It’s behaviors that will deliver The Perfect P3
Perfect Public Sector
It may sound like a fallacy, but the perfect Public Sector client can and does exist. Its all about being PREPARED, INFORMED, FLEXIBLE and CREDIBLE.
So this is Jane Doe, Director from the Department of Widgets within the City of Springfield. She embodies the perfect public sector client.
- She understands and has refined the Department’s mission.
- She has undertaken a lot of research and early engagement on other P3s and understands the criticality of bringing a ‘viable’ opportunity to the market.
- With her team, she has got out ahead of public engagement and has generated proactive community support for her project.
- With her line manager Mike Smith has signed off on the delegations of authority and approvals process for every aspect from drafting and negotiation legal terms through to design considerations and appointing contracts.
- Decision making processes are clear and signed off.
- She’s identified the source and potential use of funding from the Department and also sized the debt capacity the Department can offer to the transaction.
- She has proactively engaged with all arms of the Department and related agencies to educate them on how this process will differ.
- She’s done deep and wide research, checking references and speaking with the development community about good advisors to help drive a deal forward, and hired them!
- She has tasked herself with being the facilitator and person in charge of removing road blocks.
- She has given a presentation to the Department Head and her staff about ‘Optimism Bias’ and has defined parameters around all assumptions from time, cost and scope as well as allocated contingencies for risk.
Perfect Private Sector
You just have to set the behaviors correctly, by being OPEN, wanting to CREATIVELY SOLVE ISSUES and maintaining FLEXIBILITY to strike the best possible deal.
Meet Cameron and Jessica from The Development Partners Corporation (DPC). These guys are awesome…
- They’ve done their homework and attended some of Jane Doe’s community engagement meetings.
- They’ve done further research on the mission of the Department of Widgets and look at what they have done in the past.
- They have set out a manifesto of how their values relate / intermesh with the Department and have a clear message on what differentiates them in light of the MISSION.
- Thankfully, Cameron and Jessica have been given the structure and support to be accountable within DPC. This means they have strict autonomy to work with Jane on deal points with the mandate from their board to ‘get the right deal done’.
- Carefully selecting partners who show the same vision and shared goals as the mission and project objectives, they have established an internal culture of partnership.
- They lead from the front with personality and accountability for driving the best outcome for their team and the Department.
- They are PROBLEM SOLVERS, not COMPLAINERS.
- They arrive at every meeting with the mindset that ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE and they show patience when things change.
They sound like a dream to work with…. Right?
The Perfect Partnership
PARTNERSHIP does not mean PEACE, HARMONY and EVERYONE GETTING ALONG…
PARTNERSHIP does not mean PEACE, HARMONY and EVERYONE GETTING ALONG…
Partnership is about two (or more parties) working together to a common outcome. Our goals within that outcome are different.
P A R T N E R S H I P
- It’s the filling in the sandwich… and a sandwich ain’t much without it.
- Partnership is about two (or more parties) working together to a common outcome.
- Our goals within that outcome are different. Profit realization for instance, isn’t a nice-to-have, contractors, operators and developers have financial expectations to meet.
- owners have stakeholders and users to manage and keep happy. this isn’t about being equal, its about utilizing strengths of multiple parties to a greater end, to do that though, it relies on structure.
- the partnership needs to have boundaries…. we ‘set limits’ with our children on what is ok, what is not ok…partners must do the same.
- we need to be disciplined as partners to honor our commitments and continue to focus on the mission of our engagement.
- but we must also accept that partnerships evolve. people change jobs, economic circumstances change, building technology changes….
- we must accept that flexibility and adaptability are necessities, not compromises. this isn’t about a set and forget relationship.
- sure, there’s more than 3 people at play in any transaction, but their behaviors define so much of the daily business and leadership of the deal. Leaders within both the Public and the Private side need to embrace the partnership behaviors and set the example to follow to success.
