Developing the project management system in public authorities at meso-level

The paper examines the development stages and special features of the project management system in executive authorities of the Russian Federation. A growing importance of project management tools in managing regional strategic development programmes, the emergence of best practices and increasing efficiency of projects and programmes due to application of a new government methodology prove the relevance of the current study. The theoretical and methodological basis of the research is works of Russian and foreign scholars on management and project management. We apply the methods of statistical, comparative and graphic analysis. The information base includes the data retrieved from official websites of regional governments and authorities, as well as laws and regulations of the Russian Federation and its constituent territories. The author looks at the prerequisites of project management in government authorities and systematizes laws and methods of project management enacted at federal level in 2013–2018. We distinguish between three stages of the project management system’s development in executive authorities. These are organization of project management in pilot regions; large scale implementation; the appearance of the regions, in which it is possible to evaluate how mature the organization of project activities is. The paper analyses the dynamics of project management organization in public authorities at meso-level. The analysis of qualitative shifts in the development of project technologies allows us to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of measures taken by the RF Government and the Federal Project Office to enhance the use of the management tool at meso-level. The directions for improving the organization of project management in government authorities embrace: developing a system for encouraging participants in project activities; forming a unified system of indicators for evaluating the effectiveness of the portfolio of socio-economic projects and programmes of the region at large; creating an official maturity ranking of the project management system at meso-level.