London 2012 Olympic Games
This activity explores how by integrating environmental and social considerations into project management you can deliver projects that are environmentally sound and contribute to the sustainable development.
Over recent years environmental considerations have become a significant part of all major infrastructure projects. In today’s world when we consider environment we not only consider biodiversity, pollution prevention, air and water quality, habitat and species protection, land use and visual amenity, but we now add to the list a wider range of issues incorporating impact on communities now and in the future, climate change considerations, efficient resource use, source of materials, whole life considerations, waste management and future proofing.
We have moved from a time environmental considerations on projects sat firmly in the compliance space to a time when the proactive and responsible management of the natural environment is a key factor in best practice project management.
Winning the right to host the Olympic Games stirs a great deal of national pride, which explains why governments are so keen to support Olympic bids. But another, equally important, reason is the long-term benefits that the hosts enjoy. These are not just quick-fix boosts for tourism and inward investment; the Games can be a springboard for regeneration and development.
While Sydney and Athens have both complained about the cost of maintaining little used venues, a more positive example can be found in Barcelona, where a successful Olympic Games revitalised the city and helped define Spain as an economic force in Western Europe.
Now the spotlight has turned to London, specifically the area of East London that will host the 2012 Olympic Village and the bulk of the competitions.
East London was a logical choice. As one of the most disadvantaged areas of the English capital, it will benefit immensely from hosting the Games. Also, the area was already the recipient of investment in areas such as transport and housing such as the Thames Gateway scheme, which will help support the Olympic project.
As a consultant you are required to:
i) Identify some of the key project sustainable issues that can affect this project.
ii) Explain the concept of project sustainability management. What purpose does it serve?
iii) What are some of the principal reasons why project sustainability management has become such a popular business tool in recent years?
iv) Describe the basic elements of a sustainable management framework.
(i) Identify some of the key project sustainable issues that can affect this project.
The Brundtland Report which was released by the United Nations in 1987 defines sustainable development as “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”
Sustainable development is an holistic approach to improving the quality of life of the people in three dimensions namely: Social, Economical and Environmental. The sustainable development postulates that there are intrinsic links among economic, social and environmental well being of the people.
Sustainable development was at the forefront of the bid for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Identifying the sustainable development issues means communicating the benefits of the bid to the people in the three dimensions of sustainable development mentioned above.
In the London Olympic project, the key sustainable issues are in terms of
1. Waste- the Olympic project will be a zero-waste games project in the sense that material waste will be reduced at source by reusing and recycling activities.
2. Biodiversity-it is also expected that wildlife and natural habitats will be conserved. This will make sure that nature is brought closer to the people.
3. Transport-by reducing the need to travel by providing alternatives to private car. This will reduce emissions from private vehicles.
4. Climate change-in terms of minimising greenhouse gas emissions
Other areas include healthy living by inspiring people to take up sporting activities, transform the heart of East London, making the UK, a work leading sports nation.
ii) Explain the concept of project sustainability management. What purpose does it serve?
Project sustainability management is a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present but also for future generations (Wallace, 2005)
The purpose of project sustainability management in the London 2012 games is in creating venues, facilities and infrastructure for the London 2012 Games that leave a lasting social, economic and environmental legacy for East London and the UK in general, while minimizing any other adverse impacts during the design and construction of the Olympic venues, infrastructure and housing.
(iii) What are some of the principal reasons why project sustainability management has become such a popular business tool in recent years?
Project sustainability management (PSM) has become a popular business tool in recent years because it has been ascertain that most projects execution cause more harm than good. In a bid to improve the quality of life of the people during and after the project, PSM is being adopted to ensure that the projects don not compromise on the existence of future generations.
iv) Describe the basic elements of a sustainable management framework.
The three basic elements of a sustainable are Economical, Social and Environmental. According to Schaltegger (2000), these basic elements interact to produce positive or negative impacts.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Microsoft, a software engineering and systems development consulting firm, sells a wide assortment of Internet and computer-based solutions for resource planning, administrative, and accounting networks to organisations in health delivery, financial services and hotel management. Typically, a service provider would approach Microsoft with a list of problems it was experiencing and some targets for organisational improvement. Because most of Microsoft’s clients were not themselves computer-savvy, they tended to rely heavily on Microsoft to correctly diagnose their difficulties propose solutions to correct these problems, and implement the new technologies. The industry Microsoft operates in is extremely competitive, forcing successful organisations to make low bids to win consulting contracts. In this environment, project management is vital for Microsoft’s success because poorly managed projects quickly “ate up” the profit margin for any job.
Unfortunately, Microsoft’s senior management team has noticed a recent upsurge in their project operating costs and a related drop-off in profitability. In particular, Microsoft’s executives are concerned because the last seven consulting contracts have resulted in almost no profit margin because the software systems were delivered late and required several rounds of rework to fix bugs or correct significant shortcomings in the software. The firm decided to hold a weekend off-site retreat with the project managers responsible for these most recently completed projects in order to learn the reasons why project management was being done poorly.
To a person, the project managers fixed the blame for their problems on the clients. A typical response was made by Amanda Jones, a project manager with over five years’ experience, who stated, “We are put in a very tough position. Most of the customers don’t know what they really want so we have to spend hours working with them to get a reasonable Statement of Work that we can develop the project scope around. This takes time. In fact, the more time I spend with the customer up front, the less I have to get my team to actually develop the system for them. It’s a Catch 22-If I want to get things right, I have to pry information out of them. The better I do getting a sense of their problems, the less time I have to develop and run the project!”
David Brown, another project manager, spoke up. “It doesn’t stop there, unfortunately. My biggest problems are always on the back end of the project. We work like dogs to get a system up that corresponds to the clients demands, only to have them look it over, push a few buttons, and start telling us that this was not anything like what they had in mind! How am I supposed to develop a system to solve their problems when they don’t know what their problems are? Better yet, what do we do when they ‘think’ they know what they want and then when we create it, they turn around and reject our solutions out of hand?”
After three hours of hearing similar messages from the other project managers. It became clear to the senior management team that the project management problems were not isolated but becoming embedded in the firm’s operations. Clearly, something had to be done about their processes.
Questions
i. How would you begin redesigning Microsoft’s project management processes to minimise the problems it is experiencing with poor scope management?
ii. How do the company’s consulting clients contribute to the problems with “scope creep”? If you were to hold a meeting with a potential customer, what message would you want the customer to clearly understand?
iii. How do you balance the need to involve clients with the equally important need to freeze project in order to complete the project in a timely fashion?
iv. Why are configuration management and project change control so difficult to perform in the midst of a complex software development project such as those undertaken by Microsoft?
i. How would you begin redesigning Microsoft’s project management processes to minimize the problems it is experiencing with poor scope management?
Without a doubt, the most common reason that projects fail is because of poor scope definition. By that it means the expectations of the stakeholders, and especially the client or sponsor, are different than the expectations of the project team. This is the most difficult problem, but it is critical to the success of the project that it is overcome (Newell, 2002). This underscores the situation being experienced at Microsoft.
Once the project starts, most clients will probably end up asking for more or entirely different work than what was originally agreed but from the statements of David Brown and Amanda Jones, this was not the case.
If the different clients have engaged the project team during the project stages, Scope- change management would have been possible to effect and the final result will be acceptable to the clients.
To solve the issue of poor scope management, therefore, the scope of the project has to be well defined and understood by both the clients and the project team. In addition, having a scope-change process is place is also ideal. The clients should be able to make changes to the project even when the project is in progress. Since its a software oriented projects, prototypes or beta versions should be produced and testing done, corrections made, before the final product is released to the client.
ii. How do the company’s consulting clients contribute to the problems with “scope creep”? If you were to hold a meeting with a potential customer, what message would you want the customer to clearly understand?
Scope creep refers to the change in a project's scope after the project work has started. Typically, the scope expands by the addition of new features to an already approved feature list. As a result, the project drifts away from its original purpose, timeline, and budget.
The company’s consulting clients can contribute to scope creep when there is lack of proper identification of the features that are required to bring about the achievement of project objectives in the first place, not being involved early enough or at all or when they underestimate the complexity of the Project.
The customer has to understand that scope creep is a significant risk in software development project and spells doom for the project if not carefully handled.
iii. How do you balance the need to involve clients with the equally important need to freeze project in order to complete the project in a timely fashion?
In a software project, freezing entails prohibiting further changes to the requirements. These changes are normally made by the clients so the need to inform them about the need to freeze the project is important. Preventing any further change will allow the project team concentrate on the project so that the project can be completed in a timely fashion.
iv. Why are configuration management and project change control so difficult to perform in the midst of a complex software development project such as those undertaken by Microsoft?
Configuration Management is often difficult to perform:
• Because the project team has other priorities
• Because Configuration Management is an overhead. Therefore it requires resources which are costly and not easy to manage.
Project change control is the management process for requesting reviewing, approving, carrying out and controlling changes to the project's deliverables. It is difficult to perform because it is usually applied once the first version of a deliverable has been completed and agreed. This underpin the issues experienced at Microsoft.
Unfortunately, Microsoft’s senior management team has noticed a recent upsurge in their project operating costs and a related drop-off in profitability. In particular, Microsoft’s executives are concerned because the last seven consulting contracts have resulted in almost no profit margin because the software systems were delivered late and required several rounds of rework to fix bugs or correct significant shortcomings in the software. The firm decided to hold a weekend off-site retreat with the project managers responsible for these most recently completed projects in order to learn the reasons why project management was being done poorly.
To a person, the project managers fixed the blame for their problems on the clients. A typical response was made by Amanda Jones, a project manager with over five years’ experience, who stated, “We are put in a very tough position. Most of the customers don’t know what they really want so we have to spend hours working with them to get a reasonable Statement of Work that we can develop the project scope around. This takes time. In fact, the more time I spend with the customer up front, the less I have to get my team to actually develop the system for them. It’s a Catch 22-If I want to get things right, I have to pry information out of them. The better I do getting a sense of their problems, the less time I have to develop and run the project!”
David Brown, another project manager, spoke up. “It doesn’t stop there, unfortunately. My biggest problems are always on the back end of the project. We work like dogs to get a system up that corresponds to the clients demands, only to have them look it over, push a few buttons, and start telling us that this was not anything like what they had in mind! How am I supposed to develop a system to solve their problems when they don’t know what their problems are? Better yet, what do we do when they ‘think’ they know what they want and then when we create it, they turn around and reject our solutions out of hand?”
After three hours of hearing similar messages from the other project managers. It became clear to the senior management team that the project management problems were not isolated but becoming embedded in the firm’s operations. Clearly, something had to be done about their processes.
Questions
i. How would you begin redesigning Microsoft’s project management processes to minimise the problems it is experiencing with poor scope management?
ii. How do the company’s consulting clients contribute to the problems with “scope creep”? If you were to hold a meeting with a potential customer, what message would you want the customer to clearly understand?
iii. How do you balance the need to involve clients with the equally important need to freeze project in order to complete the project in a timely fashion?
iv. Why are configuration management and project change control so difficult to perform in the midst of a complex software development project such as those undertaken by Microsoft?
i. How would you begin redesigning Microsoft’s project management processes to minimize the problems it is experiencing with poor scope management?
Without a doubt, the most common reason that projects fail is because of poor scope definition. By that it means the expectations of the stakeholders, and especially the client or sponsor, are different than the expectations of the project team. This is the most difficult problem, but it is critical to the success of the project that it is overcome (Newell, 2002). This underscores the situation being experienced at Microsoft.
Once the project starts, most clients will probably end up asking for more or entirely different work than what was originally agreed but from the statements of David Brown and Amanda Jones, this was not the case.
If the different clients have engaged the project team during the project stages, Scope- change management would have been possible to effect and the final result will be acceptable to the clients.
To solve the issue of poor scope management, therefore, the scope of the project has to be well defined and understood by both the clients and the project team. In addition, having a scope-change process is place is also ideal. The clients should be able to make changes to the project even when the project is in progress. Since its a software oriented projects, prototypes or beta versions should be produced and testing done, corrections made, before the final product is released to the client.
ii. How do the company’s consulting clients contribute to the problems with “scope creep”? If you were to hold a meeting with a potential customer, what message would you want the customer to clearly understand?
Scope creep refers to the change in a project's scope after the project work has started. Typically, the scope expands by the addition of new features to an already approved feature list. As a result, the project drifts away from its original purpose, timeline, and budget.
The company’s consulting clients can contribute to scope creep when there is lack of proper identification of the features that are required to bring about the achievement of project objectives in the first place, not being involved early enough or at all or when they underestimate the complexity of the Project.
The customer has to understand that scope creep is a significant risk in software development project and spells doom for the project if not carefully handled.
iii. How do you balance the need to involve clients with the equally important need to freeze project in order to complete the project in a timely fashion?
In a software project, freezing entails prohibiting further changes to the requirements. These changes are normally made by the clients so the need to inform them about the need to freeze the project is important. Preventing any further change will allow the project team concentrate on the project so that the project can be completed in a timely fashion.
iv. Why are configuration management and project change control so difficult to perform in the midst of a complex software development project such as those undertaken by Microsoft?
Configuration Management is often difficult to perform:
• Because the project team has other priorities
• Because Configuration Management is an overhead. Therefore it requires resources which are costly and not easy to manage.
Project change control is the management process for requesting reviewing, approving, carrying out and controlling changes to the project's deliverables. It is difficult to perform because it is usually applied once the first version of a deliverable has been completed and agreed. This underpin the issues experienced at Microsoft.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
1. Do you agree with the following statement: “With proper planning it is possible to eliminate most/all risks from a project?” Why or why not?
It is not possible to eliminate risk from a project regardless of planning. The role of risk management is to identify and analyze potential risks associated with a project. Once risks have been identified, preventative action or contingency plans may be established to reduce the impact of the risk on the success of the project. While this presents a way to help control the effects of risk, it does not eliminate risk from the project management equation. Nokes and Kelly (2008)
2. When in the project does risk assessment happen? What about risk mitigation and risk management?
Risk assessment is done when the project is first assigned. Assessing the risk associated with a project is simply identifying, analyzing and quantifying situations that can affect the project negatively and that may hinder the project team of delivery the project in time, within scope and budget. Once the risk has been assessed, risk mitigation and risk management will follow suit. Mitigation, according to the National Research Council Committee for Oversight and Assessment of U.S. Department of Energy Project Management (2005), is the action carried out to reduce the occurrence of the associated project risks identified during the risk assessment process or reduce the effect of the risks even if they occur. Risk management, according to Kerzner (2008) has to do with risk planning, risk assessment, risk mitigation and risk monitoring. Since risks occur during the life phases of the project, risk management is a never ending exercise. (Lock, 2007)
3. In evaluating projects across industries, it is sometimes possible to detect patterns in terms of the more common types of risks they routinely face. Consider the development of a new oil plant and compare it to a pharmaceutical plant. What likely forms of risk would your project team face in either of these circumstances?
Swarbrisk (2008) gave a general category of risk that could be idenstified in projects to include
• The market place and competitors
• The technology and its maturity
• The regulatory and government environment
• The project internal risks relating to funding, schedule and team components
• The suppliers of bulk, unique commodities and services
The principle of dealing with risks is the same whether a pharmaceutical or oil industry and it is summed up in the following four steps:
• Risk Identification
• Risk Categorisation
• Risk Mitigation
• Risk Management
REFERENCES
1. NOKES, S and KELLY S. (2008). The definitive guide to project management: the fast track to getting the job done on time and on Budget.2nd ed. United Kingdom: Prentice Hall
2. LOCK, D. (2008). Project Management. 9th ed. England: Gower
3. National Research Council (U.S.) Committee for Oversight and Assessment of U.S. Department of Energy Project Management (2005). The owner's role in project risk management. Washington: National Academic Press
4. SWARBRICK, J. (2008). Encyclopedia of Pharmaceutical Technology. 3rd ed. New York: Informa HealthCare
It is not possible to eliminate risk from a project regardless of planning. The role of risk management is to identify and analyze potential risks associated with a project. Once risks have been identified, preventative action or contingency plans may be established to reduce the impact of the risk on the success of the project. While this presents a way to help control the effects of risk, it does not eliminate risk from the project management equation. Nokes and Kelly (2008)
2. When in the project does risk assessment happen? What about risk mitigation and risk management?
Risk assessment is done when the project is first assigned. Assessing the risk associated with a project is simply identifying, analyzing and quantifying situations that can affect the project negatively and that may hinder the project team of delivery the project in time, within scope and budget. Once the risk has been assessed, risk mitigation and risk management will follow suit. Mitigation, according to the National Research Council Committee for Oversight and Assessment of U.S. Department of Energy Project Management (2005), is the action carried out to reduce the occurrence of the associated project risks identified during the risk assessment process or reduce the effect of the risks even if they occur. Risk management, according to Kerzner (2008) has to do with risk planning, risk assessment, risk mitigation and risk monitoring. Since risks occur during the life phases of the project, risk management is a never ending exercise. (Lock, 2007)
3. In evaluating projects across industries, it is sometimes possible to detect patterns in terms of the more common types of risks they routinely face. Consider the development of a new oil plant and compare it to a pharmaceutical plant. What likely forms of risk would your project team face in either of these circumstances?
Swarbrisk (2008) gave a general category of risk that could be idenstified in projects to include
• The market place and competitors
• The technology and its maturity
• The regulatory and government environment
• The project internal risks relating to funding, schedule and team components
• The suppliers of bulk, unique commodities and services
The principle of dealing with risks is the same whether a pharmaceutical or oil industry and it is summed up in the following four steps:
• Risk Identification
• Risk Categorisation
• Risk Mitigation
• Risk Management
REFERENCES
1. NOKES, S and KELLY S. (2008). The definitive guide to project management: the fast track to getting the job done on time and on Budget.2nd ed. United Kingdom: Prentice Hall
2. LOCK, D. (2008). Project Management. 9th ed. England: Gower
3. National Research Council (U.S.) Committee for Oversight and Assessment of U.S. Department of Energy Project Management (2005). The owner's role in project risk management. Washington: National Academic Press
4. SWARBRICK, J. (2008). Encyclopedia of Pharmaceutical Technology. 3rd ed. New York: Informa HealthCare
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