The Conduct of the UK Fire Control Program - Coursework Example

Program and Project Strategy By [Presented to] of Introduction Every project and program requires systematic and well planned strategies to create value in the long run. The success of projects depends on the implementation of strategies that are not only significant but also productive (Klastorin, 2003). Project management has evolved as one of the independent strategic tools leading to the success of projects and determination of project failures through the implementation and analysis of well planned strategies (Milosevic, 2003). The discussion aims to research and analyse the conduct of The UK Fire Control Program along with discussing the problems and errors encountered in the program strategy and planning. The discussion also aims to suggest how the successful utilisation of best possible strategies would have helped in mitigating the problems and errors to an extent leading to better solutions and improved benefits. The discussion will revolve around the introduction of the UK Fire Control Program and project management strategies to deal with failure issues. The UK Fire Control Program Fire Control was a project that was initiated in the United Kingdom in the early March of 2004. The program was initiated to reduce the number of control rooms used to handle emergency calls for wide arrays of fire services. Currently, there are 46 control rooms being used to handle calls from different people in England via 999 systems (Johnstone, 2013). The original plan was to combine these control rooms into nine regional control service centers. However, the plan was scrapped as the government of the UK believed that fire services would not be forced to reorganize (Codrea-Rado, 2013). Though, the basic idea of project was to integrate available sources and resources to deal with calls and complaints in a more defined and systematic manner. The government took time to think over the integration of the control rooms and forming a regional structure but the project failed mainly because of the lack of planning and systematic approach (Hodge, 2011). The Fire Control aimed to abolish 46 local fire and rescue control rooms across the country and replace them with nine well managed and state of the art centers linked with a modern IT system. The ideal behind establishing the regional centers was based on the fact that they would serve a particular region in a well planned manner and thus mitigating the overall chances of failures in terms of rendering services and taking care of grievances. The regional control centers would have covered regions like East, London, East Midlands, North East, North West, South East, South West, West Midland Humberside, and Yorkshire. It was believed that the project would have offered a systematic and coordinated response to wide arrays of emergencies like terrorist attacks, natural calamities, and rail crashes. Many of the MPs believed that the project was rushed as not well planned and implemented. It was also found that the government funded the project but did not assess the overall possibility of failures, challenges, and long term issues and problems (House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts, 2011). The project was aimed to streamline the existing control centers in order to make things easy for the society and the government. However, lack of proper planning and poor execution of strategies led to the project failure. Around £469 million was wasted on the project resulting in little value and benefits to the society. The biggest problem with the project was lack of assessment pertaining to the sources and resources. There was no proper strategies in place and benchmarking and cost benefit analysis were not conducted. Though, the project was flawed from the very beginning but administrators also failed to manage the project and related sources and resources. The failure of the UK Fire Control Program is considered as one of the biggest project failures. This also shows that successful and effective project management requires wide arrays of tools and techniques along with a robust strategic and operational vision to succeed in the long run (House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts, 2011). The next part of the discussion presents the problems being encountered in the program strategy in a critical manner. Errors in the Program Strategy and Planning The department was keen to initiate the Fire Control Program and it was initiated with great anticipation to make things easy and streamlined. A gateway review by the office of the government commerce found that the project was developed and moved at an extraordinary pace. However, the review also found that the project has certain flaws and was in poor condition. It was also ascertained that the project would not be able to meet the expectations and will fail to deliver the promises. The department also confirmed that the project was flawed from the outset considering the fact that the local independent and accountable service providers were not consulted (National Audit Office, 2013). Local services were excluded from the process and were not consulted on the specifications of the proposed service centers. The fast pace of the project led insufficient work being carried to analyse and assess the cost of the project and overall risk associated with it. Even though, the project plan and proposal was not formulated but the Department and Treasury approved the project (National Audit Office, 2013). This proved to be a costly move by the department as the project was over-ambitious with unrealistic forecast cost and badly illustrated savings. The overall cost was estimated at around £120 million but later increased to £469 (Hodge, 2011). This shows that was serious lack of planning and assessment of challenges and risks. Many fire and rescue services believed that the proposed changes would lead to more complications. They were also concerned on the fact that, the project would lead to additional cost and residual liabilities that may affect their operational efficiency in the long run (Hodge, 2011). So, it can be said that, there were management and agreement issues that did not shape well in the very beginning leaving a big gap between the reality and expectations. Although, the department officials discussed about the investment risks but operational and functional risks were not discussed at length creating long term issues and complications (National Audit Office, 2013). Fire Control was termed as a poorly executed and weak project from the beginning. The project management also eliminated the chances of overcoming the project’s flaws considering the fact that the department was sure of the benefits and advantages and risk factors were not analysed and studied. The biggest loophole of the project was in the form of lack of operational efficiency within the department (Leach, 2013). The department lacked the operational experience and expertise in the project team and relied heavily on the external consultants. The lack of appropriate and required skill sets within the department further mitigated the scope of identifying the existing and potential operational loopholes. The over reliance on external consultants was justified on the grounds of seeking professional and expert guidance on the project (Hodge, 2011). However, the problem remained in the form of successful management of the consultants. The consultants were paid £68.6 million that was around 76% of the proposed project cost (National Audit Office, 2013). This shows that the project lacked operational and financial planning and assessment. The estimated cost of the project kept increasing while the management control was not strong or professional enough to understand the loopholes thwarting the progress and success of the project at the execution stage (Hodge, 2011). Poor planning was also identified in the form of designing contract for the IT services while the centers were ready. This meant that the centers were empty for months as there was no IT implementation. This resulted in additional cost and thus increasing the overall cost of the project. This also shows that different activities and sources and resources associated with them were not streamlined well. The success of Fire Control Centers dependent on how well local services changed their views on technologies but in this case, there was a disagreement between from the very beginning. This resulted in a confusing scenario where, the project lost its pace and appeal along with its purpose and aim. This also raised serious doubts on the management of the project (Leach, 2013). Some of the key issues that led to the failure of the project have been discussed in a detailed and conclusive manner that will further help in identifying the key errors in terms of project initiation and completion. Little Cooperation and Support of Local Fire and Rescue Services- the success of the project was heavily relying on the support and cooperation of the local fire and rescue services. However, the department failed to realise the independence of local services and their accountability (Codrea-Rado, 2013). This did not lead to a favorable situation as the goals and objectives of the proposal were not shared and acknowledged in a transparent manner leaving a large vacuum of uncertainty. This also shows that the overall identification of the key stakeholders of the project was not ascertained and the communication was also vague leading to the foundation that was not only fragile but unstable (National Audit Office, 2013). Lack of Effective Checks and Balance- there is no doubt that the project progressed at a rapid pace without essential checks being applied. The Department and Treasury approved the project without assessing the feasibility, benefits, and advantages of the project. This can be considered as the biggest error considering the fact that the department did not analyse or forecast the loopholes. Challenges were not assessed and identified and proper strategies to de3al with future issues were not initiated and implemented (Leach, 2013). This shows that the seriousness of the project was not justified by the department leading to the project failure. Weak Management and Oversight- the department’s management and oversight were quite weak lacking necessary expertise and experience. The department did not assess and approach the project as a business transformation. Moreover, there were talks on using IT systems in the proposed nine regional centers but the department was lacking an understanding over the intricacies of the IT and its required framework. The complexities of the IT framework were not assessed and analysed in a critical manner (Hodge, 2011). Failure in the Management of the IT System- the department failed to follow the most basic fundamental of the contract management by not managing the performance of the contractors and sub-contractors. The department also allowed the contractors to deviate from the fundamental approach of the project and did not even take corrective actions. This also suggests that the terms and conditions were not clearly understood and accepted resulting in wide arrays of project completion issues in the long run (National Audit Office, 2013). Little Accountability by the Management- it was quite evident that the management was over relying on the consultants and the senior managers took little responsibility for the success of the project. Furthermore, the corporate governance of the department was not robust enough to keep a check on the project’s loopholes. Personal and joint responsibilities were lacking and no one was held accountable or responsible for the failure of the project in the beginning and thus affecting the possible benefits of the project (Hodge, 2011). Little Utilisation of the Financial Resources- the department did not use the financial resources in a well planned and exemplary manner. After estimating the cost of the project at around £120 million, it was increased to £469 million and later £84.8 million were proposed to achieve the objectives of the project (Codrea-Rado, 2013). This shows that, there was absolute lack of financial planning that did not offer much of foundation to implement the project and achieve its objectives in a well planned manner. Empty Regional Centers and Unnecessary Expenses- As stated before, the IT infrastructure was not implemented and regional centers were formed being unused. This resulted in additional expenditures in the form of managing and maintaining the centers. It was estimated that around £4 million every month were spent to maintain these centers and were totally unnecessary. The emptiness of the centers did not offer much relief to the department as it raised questions over the administration and the management (Leach, 2013). On the basis of the above discussion, it was found that The UK Fire Control Program was full of errors and complexities. These errors affected the operational and functional framework of the project. First of all, the project was not well planned and adequate project management strategies were not used. The project was flawed from the beginning as the Department for Communities and Local Government did not have the adequate manpower and efficient sources to complete the project (Leach, 2013). Furthermore, no benchmarking project management strategies were deployed raising questions over the management principles and mode of conducting and handling an important project. The project did not include the required transparency between the stakeholders that led to little productivity of human resources. The management team was also flawed in terms of the leadership as top level managers were not efficient enough to understand the intricacies of the project. The overall planning of formulating and implementing the strategies was quite weak and vague resulting in little creation of value. Though, project management has been coined as the successful planning, organising, controlling, and motivating sources and resources to accomplish specific goals and objectives but in this case, all of the mentioned elements were missing. There was no proper and specific planning, organisation of processes was vague, control of the project’s processes and sources and resources was not well defined, and motivation level of resources was never ascertained in a professional manner (OBrien and Plotnick, 2010). This shows that the overall initiation was determined but planning, execution, and monitoring was lacking. The intricacies of project management were missing in the case of The UK Fire Control Program. In order to further ascertain the importance of robust and well planned project management strategies, it is important to discuss the project management strategies in a critical manner to highlight, how these strategies would have improved the situation. The next part of the discussion presents the critical analysis of the project management strategies in a succinct manner. Project Management Strategies This part of the discussion is aimed to analyse the possible and effective project management strategies that will help in understanding the loopholes of the case of The UK Fire Control Program. The basic purpose of this discussion is to highlight strategies that would have helped the project in being successful and beneficial in the long run. Lewis (2006) stated that project management is an activity of planning, organising, assessing, controlling, monitoring, and motivating the effective sources and resources to achieve specific set of goals and objectives in a well planned and critical manner. David and Cleland (2006) further added that project management strategies are aimed to achieve the goals and objectives of projects while mitigating the impact and influence of constraints like time, budget, scope, and quality. Harrison (2004) believed that the success of projects depends on the successful implementation of strategies along with effective management of sources and resources. Harold (2003) stated that, there are a number of project management approaches being used by a number of organisations. Regardless of the approaches being used by the organisations or project managers, it is important to consider the objective of the project, timeline, cost of the project, and roles and responsibilities of all the participants and related stakeholders. Harrison (2004) further added that the traditional approach of project management revolves around five stages that include initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and completion. This approach has been favored by a number of project managers considering the fact that, it includes the basic principle of starting a project and managing and controlling it an efficient manner till the time of completion. However, in the case of The UK Fire Control Program; there were elements of hasty initiation but there was little execution and monitoring. If there would have been effective execution of sources and resources; there would have been an effective value creation process leading to the success of the project. PRINCE2- this is one of the highly preferred project management tools being used by a number of project managers (Cleland, et al, 2009). PRINCE2 was first released in 1996 as a generic project management method. This method is used for managing projects within a clearly defined framework in a critical way. PRINCE2 focuses on the delivery of the products and specifically the quality requirements. It defines that a successful project is output oriented and not activity oriented. It offers the foundation for planning and managing, how to coordinate with efficient resources, and how to supervise the effective delivery of the product within the stipulated time (Cobb, 2011). In this method, each process is defined with the key input and output along with specific goals and objectives. In the case of The UK Fire Control Program; PRINCE2 would have been of quite benefit and relevance considering the fact that, it has all the elements of managing projects in an effective manner. A critical overview of how PRINCE2 would have been of great help has been showcased as follow. Critical Chain Project Management Critical chain project management is also one of the highly preferred project management tools being used by a number of organisations and project managers. It is a method of planning and managing the project aimed to deal with uncertainties along with understanding and considering the limited availability of sources in the form of physical, human skills, management support, and technological challenges (Mantel, et al, 2011). Critical chain project management is also aimed to enhance the flow of the project by assessing the loopholes and challenges on a regular basis. It also helps in identifying key challenges along with ascertaining ways to deal with them in a critical manner. Task or different tasks are identified along with key constraints and strategies are formulated to deal with those constraints in order to enhance the flow of the project and make it more streamlined and successful. Critical chain process management is one of the most illustrative and comprehensive project management tools that helps in keeping a tab on constraints along with eliminating them in the very beginning to enhance the appeal and success rate of the project in a significant manner (Cleland, et al, 2011). In the context of the UK Fire Control Program, critical chain along with critical path would have been of great benefit. Critical path method is used for scheduling the project activities. It suggests that the list of all activities and stipulated time duration to complete those activities need to be defined. In the case of the UK Fire Control Program, it was not defined and formulated. The dependencies between the processes and activities also need to be identified but was lacking in the above mentioned project considering the fact that local fire centers were not linked with the project’s objectives. Furthermore, logical end points in the form of milestones needed to be discovered but in the case of the UK Fire Control Program, there was a mismatch in the delivery of the milestones as regional centers were established but there was no IT framework to start the processes. Thus, the use of this tool would have been of great benefits. Event Chain Methodology Event chain methodology is another project management tool aimed to ascertain events and overall impact on the goals and objectives of the project. At first, probabilistic moment of risk is ascertained that may or may not affect the dynamics of the project (Woolf, 2012). It is very much possible that events cause events and thus, it becomes important to manage the loopholes and intricacies of those existing and potential events. It is also important to ascertain the most critical event that may have the potential to affect other events and offering attention to it in order to enhance its core value. Project needs to be tracked on regular basis in terms of the benefits, significance, overall cost, and duration. This helps in for better forecasting about the future performances. This shows that the even chain methodology formed a systematic and well defined approach to deal with the event chains and associated complexities. This also helps in managing the present event chain along with determining the future benefits. It was quite evident that the UK Fire Control Program did not use any well defined project management tool. This affected the overall productivity of the project in a negative manner. If event chain methodology would have been used then the department would have ascertained the probabilistic moment of risk in the form of little acceptance by the local fire centers, lack of ideal sources and resources, and unwanted expenses (Woolf, 2012). The department would have also come to know about the usefulness of the IT framework and forming a robust framework supporting the project’s processes. The project was also not tracked on regular basis in terms of the cost and duration that affected its completion. There was a lack of proper forecasting and the management was not keen enough to make project processes a streamlined activity (Harrison, 2004). Overall, it can be said that the use of event chain methodology would have kept a tab on project requirements along with managing them in a critical and well planned manner leading to the systematic creation of value. Agile Project Management Agile project management is another useful project management tool based on the principles of the human interaction and collaboration (Cobb, 2011). In this, the project is seen as a series of small tasks conceived and executed to conclusion rather than forming a pre-planned approach. It is one of the most consistent project management techniques as project’s processes are tested and evaluated on regular basis. It also demands full involvement of the client and each processes is tested and evaluated in a critical manner. Agile project management tool would also have been of great help in the context of the UK Fire Control Program as each phase of the project would have been tested and evaluated in a critical manner. The importance of client and stakeholders’ participation would also have been known and results would have been a bit different from the current results. The only problem with this technique is that, it demands time and attention of the client and stakeholders and in the case of the UK Fire Control Program; it was missing leading to the project failure (National Audit Office, 2013). Lean Project Management Lean project management is a comprehensive adoption of lean concepts based on the idea of reducing the overall amount of waste and delivering more value using a systematic approach. Lean project management is a simple project management tool that has the elements of agile project management considering the fact that, it includes elements like blame-free employer-employee involvement, need for a strong facilitators, and pipelining the project’s processes in a logical manner (Trauner, et al, 2009). Lean project management tool would have been the most simpler and realistic approach for the UK Fire Control Program as it would have allowed to manage the project with the active participation of the client and other stakeholders. This would have also helped in concentrating on the value creation process and reducing the wastage of time, money, and energy in each process and activity (Harrison, 2004). Summary On the basis of the discussion that revolved around highlighting the project description and failure of the UK Fire Control Program, errors in the project management, and project management strategies that would have helped in minimising the errors, it was found that the department clearly lacked vision to accomplish the proposed goals and objectives of the project. It was further found that the use of project management tools like PRINCE2, critical chain process, agile project management, and lean project management tools would have been of great utility and benefits. Out of all these, it can be said that critical chain process and events chain methodology would have been of great benefit in the context of the UK Fire Control Program. It would have helped in streamlining the different processes of the projects along with ascertaining the role of key stakeholders and IT infrastructure in a clear and precise manner. It would have also helped in ascertaining the loopholes and issues along with eliminating them at the key stages and thus making the project more productive and successful. Overall, the usefulness of the project management tools cannot be denied and the use of above discussed techniques could have changed the overall output of the project in a positive manner. References Cleland, D, et al (2009). Project Management Circa 2025.Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute Cobb, C G (2011). Making Sense of Agile Project Management. New York: Wiley Codrea-Rado. A (2013). Contractor mismanagement to blame for FiReControl failure, says watchdog. The Guardian. [Online] Available at http://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2011/jul/01/nao-report-rescue-reform-failure. 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