Planning, Scope, and Integration Management - Assignment Example

Planning, Scope & Integration Management Name: Course: Instructor: Date: Planning, Scope & Integration Management Introduction Failed projects that were destined to fail at their onset may be referred to as ‘death march’ particularly in the case where the projects are at high risk of yielding bad outcomes. A number of projects which have been deemed to fail, have ended up being failed projects after a number of weaknesses were identified in policy making, as well as in the real implementation of these projects. Often the cases that have led to ‘death marches’ and thus failed projects are projects which have been associated with overly optimistic expectations with regard to the scheduling prospects of the project, we also have had cases of establishment of unrealistic goals and expectations, situations of unrealistic feature scope or even a combination of these and other factors. In addition, other factors that have characterized many of the failed projects includes the risks that have been associated with inappropriate documentation of the project plan, scope, methodology and perceived outcome. Lack of relevant training as well as external expertise that often is required in large complex projects have also accounted to a number of projects ending up as failed projects. Often, project managers would make efforts to try and straighten the failed projects however, it is often difficult to align the projects when the negative outcomes of the project have already been manifested. This paper looks into two major failed projects that were carried out by the United Kingdom Government, and the Australian Governments respectively. The first project was an IT project i.e. ‘Fire service IT project’ by the UK Government, while the second one was an Australian Government project that was to organize customer management in the Sydney’s water sector. Recent large projects that can be considered "death marches" and the reason for these Project failures a. Fire service IT project by UK Government (FiReControl project) This was the fire service IT project that was deemed to fail, and result in the wastage of over 496 million British pounds. This project was initiated by the UK Government through the Fire department to come up with a system that will centralize UKs Fire and Rescue services control rooms, in a bid to improve efficiency in delivering the rescue services in the United Kingdom. The project failed and was branded as ‘poorly managed’ failed project by the National Audit Office, after conducting an evaluation of the project just before it stalled. This project was contracted to EADS at an estimated cost of 245 million dollars, however due to its failures after the audits were carried out, the project was cancelled as a result of its failure to deliver. An estimated 496 million pounds was said to have been lost as a consequence of the project failing to deliver the objectives that were set. The National Audit Office claimed that a further 180 million dollars may have also gone down the drain due to the failure of the project to deliver. Poor organization of the parties involved in the project led the goals and objectives of this project to unravel (Great Britain: Parliament. 2006). The report that was provided by the National Audit Office (NAO) head claimed that it was one of the most poorly organized projects, and it is the disorganized structure of its implementation that led to the gross failure. The project management skills that were required in this project which missed included IT reporting skills, coordination skills, and integration management skills that would allow the different parties to work towards one objective. The project was said in the report to be one of the projects that has taken its own life, through taking in a lot of resources in increasing measure, yet did not reach its objectives. The report condemned the projects methodology that allowed for the application of a regional approach of implementation which was unclear to the people and the regional stakeholders who were to be involved in the project. Lack of clarity with regard to the implementation of the regional approach led to poor communication to the local fire and rescue service officials who were instrumental to the success of the project. This led to the project which was to otherwise ‘centralize UKs Fire & Rescue service controlled rooms. An achievement that would have boosted the quality of the delivery of the rescue services to the fire victims in the United Kingdom. The project showed tendencies in the first place to end up being a failed project after the essential checks and balances that were conducted at the early stages of the implementation of the project showed that the project was ineffective. The check and balances outcomes that time revealed ineffective implementation as well as use of the resources by the project managers. This project was also found to have had unrealistic estimates of the costs that were to be involved to carry out the project from its inception to its completion. In addition to this, the project was said to have been characterized by underestimation of the complexity that was associated with the IT that was to be involved in it. This is likely to be as a result of poor identification of the stakeholders expectations of the project. This underestimation led to the project managers failing to implement what was otherwise though to be a simpler IT processes and technology applications. In addition to this, the project was also fund to have been hurriedly done, which compromised on the quality expectation that were set before the project was implemented. Hurrying up the project was said to have led to the mix up of the processes that ultimately made it difficult for the stated outcomes to be realized as time went by. Finally, there was poor management among the stakeholders of the project, and this was said to account for the many weaknesses that were identified as the project was carried out. The project involved stakeholders at the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG), which was in-charge of Fire and Rescue services, as well as those from the regional office who were to liaise with the appointed contractors, for a smooth running of the project. Indeed, this was said by the National Audit Office (NAO) to be one of the core contributing factors to the failures that the projects encountered, and thus its inability to deliver the expected outcome. The report by the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG), a department mandated with the responsibility for the Fire and Rescue Services, pointed out its agreement with NAO that the project was a failed project. They however, also added that the project had serious failings, which were rooted from the time it was initiated in 2004, through its subsequent execution. This was where the ‘scope creep’ of this project began. It is important to note that as much as the department acknowledged that from 2009, they took a strong grip; they advanced that the project ended up being a failure due to the problems in the its procurement procedures, management challenges, as well as the inadequate skills and processes. The procurement procedure was poorly handled where the contractor that was awarded the project didn’t not have full capacity to deliver on a number of complexes IT infrastructure that were required, and thus had to outsource, this led to many partners being involved in the project, and thus a challenge of coordinating the process towards the expected outcome grew up. Cost implication was also identified due to the change in logistics which were not identified in the first place. The department’s report indicated that there was need to have brought in more expert minds into the project, a thing that was assumed by the project planners, and this made the feasibility of the project to make the outcomes to be realized to be very low. The project was also found to be characterized by the flaws with regard tom the procedures of operation that were set at the onset of the project. This led to application of poor fire and rescue policy in the project. This led to the increased need to come up with a new strategy for a new project that is based on a local solution to be established. For the future projects of such nature, I would recommend that before any project is implemented; Priority should be given to the report from the periodical checks and balances. In this project, there was a lot of assumption which builds up mistakes and led to huge losses (i.e. 496 million pounds). It is important for the Government department that is concerned to review its policies on procurement, to ensure that right people are given the jobs, and that they must prove that they are worth the contract through the process of implementing the project, and not just through the selection process. There is also need for increased expert persons and professionals to be involved in complex projects, particularly those involving IT. b. Sydney Water- Customer Management System Project The project’s goals and objective was to modernize, as well as consolidate Sydney water’s Customer Management Systems. This was in a bid to improve the services by which the customers would access the water services from Sydney’s Water For this project, Ernst & Young were chosen to provide quality assurance service. There was also a weakness in the timeline expected to complete the project, because the project was to end in August, 2009, but that didn’t happen leading to an 18 months extension to February 2011. Alongside reducing the operating costs by $ 1.9 million annually, the completion of the project was to bring to an end six internally legacy applications that have been expensive to maintain yet they ar the ones currently being used for customer management (Schwalbe, 2010). This project which was expected to result into good outcomes went overboard the stated budgetary allocation by more than 100%. In addition to the escalated cost of the project that was meant to serve the water customers in Sydney, the project schedule also did not work, and the project delayed by 18 months. This delay is what is said to have accounted for the escalated cost of running the project to its completion. The other negative implication of this public project was the overruns, which have been calculated by economist to amount to a return on investment period of about 37 years. The 2009 project was reported to be a failed project, though reports have indicated it is not the first project to take on this trend since Sydney Water had another project, (i.e. ‘ the modernize the customer information and billing’) project that failed in 2002, after experiencing a fourfold run over extent budget. This was a project that was to cost Australia’s tax payer $70 million (Kuruvilla, 2004). The contract for running the project was awarded to IBM It was reported that the project was characterized by a number of factors that led it to fail. Two of the core factors that were advanced for the failed report include; the underestimation of the complexities that were involved in the project and the second one was poor cost estimation with regard to system integration. Perhaps this makes the two problems to be common among the IT oriented projects. The complexities that were involved in the project were underestimated, making the project managers not to prioritize involving more expert professionals in the project, and the result of this was more money was spent with little outcome being realized by the project. This was a major challenge since the project was an IT project where an IT customer management system was to be developed, this kind of project requires expert project management skills such as communication skills, decision making skills characterized by minimal compromises to the quality of the outcome of the project, as well as effective coordination skills that will build up the capacity for the different systems to be integrated (Kuruvilla, 2004). The project was expected to come up with a good outcome. Completion of the Sydney Water's customer management system (CMS) was estimated to offer is $1.9 million to NSW taxpayers every year through the reduction of the operating costs. The Government Auditor general released an assessments report on this project which revealed that the project’s cost has well gone beyond the expected cost. The report indicated that the project that was to be implemented in two phases and was expected to cost $ 68.9n in total. This same report indicated that the first phase which was to cost $ 21 million had already taken $55.3 million. The increased cost of managing the project was said to have been caused by systems integration cost which were higher than it was expected. The project was claimed by Sydney water to have more benefits than just saving the operating costs. This is because historically, the customer information management functions by Sydney’s Water were carried out as separate entities which included; contacts, billing, complaints, trade waste agreements, and , faults management and others. Most of this application were found to be a stand-alone system, with limited workflow capabilities, and demanded high cots of training front-line managers. In addition, these applications were found not to be intuitive and thus have difficulties in handling customer inquiries. The project was meant to provide a consolidated management control for Sydney Water's facilities, and customer network. After looking at the failures, in this project, I would recommend that: There is need for Government of Australia to invest on professional experts in its projects, and the Government IT projects should be given priority with this regard. The second thing is that there is need for appropriate procedures to be developed with regard to establishing the cost that a project would incur. This is because Australian projects have had this problem. Conclusion From the two projects, there are two similar problems that led the projects to fail. These are the problem of cost estimation, and assumptions of the complexities involved in implementing the projects. It is important for the project managers and the other stake holders to address this issue well before hurrying up to complete a project. All in all, the project failed mainly because of the budget blow out, which is said to be as a result of an underestimation of the complexity of the project. This failure led to Australia’s Government being blamed for not being keen on projects that costs taxpayer dollars. References Great Britain: Parliament. (2006). Fire and Rescue Service: Fourth Report of Session 2005-06. London: The Stationery Office. Kuruvilla, M. (2004). Water and Environmental Management. Sydney: IWA Publishing. Schwalbe, K. (2010). Information Technology Project Management. London: Cengage Learning. Read More