implementation projects, had a disciplined approach to getting things done. I learned from them that there are two constraints which provide and reinforce that discipline. These are time and budget.
Successful projects are defined in many respects by how long they are to take and how much they are to cost. These constraints impact the scope of a project. I frequently heard project managers request clarity on each of these elements. They wanted to know what we wanted done, how much time their teams had to do it and how much they could spend to complete it. Knowing these things, they could organize and execute an excellent project.
As things moved along, time, budget and scope might change. This would create some tension and force trade-offs. If the timeline was shortened, the scope would have to be limited or the budget would need to be increased. If the budget was cut, the timeline might need to extend to achieve the original scope. These forces and their interrelations provided a discipline that ensured that the project would be an efficient exercise resulting in effective project delivery.
If lack of clarity around time, budget or scope arose, problems would ensue. There would be uncertainty around deliverables, inefficient spending of financial and temporal resources.
Last summer, I was speaking with a relative regarding the already mature presidential election campaign. She hinted at the possibility that the process may begin to get tiresome rather quickly. I countered that I thought it was wonderful that we were able to hear the diverse views of a Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich and that that provided for a rich national discussion of our country's challenges. I now recognize that in embracing the endless campaign season, we are sacrificing those forces which ensure good project management.
Parliamentary systems used in other countries naturally support better project management principles. In those systems, an election is called by government and a fixed period of time is allowed for campaigning. There is a clear understanding of scope: talk to the voters about your ideas and encourage them to cast ballots for you. There is a firm understanding of time: election day is six weeks away. Even in instances when elections are not publicly funded, the fixed campaign period forces some discipline into the process.
While I still believe our extended election conversation is a net positive for our country, it has become clear that our campaign system does not support the principles of project management discipline. Our election dates are established by law and well known. As there is no official campaign start date, candidates can begin their efforts at any time, even many months and years ahead of election day. Therefore, there is no constraint on time. Federal election funding systems are regularly rejected by candidates who can raise unlimited sums to deploy in their campaigns. Therefore, there is no constraint on budget.
The scope of a campaign project is the only one of the three project management elements that remains fixed. Therefore, we get candidates who must spend inordinate amounts of time raising the money they need to support a campaign that lasts an eternity. They spend that money, in many instances, on self-promotion and attacks on their opposition that they undertake only because they have both the resources and time to deliver them AND the resources and time they might need to recover if their self-promotion and attacks don't work.
What can we do to interject more of those project management disciplines into our campaigns. Do we try to limit time? Given our constitutionally-mandated election dates, this doesn't seem prudent. Do we change scope? We can't re-define what a campaign is.
Therefore, we need to fix campaign budgets. Make them limited. Force discipline and efficiency.
We need mandatory federal election funding.
This will serve to introduce discipline which will lead to more efficient and effective campaigns. It will also allow our elected officials to focus on governance and not on fund-raising. It will result on a campaign discourse which concentrates on the issues which most significantly impact our election decisions.
Some will say, as they have, that limitations on contributions to political candidates is a restriction on free speech. Perhaps it is only in America that we confuse the freedom of speech with the spending of money.
Individuals and groups currently have the ability to broadly communicate their interests with respect to policy and candidate preference. We can freely speak about these things. What is properly now and should be more greatly restricted in the future is our ability to independently magnify the volume of our own speech through the spending of our own dollars.
Public funding of elections will do nothing to limit the spread of good ideas and growth of public discourse. In addition to the principles of good project management, I also learned during my corporate days about word-of-mouth marketing. This spread of ideas and messages, from person to person, is one of the most powerful dynamics for change. It can't be purchased on grand scale, but it can be launched with a hope that the ideas it carries will be rapidly, increasingly embraced.
Our best ideas originate small and spread fast. They will do so in a world of publicly funded elections. An in that world, our elected representatives will serve us more effectively, their campaigns will have greater meaning and our country will be much the better.
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