Fire Control Project - Essay Example

Fire Control Project Fire Control Project Exhibit Fire Control Case Study Introduction Proper management is an essential component in achieving the goals of any project to be undertaken. Project management has guidelines in the manner in which its team can go about it through outlined phases. The stages that begin with process initiation outline clear standards and provide logical distinction between elements of project management essentials and success improvement. A report by the House of Commons Communities and Local Government Committee, 2010, emphasized the necessity to improve the fire-service control rooms through Fire Control projects. The report came out after several interviews and listening to the rest of stakeholders for the FireControl project. The project had objectives establishing a fire resilience programme. Alongside the Fire Control, other projects such as a 350 million pounds project and upgrade of radio-communication also commenced. However, the project recorded massive failures from the initial stages, a factor that led to its termination. The Fire Control project failed to obey the following steps vital to project management process. Reasons for Project Failure and Project Execution Weak project and contract management team Fire Control project had a team, both for project and contract management that was weak and incompetent. The team failed miserably to overcome the chances of flaws that featured into the Fire Control project. The poor management manifestation in the project was consistent in the entire aspects of the project (Gonzalez 2013, p. 17). Therefore, failure was inevitable because once there is a failure in the management team, then direction and planning automatically collapses in any project. The operational team had either inadequate or lacked managerial experience at all. In addition, the Fire Control project management team decided to settle for external consultants who became challenging the team to manage. Unfortunately, the project management team spent a total of 68.6 million pounds on paying and funding the external consultants and consultancy. The 68.6 million pounds account for over 76 percent of the total central project team’s total funding. It is further shocking that the project management team used 42 million pounds to pay a PA consultant who was responsible for giving advice on project related issues. In addition, the Department even failed to do benchmarking in other related firms that have succeeded in the related field or carry out output evaluation and performance monitoring. These factors combined had massive contributions to the project failure. Planning, controlling and proper budgeting failure at the onset of the project are obvious indications that the project is subject to fail. Failure to Align Separate Work Streams For any project to succeed, the Department responsible must ensure alignment of separate work streams. Such stream in the FIRE Control project included building the control centers, modification of working practices within the within local services and developing the IT systems. Construction of first control centers of Fire Control project ended three months earlier before development of IT system commenced and onset of any business processes changes. This indicated that the control room remained empty for at least four years. The failure bit of it manifested when the project team paid 4 million pounds per month for four years to maintain the control room. Assumption that IT Delivery Would Be Aboveboard Despite complexion of the technology, the project team did IT delivery system developed through off the shelf-standardized product. The technology required standardization done by at least 46 local fire services depending on how they operated. However, the project team failed to meet the standardization requirement and opted for off the shelf products. It is therefore evident that the team failed to do technology system delivery within the right timeframe. Consequently, the entire project came to a termination after that terrible failure. The fact that the project team awarded IT contract in the year 2007, three years after the project commenced, was an indication of the project team initial failure to plan. Further, damages continued because when the team awarded the IT contract, the team again made a grave mistake to choose a prime contractor who showed no record of accomplishment of experience in matters related to an IT and Fire control services. The prime contractor relied mainly on other subcontractors that the Department could not control or influence in any way. Poor Design and Management of IT Contract After evaluating the details of the contract, the Department came to notice that the contract design could not give room for holding contractors accountable. The Department also had to undergo and incur huge losses and expenses before terminating the already awarded incompetent IT contract. Despite taking a long period to prepare for the contract, tension because of an already poor relationship between the project team and contactor due to delayed payment schedule. The Department further failed to ensure that the contractor went by the set principles, terms, and conditions of the contract. Poor Leadership and High Turnover of Top Management Since the beginning of Fire Control project, the project managed to have five senior project owners and four project owners. Nonetheless, none of the nine leaders has accounted for the Fire Control failure. Worse still, each one of them is succeeding well in their new career points without anything related to Fire Control failure troubling them. Accounting officer of the Department between the years 2005 to 2008, for instance, is currently working as one of the most civil servants in Scotland. High top leadership turnover also delayed already started projects because the continuous flow of events met interruption every single moment a new leader stepped in. in addition, most of the leaders who took over did not have sufficient experience, knowledge and skills of managing IT contract and moving forward a Fire Control project successfully. Complicated and Highly Involving Project Responsibility and accountability were lacking in the Department’s project governance structures. The creation of the department had convolutions, lacked clear and outlined roles, terms, and conditions of the structure. Lack of such structures significantly slowed down decision making for several years of the project (Young 2013, p. 144). The claim of slow decision-making was evident in 2008 when Office of the Government Commerce came up with a conclusion that the board of the project did not operate on a forum of effective decision-making. Furthermore, in 2009, Office of Government Commerce identified a huge cultural failure in the system across every section of the project. Impacts of Changing Technology For Fire Control to succeed, the IT team had to factor in the fast technological changes into their ways of working. Local services had to change their traditional ways of working in alignment with the updated technology (Neverauskas, Bakinaite, & Meiliene, 2013, p. 832). The House of Commons found that lack of understanding of the technological changes is a major cause of project failure. The rate and frequency at which technology changes is a crucial factor to integrate into the project of Fire Control magnitude if is to be successful. Exhibit 2: The Nation Audit Office Report on the Failure of the Fire Control Project The project meant to carry out a major overhaul in the 46 Rescue Services of fire local control rooms within England suffered a blow when it failed again despite absorbing massive government resources. According to the National Audit Office (2011, p. 1), the project management and the entire team failed to observe effective project management guidelines prompting the eventual failure of a multi million project. Consequently, the Department for Communities in collaboration with the Local Government acted with haste to rescue the growing losses by terminating the entire projects. Upon carrying out the project-auditing task, the National Audit Office recommended that project team should observe the following steps to make the process a success. In addition, the auditing office also established that failure in following the key steps of project management from the word go was the reason behind the failure. Key Stages in Project Management Project management refers to a series of processes that involve planning, motivating, resource control, organizing, and protocols that can lead to achievement of specific goals in scientific, business and other daily problems. A project is a onetime effort that focuses on producing the specific result after which it ends, unlike a program that is a continuous process (Carroll 2012, p. 11). Any comprehensive project management develops a project plan that involves defining and serving to support the project objectives and goals. Secondly, project management helps in identifying goals and laying strategies of achieving them. The project management also does need resource quantification as well as determining budgets alongside completion timelines. Furthermore, project management must also assume an active role in implementation management of the project plan. It does this to ensure that accuracy and objective information relative to the plan. Project management has a characteristic of following major phases also known as stages that are responsible for improving its success. The main stages of project management are five and they include project initiation, project planning, project execution, monitoring and controlling as well as project closure. These five stages are vital in the completion of the project. Each phase requires varied knowledge, experience, and skills to ensure successful project implementation. Project Initiation Project initiation comes as the first stage among the key stages of the project management. The stage sets the foundation for the rest of the project. Department of Communities and Local Government in UK ventured into a Fire Control project in the year 2004 with the aim of modernizing fire service. September 2001 attack prompted this initiative. It is at this stage that people get to understand the business need and purpose of the project to be undertaken. The stage creates a general business case by defining the context of the business around the project. In addition, project initiation stage gives a definition of all the measurable goals and results that the project intends to achieve in the end. The project aimed at achieving three objectives. The first objective is to improve resilience of the nation by making it possible for local fire and rescue services to increase capacity of handling public calls during emergencies. The second objective is to enhancing the efficiency through the abolition of 46 local control rooms and moving activities to only nine regional control centers built for the purpose. The third objective involve service enhancement through use of new technology. Fire Control Project was to achieve the objective through upgrade response as well as deployment capacity, specifically by combining new IT system proposal alongside its new project of FireLink communications. Project initiation stage gives the project undertakers to identify project sponsors. Project sponsor includes an individual who will lay down the charter for carrying out the project, through provision of adequate funding (Levy 2009, p. 17). The project sponsors also help in eliminating any barrier that may occur during the process of project management. In addition, this is the stage where appointment of the project team takes place, those who will be responsible for running the project to the end. This stage also gives an opportunity to identify the key stakeholders who will provide participation in the entire process. Furthermore, the initiation phase enables implementers to define clearly the project scope, outlining what the project will or not entail. The initiation phase of the project is a very essential stage that if done successfully and in the right manner, leads to improvement of the project success. Project Planning Project team undertakes planning at the project initiation stage. However, project planning is the most vital stage for heavy lifting around planning. Planning at the stage includes resources needed for the entire process, finances, and the sufficient and outlined timeline for accomplishing the project. Project team must specify clear project deliverables and further highlight activities essential in creating those deliverables in the framework of a logical timeline. Creation of a work breakdown structure makes project-planning effective. For Fire Control Project in UK, the department revealed that 84.8 million pounds were sufficient to deliver resilient systems all over the piece. The department again revealed that it had left the determination of funding services to local fire services for improving resilience services and the project efficiency. The department further invited other stakeholders such as Local Services to submit their bids for evaluation against criteria for money value. The department encouraged individual services to bid collaboratively and further set a program board that is dedicated to managing the funds. Project Execution The execution stage also known as a phase of carrying out the actual project work. The phase outlines how the project team wants to undertake a piece of work. At the phase, the project team undertakes stipulated activities based on a set plan (Meredith 2012, p. 25). Project execution is an important stage that the project team must remain active to be in a position of managing a variety of factors of the project. Such factors include timeliness and quality of work, risks or potential issues as well as communicating with stakeholders to ensure that the project is on track. Ways and Approaches of Increasing Likelihood of Project Success Provision of Comprehensive Response The Department had set a budget plan of 84.8 million pounds for Fire and Rescue Service and this funding meant for upgrading the response control rooms as well as capacity. The department informed the House of Commons that it intended to delegate the responsibility of the upgrade to local fire services. Local fire services will be able to determine how funding will assist in improving resilience as well as efficiency. The department also invited local services to submit bids for which it evaluated against standards related to the money value. This process would have improved the efficiency and effectiveness of the management since transparency and contract procedures well followed. Losses and mismanagement of funds would not occur in the process of execution. Decentralization of Call Centers Management ought to establish a resilient network of technology that has unification to ensure that all staff members from any RCC is able to answer calls all over the country irrespective of where the staff comes from. At the same time, the staff will be able to mobilize the required resources for the project. Management would therefore become very effective, efficient, and successful due to the ability to decentralize their services countrywide. Availing Greater Capabilities of Fire and Rescue Services Management of Fire Control planned to integrate services together with modern risk management tools. In addition, the Fire Control will have the ability of deploying specialist equipment or efficient resources all over the country and covering areas that spread geographically in all regions. Technology and training accompanied with processes of mobilization and common call handling will ensure the project achieves management efficiency across regions. Hiring Experienced Management and Project Team The project should always hire competitive and people with experience of working from related firms to head its team (Cameron 2009, p. 341). The competitive team should run across all the departments to ensure that every section is delivering efficiently and effectively. Consequently, the entire project system will achieve the desired success. Incorporation of the Changing Technology Team management should align the separate work streams of the building controls centers with the changing Information technological advancement. The IT system will help in the modification of practices of work within local services. Management should help the staff in the control room understand the modern means of integrating technology in development of the project. With the modern technology in place, management will improve chances of success in the project. Conclusion Fire Control was a project that had objectives whose conception would have resulted into massive benefits into the UK’s fire and control services. The project had a very elaborate and comprehensive plan for providing improved national resilience, quick response, and enhancing services through technology. In addition, the project aimed at increasing efficiency by establishing purpose built regional control centers. However, common human errors hijacked the process that led to its termination without achieving its set objectives (Brown & Grundy 2012, p.17). Furthermore, misappropriation of large amounts of funds characterized the project that led to huge losses to the government of UK. Improper planning, inexperienced and incompetent leadership of the team were some other reasons that led to shut down and failure of the project. It is important that the UK government express interest in the House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts report. The government should ensure that the faults that occurred find amicable solutions. Human errors such as improper contractual procedures mitigated through appropriate expertise with accurate constitution of rules and regulations. Regulation measures should be applicable to the implementation of contractual agreements, for instance. Further, the governmental authorities should bring project bosses who mismanaged funds to account for their deeds and if possible find hindrances into their career. Bibliography Brown, L. & Grundy, T 2012, Project Management for the Pharmaceutical Industry.new York: Gower Publishing, Ltd. Print. Cameron, D. W 2009, Sorry, lads, but the order is to go the August Offensive, Gallipoli: 1915, Sydney, Australia, UNSW Press. Carroll, J 2012, Effective Project Management in Easy Steps, Southam, In Easy Steps. Print. Gonzalez, W 2014, Applying Agile Project Management to Predevelopment Stages of Innovation, International Journal of Innovation & Technology Management, 11, 4, pp. 1-22. House of Commons: Communities and Local Government Committee 2010, Fifth Report of Session 2009-10 - Report, Together With Formal Minutes, Oral and Written Evidence, House of Commons Papers, Stationary Office. London. Print. Retrieved from, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmcomloc/352/352.pdf Levy, S. B 2009, Legal Project Management: Control, Costs, Meet Schedules, Manage Risks, And Maintain Sanity, Seattle, WA, DayPack Books. Meredith, J. R., & Mantel, S. J 2012, Project Management: A Managerial Approach, Hoboken, NJ, Wiley. National Audit Office 2011, The Failure of the Fire Control Project, The Stationery Office, London. Retrieved on December 12, 2014 from http://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/10121272.pdf Neverauskas, B, Bakinaite, L, & Meiliene, E 2013, Contemporary Approach to the Possibility of Projects Success Increase, Economics & Management, 18, 4, pp. 829-836. Young, T. L 2013, Successful Project Management, London, Kogan Page. Read More