Project Management for Business: The Failure of Fire Control - Literature review Example

Project Management for Business--The failure of Fire Control Executive summary In the current study, The FiReControl project of the English Fire and Rescue Service are discussed in details. The project had faced so many numbers of delays and costs inflation during the lifetime. As a result the Department terminated the project during the year 2009. FiReControl mainly faced the biased project planning which did not support their fundamental requirement of success. Project execution approach and regional structure increased complexity as they are instable management control in the Department. Major issues were stated that the project was unable to implement technologies in the Fire and Rescue Services. Project background analysis helped to obtain best possible insight on the issues and problems faced by the project. It can be said that, three main dialects are aimed by the Department to improve their services like accommodation, information technology and business change. Project leadership or management and project planning are the main weakness of the project. Table of Contents Table of Contents 3 Introduction to the report 4 Brief background of the project 4 Main discussion on two topics 5 Project leadership or management: 6 Project planning 7 Conclusions 9 Recommendations 9 Reference list 11 Introduction to the report Project management can be defined as application of different methods, operational processes, knowledgebase, skills and experience of the employees or the other stakeholders. Such management techniques are used so that predefined project objectives can be achieved. In the globalised world projects are selected on the basis of exclusiveness and momentary ventures (DavidsonFrame, 2014). The project managers are responsible of achieving the planned objectives by delivering best possible outputs. Project management help organisations in accomplishing any project within the approved time period and budget (Andersen, 2008). In the current study, a report will be developed in order to provide the “Department for Communities and Local Government” with the relevant lessons learned from failure of FiReControl project. Moreover, the report will be focussing on two major aspects like project leadership or management and project planning (Higgins et al., 2013). Brief background of the project Various national tactical plans and instructions are set by “Department for Communities and Local Government” (www.nao.org.uk, 2011). Such department is planning to increase the efficiency of the “Fire and Rescue Service” authorities of England. In addition, they are also administrating various national development programmes (Gardiner, 2005). ‘Fire and Resilience Programme’ are one of the crucial activities of the department, FiReControl project is a part of the overall program. It has been observed that in England nearly 46 regional “Fire and Rescue Authorities” are responsible to deliver ‘Fire and Rescue Services’ in various regions (www.nao.org.uk, 2011). Such government bodies are working in order to prevent fire accidents, acting sharply for the road traffic accidents and other occurrences. Chief Fire Officer of the department played crucial role in operating and managing daily disaster management. They are using the local control room in order to act in different emergency cases. Main aim of such programs is increasing welfare of UK based peoples. ‘Fire and Resilience Programme’ aiming to manage uncertain occurrences efficiently by several strategies and actions (www.nao.org.uk, 2011). Officers have planned to increase the efficiency of operational process, fire engines despatching, use of the fire fighters and use of the various incident recovery equipments. Therefore, Department for Communities and Local Government is planning to introduce FiReControl project which had three major factors (Larson and Gray, 2011). Accommodation: the project aimed to develop the regional control centres with nearly nine versatile buildings. Such accommodation facilities can aid such fire control departments to provide multipurpose safety services (www.nao.org.uk, 2011). Information Technology: fire control and safety systems are requiring modern technologies for communicating with the victims. The project aimed to use various computerised equipments and systems to increase the effectiveness of communication. Fire and Rescue Authorities are able to manage calls, assemble fire engines and other fire extinguishing equipments easily. Such IT systems are developing UK based systems in providing fire and rescue services (Ponnappa, 2014). Business change: Fire and Rescue Service business planned for a change with the help of FiReControl project. They are planning to increase the feasibility of the services with the help of the new operational processes and policies. Finally Department for Communities and Local Government has recruited new set of employees in order to increase feasibility of operational policies (www.nao.org.uk, 2011). Main discussion on two topics FiReControl project is requiring highly effective project management strategies that will help them in achieving predetermined success criteria. In the current segment, critical discussion will be made on project leadership or management and project planning (Ward and Chapman, 2003). Management of Department for Communities and Local Government have to execute various strategies to involve project members. Major role of the project manager is to demonstrate the reasons of the adopting the project (Lock, 2013). FiReControl project requirements need to be outlined along with the quality of deliverables, resources estimation and required timescales. FiReControl project must have been contrasted with a business case in order to cross check the rate of investment (Randolph, 2014). Project leadership or management: FiReControl project execution of the firm required to outline the roles and responsibilities of project managers. In the current era efficient project managers are required to have skills and roles like system philosopher, latest technical skills and competencies, being positive, effective emotional aptitude, and insight on the business perspective (Ponnappa, 2014). Moreover, the management of FiReControl project need to have proper time management skills, policy-maker skills and handle stressful situations very effective so that project can achieve the potential success. However, current fire control and safety project faced failure due to inefficient project management. Firstly it can be said that Department for Communities and Local Government failed impose effective leadership and management to achieve predefine success (www.nao.org.uk, 2011). The approach taken by the department is created biasness among the regional structures. Such ambiguity limited the potentials of developing the service setup (Murphy, Greenhalgh and Parkin, 2012). Management failed to provide proper compensation and appraisal for the existing Fire and Rescue Services employees, which increased chances of the change related employee conflicts. In addition, it has been observed that the unrealistic estimates were used by the department in order to approve the project. They used unrealistic costs and assumptions on the local savings (Maylor, 2010). Project management Department failed to justify and judge the complexity of FiReControl project. It increased the rate of failure and potential delivery lags. The Department appointed some inefficient project managers or leaders which failed to produce adequate project plan for the FiReControl. The project faced the issue of limited reliable leadership styles and direction capacity (EricKirkland, 2014). FiReControl project was threatened by high labour and management turnover. Such condition occurred as the department put higher dependence on least effective consultants. For the current project department tied up with distinct IT contractors. Project managers of FiReControl faced high turnover rate among the Department and major IT contractor named EADS. Both the parties are facing the challenges of employee attrition, which is limiting the scope of the project (www.nao.org.uk, 2011). The Department made huge investment to develop their workforce but attrition rate reduced success. For the FiReControl project they spend most £89.8 million for developing national team. The investment only in this segment represents majority of initially estimated project cost. Management put high reliance on the consultants and interim staff for the FiReControl project (NationalAuditOffice, 2015). Such policies helped them to increase contributions of project team of the Department. However, it had cost nearly £68.6 million and a contractual agreement signed with PA Consulting. The consultancy services cost the department £42 million during the year 2011 (www.nao.org.uk, 2011). Project management failure imbalanced roles, responsibilities and positions of the employees involved in the project (Newton, 2009). Attrition rate of the project harmed the success criteria and Department for Communities and Local Government has to recruit their Project Managers several times during the project tenure. Over dependence on consultants weakened the project evaluation framework. Performance assessment was quite complex till the year 2008 which reduced the efficiency of making immediate decisions (NationalAuditOffice, 2015). Project planning The key planning of the FiReControl project is to improve flexibility, competence and technology support for developing the overall English Fire and Rescue Service. The project aimed to replace almost 46 local control rooms in order to increase the efficiency of national fire and disaster management system (Pinto, 2013). The project is planning to introduce nine purpose-built networks of regional fire and safety control centres. In the current system they are planning to computer system around the UK national region in order to make quick actions against any reports and queries. Initial project planning originated during the year 2004 and expected finish by the year 2009 (NationalAuditOffice, 2015). However, the plans were having so many complexity and biasness which created huge lag in the project planning execution. Department for Communities and Local Government signed one contract with the European Air and Defence Systems (EADS) so that they can execute the project efficiently. This agreement helped the authority to design new models, develop remedial strategies and implement computerised fire safety systems. EADS also helped to evaluate the project execution stages. From the analysis it have been found that FiReControl project faced issues like numbers of delays and hiking costs of the materials during the project lifetime due to inefficient work breakdown structure (www.nao.org.uk, 2011). Work breakdown structure assists project planners to organise all the tasks of the project in a sequential manner. This theory allows the planners to properly allocate time and manpower to the different stages of the project. The absence of adequate work breakdown structure has delayed the overall task of this project while utilizes excessive manpower (Maylor, 2010). Fire and Rescue Authorities planned to increase the technological aspects with the help of FiReControl project. However, the approach and regional structure of the projects have faced huge problems as they are not supported essential success factors (NationalAuditOffice, 2015). FiReControl planned to substitute local control rooms by “nine purpose-built regional control centres” (www.nao.org.uk, 2011). This plan was developing the conceptual fire and safety services. On the other hand, the Department failed to design adequate plan for the FiReControl project according to the available resources which can be achieved proper critical path analysis. The theory of critical path analysis enables the project planners to evaluate the importance of multiple sequential activities within any project planning process (Maylor, 2010). The critical path analysis was essential for this project planning as it can enable the authorities to calculate the longest possible sequence of activities which is required for the proper completion of the project. This analysis is also capable of allocating the possible delays and its impact in resource as well as project management (Maylor, 2010). The project planners have not included the possible changes of technologies in their critical path analysis process which subsequently reduces the feasible of project procurement system for the regional control centres, whereas their IT system commenced after 2004. After that IT system changed a lot, those were not amended in the project planning (www.nao.org.uk, 2011). The procurement system of FiReControl project set prioritisation of regional control centres. The department preferred such enters than innovative IT system. Gradually with the Department cancelled FiReControl project during December 2010 (NationalAuditOffice, 2015). Such decisions were made as the evaluation of plans reported that rate of deliverability is too less than the acceptable outcome within the five year timeframe. During the time of closing decision, the Department calculated that the nearly £245 million were already spent on the project. This condition of the project has demonstrated the lack of implementation of project scheduling theory. This theory generally assists the project planning and management team to schedule the time table for the project along with time frame for the works need to be performed and adequate resource allocation to each step of the time and task framework (Lock, 2013). The implementation of a Gantt chart was required in this stage to properly allocate the work as per their accordance and time table. This chart can also assist the team to efficiently allocate resources as per scheduling (Lock, 2013). The inefficient project scheduling and lack of usage of Gantt chart has delayed the completion of the project while increased the usage of resources. Henceforth, if Department for Communities and Local Government have continued the project it will result as the total cost of nearly £635 million at the end. The amount represents five times more than the initial estimation amount of £120 million (NationalAuditOffice, 2015). Conclusions Fromm the study, it have been observed that the FiReControl project of the Department for Communities and Local Government faced huge complexity regarding the planning and project administrating. Such issues forced the Department to conclude the project during December 2010. Deliverability evaluation of FiReControl outlined that they are facing huge issues regarding the cost hike and time lags. EADS were contracted to deliver various IT systems and equipments in order to reinforce FiReControl project. While terminating the projects the Department fixed a settlement with EADS. From the study it can be concluded that every project needs effective planning and estimation. However, the Department have designed the project inefficiently and resulted termination. The failure will shed on the future success factors as the failure contains can be used as benchmarks. Recommendations The failed FiReControl project helped in developing certain recommendation for the Department for Communities and Local Government in eloping success criteria for the future projects. Government should outline unique or isolated IT projects so that they can utilise all the available resources to achieve predetermined objectives. Firstly project managers are supposed to concentrate on the immediate requirement for the Department. They must adopt strategies that reduce waste of investment or assets in regarding to the FiReControl project. The Department should outline the main issues faced during the execution of the FiReControl project and reasons of termination. The leadership approach and management capacity must be developed in order to mitigate the challenges faced in executing large-scale IT enabled projects. Change management issues and employee turnover rates must be reduced for gaining future succession. Project managers must play crucial role in protecting corporate assets and financial funds. They must be able to improvise project plan as per the changing situations. Moreover, PM must be capable of leading and motivating it delivery team to achieve predetermined success. They are responsible to manage the potential risks faced by the project. The Department need to reduce the dependency on others and develop an internal process monitoring team who will evaluate the progress as per plans. Project budget and timetable must be maintained very carefully so that the success can be achieved. Reference list Andersen, E.S., 2008. Rethinking Project Management: an organisational perspective Harlow, FT Prentice Hall DavidsonFrame, J., 2014. Reconstructing Project Management. Project Management Journal, 45(1), pp.112-124. EricKirkland, C., 2014. Project Management: A Problem-Based Approach. Project Management Journal, 45(1), pp.257-271. Gardiner, P., 2005. Project Management: A Strategic Planning Approach Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan Higgins, E., Taylor, M., Jones, M. and Lisboa, P., 2013. Understanding community fire risk—A spatial model for targeting fire prevention activities. Fire Safety Journal, 62, pp.20-29. Larson, E. W. and Gray, C. F., 2011. Project Management: The Managerial Process. 5th edn. New York, McGraw-Hill. Lock, D., 2013. Project Management. 10th Ed. Aldershot, Gower Publishing Maylor, H., 2010. Project Management 4th edn. Harlow, FT Prentice Hall Murphy, P., Greenhalgh, K. and Parkin, C., 2012. Fire and rescue service reconfiguration: a case study in Nottinghamshire. Intl Jnl of Emergency Services, 1(1), pp.86-94. NationalAuditOffice, 2015. The failure of the FiReControl project - National Audit Office (NAO). [online] Available at: http://www.nao.org.uk/report/the-failure-of-the-firecontrol-project/ [Accessed 25 Jun. 2015]. Newton, R., 2009 The practice and theory of Project Management: creating value through change Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan Pinto, J.K., 2013 Project Management: Achieving Competitive Advantage, 3rd Edition, Pearson. Ponnappa, G., 2014. Project Stakeholder Management. Project Management Journal, 45(2), pp.457-459. Randolph, S., 2014. Maximizing Project Value: A Project Managers Guide. Project Management Journal, 45(2), pp.122-127. Ward, S. and Chapman, C., 2003. Transforming project risk management into project uncertainty management. International Journal of Project Management, 21(2), pp.97-105. www.nao.org.uk, 2011. The failure of the FiReControl project. [online] Available at: http://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/10121272.pdf [Accessed 25 Jun. 2015]. Read More