Project management as a tool for enhancing the performance of government executive bodies

Addressing strategic challenges of territorial development, such as modernizing and shifting the economy towards innovations, increasing the population’s standard of life and the quality of living implies the need to search for effective management models reflecting modern economic environment. An important factor is in these process is enhancing the efficiency of public administration aimed at concentration and rational use of limited resources (financial, investment, human, management, etc.) of public and private sectors. International experience has shown that in order to solve the above mentioned problems it is important to implement the project management approach to the activities of government bodies. In this regard, the article analyzes the main features and benefits of this approach, which distinguish it from the existing practice of managing the activities of state and local authorities, presents the features of development of international research and practice of project management. The authors identify the main “generic” characteristics of the project as a basic category of the concept and its classifications. They demonstrate low efficiency of project management with public participation at the present stage in Russia and the reasons behind it. In recent years, at the initiative of the RF President and the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation first attempts to implement the principles of project management in federal and regional government executive bodies have been made. The paper analyzes the main legal documents regulating these issues, studies in detail the experience of the Belgorod Oblast - the region where project management has been implemented since 2010 and is now actively used in practice and demonstrating its effectiveness. Developed institutional and legal, organizational and methodical support and systematic work on its implementation played an important role in this RF subject. However, the study of existing publications and domestic experience has helped identify a number of problems hindering its implementation in government executive bodies. The authors propose activities contributing to the creation of favorable conditions for the implementation of project management approach as a tool for improving the efficiency of public administration in Russia.