Case Study 1: the Glasgow Science Center Tower Project

No effective control and goal orientated leadership was visible. Nowhere during the four months did she ask for progress reports from the stakeholders, if she took any interest in the project and ask for progress reports, she would have seen that the project was behind schedule. No milestones were set to make sure that project goals were on track.

As it was often cited in class, no project can achieve success without proper coordination between three essentials: scope, schedule and cost. Change one, and the other two will be impacted. On the other hand, trying to prohibit all changes to a project is often fruitless and can have very adverse consequences.

A project is a temporary endeavour that creates a unique result. Time, budget, resources, and performance specifications, to meet requirements made by stakeholders, limit a project (Project Management Institute, 2013, pg.3). Project management is the application of tools, techniques, and knowledge to help achieve the three main constraints of scope, cost and time (Project Management Institute, 2013, pg.5). This applies managerial process and gives project managers the opportunity to make a project successful. However, there are still numbers of project failures both big and small projects. This failure does not only affect finances but also demoralizes employees who have laboured diligently to complete the work. The case of Wembley Stadium project failure will be analyzed in this paper to illustrate project management difficulties a project can encounter if appropriate tools and techniques are not successfully developed, implemented, and evaluated within the project management processes. The major problems concerning the Wembley Stadium project were scope, time, cost, quality, and stakeholder issues (Carter, 2002). However, this paper would be focusing on scope, time and cost issues. The format of this paper will include the project analysis, which will provide brief description of the Wembley stadium project, and main reasons why the project failed. This will be followed by the analysis of how the issue of the project failure is related to project management knowledge

A basic definition for the procurement is “the way the building is realised” and “involves assembling and organising the skills and services of a team of construction professionals”. (the Construction Round Table, 1995). More precisely, the construction industry describes procurement as “a system that establishes the roles and relationships which make up a project organisation”; hence the overall organisation and communication structure for the management, administration and control of a project is established by the procurement system. (D.C.H Coles, 2010)

The paper is divided into three sections, the first of which will establish a timeline of events. This project background will serve as a case study for the analysis in the following section that will be structured such that each of the previously mentioned facets will be independently analyzed and contrasted with project management principles. Finally the paper will conclude with a summary of the analysis and recommendations based on

My partners and I have made a list of areas that might cause the project delays or failure with their respective outcomes. We have listed the risk below that can prevent the project to finish on time.

*A lack of efficient and effective communication between the city, project management team, and consultants. This manifests itself in basic issues like vendors blocking roadways for other vendors, the city canceling orders for electrical filtering components that were critical path, and too many unilateral decision made because "no one was in charge".

The Trophy Project was fundamentally mismanaged from the start. The management functions of planning, organizing, staffing, controlling and directing personnel and resources were poorly executed by both senior and project level management. Customer expectations were not well defined and scope creep was allowed to take place without proper administration. There did not appear to be a corporate champion for this project who could mentor and resolve conflicts that were beyond the authority of the project manager. Plus, the project manager appeared to be inexperienced and was not very adept at negotiating with upper level and functional management to obtain the proper resources necessary to achieve the project

The Glasgow Science Centre project was conceived as a way of promoting Glasgow as a major high-tech center, as well as a means of revitalizing the River Clyde dock area of Glasgow, Scotland, UK. The Science Centre consists of three main exhibits: the IMAX Theatre, the Science Mall, and the Glasgow Tower. The stunning design of the Glasgow Science Centre Tower was envisioned as a one of a kind structure capable of revolving 360° from the ground up and was expected to become a famous landmark. The unique design of the Glasgow Tower was envisioned to feature a viewing cabin on top of a reed slim tower 330 feet above the River Clyde. The distinctive design presented an array of engineering, technical, and safety challenges to

Was the project scope defined clearly at early stage? Identify one major scope change throughout the project life and discuss the effects of scope changes on project performance?

Project Integration Management – management of all processes to ensure proper coordination of the project.

Though this phase had identified that there is some disconnect between the project team and the champion it failed to list down the key stakeholders and their involvement in the project. This phase should clearly develop a high level project plan to show the highlighted completion date with the list of team members.

The project did not achieve desirable standards as far as customer requirements, scope, environment and execution were concerned. It was important that the project integrators to ensure customers do not escalate during the implementation of the project, being the first adopters of the software FoxMeyer should have exercised caution by adopting the software in phases rather than implementing the project directly, furthermore, execution was the biggest problem, despite knowing that the project needed skilled personnel FoxMeyer did not train staff during the early stages of the project and had to rely on consultants. Finally the company should have gained control over the project from the start to ensure that all the staff and management were involved but in this case despite knowing that the project would not work as envisaged the management did not take control or stop the implementation of the project.

Lack of project management clarity: the planning activity had lot of material but lacked content, clear action items and lack of consensus on the milestones. The difficulties in the project only increased with time and a more performance driven style would have kept things on track if introduced early on.

This type of procurement strategy is a ‘fast track’ strategy. Client pays a sum of money to hire a management contractor to manage the whole construction project. Therefore, some early work can be carried out before the design is complete. The contract for the construction projects are between the management contractor and sub contractor. The final cost for the project can not be identified until the final work has been awarded.