Building a New Sydney Opera House - Assignment Example

Building a New Sydney Opera House of School) Building a New Sydney Opera House The Sydney Opera House in Australia is one ofthe greatest architectural marvels of the world. Standing on 4.5 hectares of usable floor space, with 5 main auditoria, 1000 main rooms, a reception hall, 5 rehearsal studios, 4 restaurants, 6 theatre bars, the Opera conducts 3000 events yearly and about 200,000 people in guided tours. The project however has not been a success in terms of project management. In 1954, John Joseph Cahill wished to see an opera house built in Sydney with exquisite facilities. In 1956 a competition was opraginized which was won by Jorn Utzon from among 233 entries. Utzon was a Dnish citizen and had not seen the site himself. The design by Utzon was chosen purely on the basis of its creative aesthetics rather than its project analysis. On approval, Ove Arup was appointed as the engineer and the building was started in 1959 with an estimation of AUS$7 million (MARTIN, 2012). The final design was not complete and hence the projected costs were not accurate. Divided into 3 stages, the project was one of the first that used CAD in its design. This was a revolutionary concept at that time and hence the cost of the project was changed from time to time. The Opera House took 14 years to complete and Utzon quit after Stage two due to a political change and cost evaluations. The estimated time to complete the project was 4 years. The project took AUS$102 million, opening in 1973 and recovering its total costs in 2 years’ time with the help of lotteries established by the government. Most of the cost can be attributed to the numerous changes that the stakeholders wanted in the initial design of the building (MARTIN, 2012). Building an Opera House Efficiently Looking at the history of the Opera House, building an Opera House in modern times is not a difficult task. A team of dedicated individuals can be established who will work to deliver the project with dedication and within the timelines with a calculated margin of error. Most projects have calculated timelines with extension margins. The Sydney Opera House had an unrealistically extended timeline which caused it lost revenue, had it opened on time or a little later. Team The team of professionals required to build an Opera House should be qualified to work on large scale projects, specially projects that require special architectural and engineering skills. The professionals leading the team should know how to use the newest technologies involved and what the expenses involved will be. A model team will be: A project manager An architect An engineer Support engineers Supporting architects Supporting staff (for building) Wiring staff Specialized staff (for computerized handling of systems or any other specialized function) In the above team, the architect may act as the project manager or the architect and the engineer may opt to co-act as the Project Manager. The Project Manager will be required to hold the whole team in place and design the project in a way to complete in time. Responsibilities of a Project Manager The Project Manager acts in a managerial position, that is, he acts in a directorial position of the project. The Project Manager looks after the main components of the project that is the Cost, Quality, Schedule and Scope of the project. The Scope of the project is defined as the sum of the products, services and results to be provided as a project. The quality is defined as the degree to which the inherent characteristics fulfill requirements of the project. Together the scope and the quality define the performance and result in outputs. A Project Manager is more concerned with the Cost and Schedule/Time constraints. Ideally if the Time constraint is exact and everything goes exactly as planned the project will be ideal and well-executed. However, time and cost sometimes conflict with each other and affect other constraints too. The Project Manager needs to realize which constraint can be sacrificed for what purpose and how far can it be stretched. In the case of the Opera House, Quality cannot be compromised since the aesthetics of the internal structure is very important. However, the cost and the timing can be tangled and changed but within certain constraints. Moreover, the Opera House should be started with a complete plan in place. Unless there is a complete plan on paper and on a computerized form, tried and tested, the construction should not begin. Once all approval is sought from every professional and specialized professional about the viability of the structure, construction can start at rapid pace monitored by the Project Manager, Architects and the Engineers. The Project Manager is also responsible for the project’s success or failure. Not only does this imply an overall strategy, but on the individual level the team members need to have a learning strategy as well. A successful project is one which does not involve a burnout from its team members. The project is completed at a steady pace and requires very low push from the Project Manager. A project failure arises when the success criteria listed below is not met. Criteria for Project success: 1. Meeting Arrangements: Price, timetable and conditions are met with. 2. Customer’s Success: Requirements are met, customer is pleased. 3. Performing Organization’s Success: Market Share, new goods, new technology. 4. Project Team’s Success: Faithfulness, growth and fulfillment with the completed product. The Project Manager needs to overlook the individual development of the team member if the project is to succeed. The organizational or the team’s learning as a whole needs to improve for future projects. The Project Manager also needs to balance the business profits and benefits that the project will give with the decreased costs and time. Workflow of a Project Manager The Project Manager works by analyzing the project in a systematic manner. Typically, performs the following tasks: Selecting and Initiating. Planning. Executing. Closing and Realizing. For the Opera House, the selection phase is already complete. The Project Manager initiates the project by assembling the right manpower. The Project Manager goes on to Planning phase with the Cost and Timelines and Quality preferences. Engaging the gathered manpower for the project, the manager convenes meetings to plan out the project before starting to build the Opera House. To test feasibility of the structure he can call upon the Specialized Professionals to give an idea on computerized models and compare results for a complete understanding of the project. The project execution starts after the project is declared feasible and the costs are estimated at the nearest possible accurate value. The value should be calculated keeping in view similar projects that are ongoing or if the project is unique, an extended time and cost factor should be appended. Most projects fail because project managers keep timelines too tight or too lenient. The execution phase is crucial to the project and the team and if need be can be revised. In case of a revision of timelines and cost, appropriate action should be taken by the Project Manager to keep the team informed about the changes and all stakeholders involved in the process. Any breakdown in communication can result in a failure of the project or discontent within the team. Either ways the project is set to lose if the project fails. After the completion of the set out plan, the Project Manager measures the real outcome with the planned outcome to realize the differences. Any marginal differences can be ignored while any gaps in construction or design of the Opera House cannot be condoned. Most of the realization of the differences counts towards the learning of the team. The team which can also be the organization which has taken up the building of the Opera House needs to either fix the differences or make them less visible with time. The completion should also come at the appointed time and within the allotted budget. While it is not unusual for the budget to increase, the increase should be qualitative. Time also has a tendency to slip when projects of artistic nature run, but need to be handled carefully by the Project Manager to create a successful project. Communications Plans and Technological Developments The project team requires a hierarchical dataflow among the team members. The Project Manager is responsible for the flow of information from the top to the lower levels. The Project Manager is also responsible for communicating with the stakeholders and drawing up meeting plans. While it is imperative that the Opera House be completed in time, the communications plan should also be part of the Planning stage. The Communication Schedule is drawn up and all the deliverables are ascertained ahead of time. This schedule is updated as the project proceeds as per the communication schedule. The communication schedule marks out the people who are to be communicated with, the message that is to be communicated, the ultimate audience of the message and the distribution method that will be used. The Project Manager also classifies the data that is to be sent out to the different components of the team: The Sponsors receive the project guidelines and critical success factors. The Architects and Engineers receive the project guidelines and the development guidelines. The Support staff receives the project guidelines, support data and the interface data. The specialized staff receives the specialized data, project guidelines and any other information that is related to their area of expertise. Other user groups like the consumers receive data concerning their the project status. The technological aspect of the project is handled by the Specialized Professionals by overlooked by the Project Manager. The Opera House requires technological input from CAD/CAM software to test its strength and manipulate any materials and weights input that can hamper its construction. While the architect is fully aware of the design aspect and the engineer can tell if the building will stand or not, a CAD/CAM test will prove if the building will rest on its footing as per design or not. Improvements in design along the construction can also be made with the software and the Project Manager will be able to handle the costs coming with the changes. Technology not only makes it easier to envision the final product, it also makes it easier to plan the construction of the Opera House in an effective manner. The Project Manager can use various softwares available in the market to plan out the project and update it when needed. Additionally, the Project Manager can also use the recent Cloud Networks to create virtual plans and distribute them among the team so that the team can have an idea of the timelines and can accomplish tasks effectively and with ease. Dissemination of more and more information within the team and delegation of smaller tasks to and number of smaller teams can be done by using technological advantages and still keeping track of the bigger picture. The Project Manager can lead the smaller tasks to completion while leading the bigger task of creating an Opera House to completion. Although it is up to the Project Manager, delegation by technology has the added advantage of picking out functional teams among the working lot. This can affect the time and quality of the bigger project since the smaller tasks will now have Project Leads. This requires close monitoring of smaller tasks by the Project Manager and continuous reporting by the Project Leads. Once the work is delegated to sub-teams and sub-projects are made, the Project Manager can focus on the bigger outcome and managing the over all outlook and the communication plans instead of planning each small phase of the project. Project Leads can be directed to lead the smaller segments of the project with efficiency and technique while it is imperative for the sub-team members to co-operate with two tiers of reporting. Potential Stakeholders Potential stakeholders in this project will be: The architects The engineers The support staff The specialized staff The committees The government (if involved) The suppliers The public The sponsors. The consultants. All these stakeholders are the responsibility of the Project Manager and should be dealt with accordingly. The Project Manager is required to deal with each stakeholder in a way that each ensures the success of the project and does not hinder or hamper the project. Each stakeholder brings a different aspect to the project. The architects, consultants, engineers, support staff, specialized staff help build the project and learn in the process. The government helps build the project and fund it. Different committees if involved fund the project and have political or business interests in the project. The public is the user of the project and will be the beneficiary of the project. Sponsors are the investors and will reap investment returns. The interest of the stakeholders can overlap and the Project Manager should realize that this can happen often than not. This will lead to project slowing down or project failure. The sponsors might want a speedy construction of the Opera House but the government might not be contributing enough to make that happen. The project will be stalled. In the case of Sydney Opera House, the project came to an abrupt stop when Utzon the architect was made to quit and took all the drawings with him. The reason being that the new government believed that the spending on the project was too extravagant. The engineers who replaced him had to build everything from scratch which cost AUS$85 million. The engineers also caused a major amount of damage to the internal acoustics of the building which was minimally repaired and still is to this day. The stakeholders require information on a continuous basis mostly (Newcombe, 2003). While the project is ongoing and the changes are coming in, the stakeholders have a keen interest in the movement of the way the project is being taken forward and how funds are being spent on the project. The relative powers of the stakeholders in the project make the information requirements of the stakeholders different and hence difficult to gauge and balance. While many stakeholders are team members, many require the same depth of information but are not directly involved in decision making. Others might be crucial to the decision making and still not be a crucial part of the team. The relative balance of the stakeholders is very important for the project and any information overload or mismanagement can cause severe damage or halt in the project. Planning an Opera House To build the Opera House effectively, the Project Manager and his team requires time and space to work out the aesthetics of the building and the technicalities of the building. Comparing the Sydney Opera House, which is considered as a project management failure we see: The team needs to be chosen well ahead of the construction and planning phase. The chief leads of the project need to be in constant touch and need to spend time discussing the final drafts of the design of the building. If the project is to be sub-divided, the Project Leads need to be selected and need to be informed beforehand to keep the team in shape. Project information dissemination will be kept uniform. The hierarchy will be maintained and any information that is not required by any person will not be disseminated throughout. Project costs will be ascertained for each stage of the project. All sub-stages need to be documented and all the relevant costs should be ascertained. All the timelines should be ascertained. All the timelines for sub-stages should be ascertained. The project feasibility reports and design drafts should be in place. Once the Planning is complete for the Opera House and the stakeholders have been informed of the costs and timelines and of the scope and quality of the project, the execution of the project can begin. The execution requires the Opera House to stand on the required floor space within the required time. Although there is a time adjustment available in the timeline, the project according to the standards of today and compared to the Sydney Opera House should be able to stand within the timeline and within the budget. The Sydney Opera House was made in a lot of urgency and many stakeholders had a lot of conflicting interest in it. The Opera House that is being executed should be free from all sorts of urgency requirements, which means all sorts of urgency in drafting designs and planning timelines and cost budgets. All the prior arrangements should be given adequate time and manner to complete. The stakeholders should be handled in a neat manner by the Project Manager at each level of the project so that the project can reach maturation and it can be a successful project without time lags and excessive spending. Another issue highlighted in the Sydney Opera House Study is that the primary architect Utzon never made or submitted the complete designs and that hampered the engineers who joined after he left. He never even discussed it with Arup (Baume, 1967). The design of the Opera House in discussion should be as clear as possible to all the participants and should be complete beforehand. It is not mandatory to disseminate the design plan to all the participants but major stakeholders should make sure that all the aesthetics and technical aspects have been clearly understood and major issues have been addressed in the Planning and design stage. While it is not unusual to readdress the design and change it while the construction is going on, a final draft of the completed designs makes sure that all the design issues have been looked through. Most stakeholders involved in the completion of the project have interests in the project that is limited and work related. Sydney Opera House Study revealed that the main architect who left midway became a dangerous stakeholder who not only had work related interest in the project, he also wielded the power to make decisions that could affect the project scope, timing, cost and timing, which it ultimately did. The Opera House in discussion and its Project Manager need to realize that no member of the project team should be allowed to wield such power so as to affect the status of the project in anyway. The best way to ensure this is dissemination of information to more than one person on the team, division of labour, more than one person in a specialized role. While the Project Manager himself does have the power to affect the scope, timeline, cost and quality of the project, he would not do so since his role is not independent of the outcome of the project. The Project Manager is more interested in making the project succeed than to look for ways to make it fail and use his power to leave it midway. Most aesthetic projects require long runs and budget over-runs (Murray, 2004). The Project Manager should realize that, like the Sydney Opera House that ran 10 years over the designated time period, the Opera House may run into difficulties and fall into a time lapse. But using the latest equipment and technique, the Project Manager along with his team may be able to minimize the problems of running into time lapses like the Sydney Opera House. Similarly, the unfinished characteristic of the Sydney Opera House is also considerably unique. While the project ran 10 years ahead of schedule, it primarily did so because of conflicting interests and not because of aesthetics. The changes that were brought about in the architecture were the individual choices of the stakeholders. The Opera House under construction will not require a whole lot of time frame since the timelines and cost budgets have been set out. Foremost the plan of the Opera House is clear so the time slips will be minimal. Technological advancement has made it feasible for the Opera House to be made on an electronic machine before constructing it on the floor. While the softwares available are sophisticated and advanced which can test the weights of the building and the pressure points, the fact that all this can be accomplished way before construction can begin and altered as the construction goes on and the results can be gauged and construction can be altered as well is a plus point compared to the engineering available in the 60s. Project Managers would be able to use the detailed software analysis of the building and create models that are more stable and have fewer problems in their architectural genius. Unless the Opera House needs to be an architectural ingenuity, the Project Manager can rely on the data from similar constructions in the areas or around the world. Since there are not many Opera Houses that are made with an architectural creativity in mind, the Project Manager can make the scope of the project limited and easy to achieve. The Sydney Opera House was made with no cost and time allocations, hence both the time and cost slipped almost entirely attributing both to the creativity of the project. However if an Opera House of Sydney’s caliber were to be created in today’s time, all variables would be kept as close to real and achievable as possible and no chance of slippage would be allowed in the name of creative genius. References Baume, M. (1967). The Sydney Opera House Affair. Sydney: Halstead Press. Martin, C. G.-O. (2012, March 06). The Sidney Opera House construction: A case of project management failure. Retrieved from EOI: http://www.eoi.es/blogs/cristinagarcia-ochoa/2012/01/14/the-sidney-opera-house-construction-a-case-of-project-management-failure/ Murray, P. (2004). The Saga of the Sydney Opera House. New York: Taylor & Francis. Newcombe, R. (2003). From Client to Project Stakeholders: A Stakeholder Mapping Approach. In Construction Management and Economics (pp. 841-848). Read More