Concept explainers
Ethical Dilemma
Two examples of massively mismanaged projects are TAURUS and the “Big Dig.” The first, formally called the London Stock Exchange Automation Project, cost $575 million before it was finally abandoned. Although most IT projects have a reputation for cost overruns, delays, and underperformance. TAURUS set a new standard.
But even TAURUS paled next to the biggest most expensive public works project in U.S. history—Boston’s 15-year-long Central Artery/Tunnel Project. Called the Big Dig, this was perhaps the poorest and most felonious case of project mismanagement in decades. From a starting $2 billion budget to a final price tag of $15 billion, the Big Dig cost more than the Panama Canal, Hoover Dam, or Interstate 95, the 1,919-mile highway between Maine and Florida.
Read about one of these two projects (or another of your choice) and explain why it faced such problems. How and why do project managers allow such massive endeavors to fall into such a state? What do you think are the causes?
Introduction: Projects are enormously done in all companies and in recent time high emphasis have been given to project management because of its cost effectiveness when being properly executed and its expensive nature when proper planning and execution is not done. Such unplanned and improperly executed projects which cost $575 million before it was dropped out is project TS. TS is one of project with poor planning, execution with delays which made cost overruns.
Another project which was more unsuccessful than TS was project BD. The poorest and most felonious case of project mismanagement started from $2 billion budget to $15 billion.
To determine: The reason why the project faced such problems and why did the project managers allowed such problem to happen and its causes.
Explanation of Solution
Reason why the project faced such problems and why did the project managers allowed such problem to happen and its causes:
Project: TS
What is Project TS:
Project TS is an effort to move the manual paper based trading system to a computerized system. In 1980’s when share trading had been much popular and was rapidly growing, there was an attempt to convert all the manual paper based works to computerized system.
Reason for failure of project TS:
Project TS failed mainly due to two reasons. The first is creation of central database which would act as a hub and execution of the transactions. This demanded entire modification in the process of trading and it also resulted in the loss of registration business which the professionals highly opposed.
Another reason is the failure by design committee and lack of proper governance by the project managers and poor strategic decision making and failure to convince the stakeholders.
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Chapter 3 Solutions
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