Project Management Strategic Issues Assignment

Project Management Strategic Issues - Assignment Example The design of the building was given by  Enric  Miralles  and the construction of the building started in June 1999. The project was a constant target of disagreement and condemnation for the choice of the site, complex design and costs incurred. The final completion date of the building was in 2004, which was almost three years behind the original schedule and the project overran the cost of ?40m to ?414m which was many folds higher than the allocated budget. The major reason for the cost overrun as explained in the public enquiry by Peter Fraser in 2003 were the inefficient methods in which most important design changes were executed by the  Holyrood  project team. The paper undertakes a detailed study of the Scottish Parliament project, the reasons of the failure of the project, the course of direction as the project advanced to its final stage and the  recommendations  that could have saved the failure of the project followed by conclusion. ... The Management appeared to be unable to give a clear perception of the Quality v/s Cost aspect of the Project, which led to complications later on.  The initial cost estimate of the New Project at  Holyrood  was  GBP  40  Miilion, subsequently revised to  GBP  50 Million. However this was never believed to have any sanctity. The Acting Minister of Scotland, Mr. Donald Dewar desired the project to be completed as early as possible. The process of selecting the Construction Management was done without adequate regard for the risk factors. Quality was the over-riding priority in the scheme of things, rather than cost and timely execution. It was much later when the delay became a very visible issue that stress was laid on completing it early. Even at that stage no rescheduling of the work to reflect the acceleration of pace was done. The cost escalated unreasonably because of the numerous design additions and alterations demanded by the client. Fig 2: Escalated Costs sin ce Sep 2000 2.2 Lack of Budget Clarity The Project was managed through Construction by Contracting.  The utilization of this type  of project management methodology permits the initiation of the on-site construction before the finalization of the complete project design. This strategy helps to reduce the time. However, in the case of the  Holyrood  project, no main contractor was hired  initially  and the client hired as many as 60 small time individual contractors whose services were taken up at different times. These individual contractors were to work under a construction management  firm  and the client remained the employer at all times. However, this  method turned