Assignment Sample on Case Studies in Project Management
Introduction
Project management could be referred to as a series of activities undertaken to work together as a team and achieve goals for meeting the success criteria within the specified constraints of time, cost, and money (Demirkesen and Ozorhon, 2017). The current report is based on the construction project of the Wembley stadium. The sections covered highlight project description, strategic alignment, decision-making, challenges and resolutions, explicit statement of innovation, discussion of invention adopted, and initiative adopted for fostering collaboration.
Case Analysis
Section 1
Project Description
For forever, Wembley stadium has been a fan arena for every football enthusiast because it has hosted all the major titles and other unforgettable events, including concerts. The stadium which is now there is incapable of catering to the reputation developed by the predecessor. The development of the new Wembley Stadium was the classic example of poor project management, which almost finished the entire project and is said to be a poorly run project but with a good outcome.
The construction cost of the Wembley Stadium was around £789 million at that time (Project Management Institute, 2020). This gave the title of one of the most expensive stadiums they constructed. It also has the world’s most extended unsupported roof as its signature arch. There were many obstacles, delays, and litigation for the development of the modern Wembley football stadium, but it eventually welcomed the public in 2007. On 11th September 2000, the Football Association appointed Multiplex and an Australian construction company to demolish the old stadium and build the new modern Wembley at that place (Röggla et. al. 2019).
The project was delayed immediately because the Football Association failed to protect your governmental permissions. It took another year to get a loan and other government bailouts, of which the demolition of the old Wembley Stadium began in September of 2002. The significant issues encountered within the project included underestimation of the scope, pulling the sub-contractor out of the project, and violation of health and safety laws by the subcontractor. The stakeholders involved within the project were the Football Association, WestLB (the bank which gave the loan to the former entity for construction), Multiplex, Cleveland Bridge, PC Harrington Contractors, Organizers of the scheduled government, and football fans (Ramanayaka and Sutrisna, 2017).
Strategic Alignment
The strategic alignment of the project was inferior. This is so because extra time and money were spent, elements of poor project scope development, and ineffective change management within the paradigms. The program began in 2002 and was expected to be completed by 2006. Still, the Wembley Stadium was delayed for another year because the subcontractor Cleveland Bridge was pulled out, and the new contractor led to a safety accident that had to be settled otherwise (Whannel, 2021).
Apart from this, the multiplexed had to cut corners in order to speed up the project, which made it delay more as this line was blocked and required extensive repair work. The benefit Management, which was supposed to be undertaken by Multiplex, was highly ineffective. This is so because the benefit would have to be delivered late, and the entity could not take care of the work that was on site. The lives of people were addressed, and the ultimate beneficiaries were also deprived of their project.
The governance of the project was also ineffective because of poor project scope development. Multiplex failed to carry out the assigned work and didn’t fulfill the project’s scope as no activities were accomplished as anticipated. While determining the extent of failures, an examination of the scope has to be undertaken. The announcement of the intention for constructing the page after demolishing the old ground comments did the process of scope management. The project management team had to build a playground with a capacity of 90000 people, which included a circumference of 1 kilometer and a steel arch for aesthetic appeal (Hajikazemi et. al. 2017). The significant delays were caused by the construction of the arch for aesthetic appeal.
Decision Making
The entire decision-making operation was within the statutory functions of the Multiplex. The quality was that of the most aesthetic and superior football stadium in the world. On the contrary, it is still being said that the old Wembley Stadium was better than the new one. The reason behind this is identified to be ineffective Project Management which failed to deliver what had promised to the client. The Wembley Stadium was built on 4,000,000m³, including the walls and the roof (Agyekum-Mensah and Knight, 2017).
For completing the task in the desired manner, three thousand tons of Steel and 90000m³ of concrete it was required. The structure of the roof had enclosed 11 arches that grew up to 52 meters (Project Management Institute, 2020). It is understood that for achieving success within such a massive assignment, effective implementation of various tasks and activities as required to ensure sustainability and delivery of projects within the time and resource constraints—the goal of executing projects needed to mitigate all the areas of failure within the London Wembley stadium.
This structure was scheduled to be handed over in 2016 but was completed in 2007, which increased the cause by 36% compared to the time when the bed was signed (McHale, 2019). The contractual terms between Football Association and Multiplex indicated a fixed cost project that provided extra protection to the client from the situations of cost overrun. The additional losses were then encouraged by the general contractor as it was obligated to deliver the project at the agreed price only. There was a lack of a practical assessment plan, and that’s why it was regarded as one of the significant challenges that were incurred.
Challenges and Resolutions
The problems incurred within the project along with their solutions are as follows:
Ineffective Project Cost Management: this involves estimating the cost of all the resources and other minute costs that might be incurred by completing the project in the desired manner. After the charges are laid down, the budget is prepared and kept on track to ensure that the cost constraint is fulfilled. The project manager must realistically determine all the causes for achieving better scope (San Cristóbal et. al. 2019). The initial cost of the stadium was determined to be £326.5 million, but in the end, it cost around £789 million.
This clearly displays that the funding requested was not realistic, and it is one of the significant failures faced by Multiplex because they had to include all the losses. This problem was resolved when Multiplex paid all the losses, and the Football Association finally broke even in the year 2015, after eight years of the possession of the project.
Poor Project Communication Management: it is essential to ensure that appropriate generation and dissemination of information are undertaken within the project in a timely manner. Multiplex has claimed that it was not given a reasonable amount of information for design in the vital Wembley Stadium, and that’s why it had to increase the cost of Steel required (Ciric et. al. 2018). Other analysts claim that the Multiplex was aware of the situation when it came to designing and managing the process and, thereby, has been intimately involved in the design work within the project.
It is the responsibility of the project managing entity to create a smooth flow of information between all the stakeholders and project team members to ensure that any mismanagement is avoided. This was not resolved within the project, but a consistent and efficient stakeholder meeting should have been undertaken on a timely basis to prevent the situation.
Distorted Project Scope Management: scope management involves developing a scope statement capable of defining the boundaries of the project and verifying the level of work that has to be completed. Project managers use a lot of tools and techniques such as value chain, brainstorming, and other diagrams for defining the scope. In a lot of situations where the scope definition has not been carried out in the desired manner, some changes are made in the later stages of the project (Koi-Akrofi et. al. 2019). Within the Wembley Stadium project, no space was left out for scope changes, and that’s why they had to deal with the issues of delayed delivery and high losses. Wembley Stadium project had to deal with scope creep problems and faced cost and time overrun. It is also said that the project failed in the commencement stages and not in the latter ones.
Ineffective stakeholder management: managing stakeholders is defined as looking out for the project and conducting the functions of identification and investment and all the relationships capable of ensuring long-term success. At the conceptual stage, all the parties’ viewpoints and interests need to be gathered, especially those who are one of the end-users of the project and hold confidential information related to the function, design, and success of the project (Masood and Farooqi,2017). If stakeholder management is effectively undertaken in situations of increasing conflict and imperfect harmony between the contractor and suppliers can be omitted.
Multiplex was not able to manage one of its key stakeholders, Cleveland Bridge. David’s initial subcontractors of the Wembley Stadium project had to be pulled out of the same in the initial phase because the cost overrun was rising very high. The subcontractor is actually a steel construction company based in Darlington.
Even Cleveland Bridge warned Multiplex about the rising cause within the construction of the arch. Both of the parties, even being the key stakeholders, were not able to assess the situation in the same manner, and this situation resulted in a forceful walk out of Cleveland Bridge from the Wembley Stadium project in 2004 August (Whannel, 2021). This problem could have been resolved by paying the required attention to the concerns of Cleveland Bridge which would have saved Multiplex of the increased cost of hiring PC Harrington contractors. It would have also helped Multiplex produce the best design and supervise the functional and technical difficulties of the stadium.
Section 2
Explicit Statement of Innovation
Adding aesthetic appeal to the stadium by building innovative arches. This deleted the project for a year, and the project management entity had to bear all the losses in monetary terms. This innovation was along with the project, was described as a total fail because it didn’t add the desired aesthetic appeal or progress to the project; instead delayed it and led to cost overrun.
Discussion of Innovation Adopted
It has been identified that the challenges which emerged from the project were highly innovative (Bierwolf et. al. 2017). Some aspects and techniques, such as the building of the innovative arch, were not tested anywhere else and hence not able to yield many reliable forecasts of this cost involved. It is suggested that the contractors should not agree to build innovative and one-of-a-kind projects on a fixed cost basis agreement. Wembley Stadium project should have had scope for cost estimation while being in progress. The cost associated with scope changes and other expenses could be adjusted.
As a Project Management entity, Multiplex had to undertake cost alterations within the field of the need for new material and implementation of structural loading technique. The current contest of the Wembley Stadium project displays that the change within scope and cost is inevitable in all the construction activities (Design Build, 2019). Project managers should be able to inculcate some changes and expand the scope for easily mitigating difficulties from many sources or causes. The issues can occur at any phase of the project and can severely negatively impact the overall success. The most common of these is difficulty in the completion of deadlines and cost overrun.
The Wembley Stadium project was completed a year later compared to the original commitment. It is worthwhile to note that when today, fans, players, and Multiplex itself could visit Wembley Stadium and smile with satisfaction by looking at the ultimate state of the art. Monetary and time constraints were the major hindrances to the project’s success. The project was initially delayed, and Cleveland Bridge was thrown out of the same because of increasing cost, which was close to double the original bid (Design Buildings, 2020).
From the perspective of project management, it can be said that the Wembley Stadium project ultimately failed but with a good outcome. In the later stages of the project, Multiplex was feeling pressure to deliver the stadium project. The challenges faced by them in the scenario of cost and time overrun did not allow them to pay the subcontractors in time who were hired to complete the sewage system project underneath the stadium. The result of the same was that the subcontractors laid down the pipes improperly (Allahar, 2019). Hefty amounts of rumors floated around, which suggested that the subcontractors had filled concrete inside the tubes because of delayed payment from the Multiplex.
The cause of the shifting of the pipes is still not clear, but it might have been inadequate quality or filling of concrete. The stewards, which is why extensive repair work had to be undertaken to repair the pipes and deleting the project more for a couple of months. In totality, it can be said that the entity which was supposed to be an innovative way to cut down the time resulted in pushing off the deadlines and can be defined as an unexpected move executed by Multiplex. It has been found that for inculcating the elements of innovation within the project, the project manager’s responsibility is to create an open environment that welcomes the concerns and queries of all the stakeholders (de Melo et. al. 2020).
Asking for ideas and providing guidance can also lead to practical, innovative implications. Multiplex as the project management entity failed because it did not give freedom to the subcontractors. This is so because it is hard to impose a lot of constraints and restrictions in terms of time and money on all of the subcontractors. It is understandable because Multiplex itself was dealing with those constraints, but the same project’s heavy imposition didn’t turn out to be what was expected.
Initiatives Adopted for Fostering Collaboration
Wembley Stadium project is the classic example of a lack of collaboration among the team members. This is so because since the commencement of the project Football Association and multiplexed disagreed on cost. It has been found that Football Association made Multiplex agree on the clause of fixed cost basis because it knew that as the stadium is going to be an innovative design cost overrun is expected.
The dispute between Multiplex and Cleveland Bridge is the classic example of all times that the element of collaboration was highly missing within the Wembley Stadium project (Strategic PPM, 2011). Multiplex had hired Cleveland Bridge to handle the construction of the arch that had to extend over the stadium. When Cleveland Bridge tried to convey the problem of rising costs to the Multiplex, the latter could not understand the point, which is why Cleveland Bridge had to walk out of the project in August 2004.
Multiplex was so astounded by this move that it took Cleveland bridge to court. Multiplex won the case but was not able to recover the entire cost, and the other form known as Hollandia was subcontracted for completing the arch. Apart from this, PC Harrington contractors were hired to complete the concrete framework, but the things eventually led to a death and another fatal accident. In the latter timeline of the project, Multiplex also tried to cut corners for speeding up the project by delaying the payment of subcontractors, for which it had to wait for a couple of months more as the work required extensive repair and was not up to the mark (Quinn, 2008).
It is suggested that for fostering collaboration within the Wembley Stadium project, the Multiplex and Football Association should have had a clear role from the start and try to stick to the same. It is also necessary to define the roles and responsibilities of all the team members along with subcontractors in the construction-related project to avoid problems such as time and cost overrun. By keeping the communication of win and having good leadership skills, Multiplex would have dealt with all of the issues that it was encountering.
By encouraging a supportive environment where the subcontractors and the client can put forward their wishes and observations with the assurance that they will be listened to and appropriate actions will be taken on the same, the project can attain success (Larsson and Larsson, 2020). Many experts commented that the Wembley Stadium project failed when it ignored the concerns of Cleveland Bridge and continued to assert its dominance without considering other viewpoints.
Effective collaboration was also witnessed in hiring multiple subcontractors for performing different tasks (Engineering News-Record, 2006). Multiplex should have given the sub-contract to a single entity that would have performed the functions of sewage treatment pipeline, steel construction, or development of the arch. Multiplex was unable to manage all these entities at once, and hence, it can be said that it failed in fostering collaboration.
Conclusion
From the current report, it can be concluded that the Wembley Stadium project was managed by Multiplex. It was supposed to be completed in 2006 but was pushed to 2007 because of a lot of problems that were being faced. The strategic alignment of the project was not clearly defined, and that is why the project management entity had to incur half of the losses. The decision-making power exercised did not comply with the initial requirements. As far as the quality of the project is concerned, it is still said that the old Wembley stadium is better than the new one.
The time was delayed up to a year, and the cost was stretched from £326.5 million to £789 million. The challenges identified were stakeholder management, cost management, communication management, time management, and scope management. The collaboration was not fostered within the Wembley Stadium project and instead showed the absence of the same Multiplex hired a variety of subcontractors to do different tasks that would have selected a single one for streamlining collaboration.
References
Books and Journals
Allahar, H., (2019). A management innovation approach to project planning. Technology Innovation Management Review, 9(6).
Bierwolf, R., Romero, D., Pelk, H. and Stettina, C.J., (2017), June. On the Future of Project Management Innovation. In Proceedings of the 2017 International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Innovation (ICE/ITMC), Funchal, Portugal (pp. 27-29).
Ciric, D., Lalic, B., Gracanin, D., Palcic, I. and Zivlak, N., (2018), March. Agile project management in new product development and innovation processes: challenges and benefits beyond software domain. In 2018 IEEE International Symposium on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (TEMS-ISIE) (pp. 1-9). IEEE.
de Melo, J.C.F., Salerno, M.S., Freitas, J.S., Bagno, R.B. and Brasil, V.C., (2020). From open innovation projects to open innovation project management capabilities: A process-based approach. International Journal of Project Management, 38(5), pp.278-290.
Demirkesen, S. and Ozorhon, B., (2017). Impact of integration management on construction project management performance. International Journal of Project Management, 35(8), pp.1639-1654.
Hajikazemi, S., Razmdoost, K. and Smyth, H., (2017). Value Co-creation through Early Warning Signs in a Project Setting. European Academy of Management (EURAM).
Koi-Akrofi, G.Y., Koi-Akrofi, J. and Matey, H., (2019). Understanding the characteristics, benefits and challenges of agile it project management: A literature based perspective. International Journal of Software Engineering & Applications (IJSEA), 10(5), pp.25-44.
Larsson, J. and Larsson, L., (2020). Integration, application and importance of collaboration in sustainable project management. Sustainability, 12(2), p.585.
Masood, Z. and Farooqi, S., (2017). Benefits and key challenges of agile project management under recent research opportunities. International Research Journal of Management Sciences, 5(1), pp.20-28.
McHale, K., (2019). Give the Fans What They Really Want: How Professional Sports Stadiums across the World Can Positively Impact the Environment. Tex. Envtl. LJ, 49, p.127.
Ramanayaka, C.D. and Sutrisna, M., (2017). Securing clients’ objectives throughout construction project lifecycles. Built Environment Project and Asset Management.
Röggla, T., Li, J., Fjellsten, S., Jansen, J., Kegel, I., Pilgrim, L., Trimby, M., Williams, D. and Cesar, P., (2019), May. From the lab to the OB truck: Object-based broadcasting at the FA Cup in Wembley Stadium. In Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-8).
San Cristóbal, J.R., Diaz, E., Carral, L., Fraguela, J.A. and Iglesias, G., (2019). Complexity and project management: challenges, opportunities, and future research.
Whannel, G., (2021). The Olympic Games and the Problems of Legacy: The London Stadium Story. Journal of Olympic Studies, 2(1), pp.29-52.
Online
Design Build, (2019). Wembley Stadium, London. [Online] Available Through <https://www.designbuild-network.com/projects/wembley/> [Accessed on 23rd April 2021]
Design Buildings, (2020). Wembley Stadium. [Online] Available Through <https://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Wembley_Stadium> [Accessed on 23rd April 2021]
Engineering News Record, (2006). Accident Adds To Cost Woes on Wembley Stadium Project. [Online] Available Through <https://www.enr.com/articles/31031-accident-adds-to-cost-woes-on-wembley-stadium-project> [Accessed on 23rd April 2021]
Project Management Institute, (2020). Wembley Stadium – A Badly Run Project with a Good Outcome!. [Online] Available Through<http://www.projectmanagement.ie/blog/wembley-stadium-a-badly-run-project-with-a-good-outcome> [Accessed on 23rd April 2021]
Quinn, B., (2008). £253m legal battle over Wembley delays. [Online] Available Through <https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/mar/16/construction.wembleystadium> [Accessed on 23rd April 2021]
Strategic PPM, (2011). Project Failure – Wembley Stadium. [Online] Available Through <https://strategicppm.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/project-failure-wembley-stadium/> [Accessed on 23rd April 2021]
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