Project Management Practices: A Case Study Analysis of Three Projects

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This project analyzes three case studies on project management.

Project Management Practices
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Contents
Case Study 2....................................................................................................................................3
Introduction..................................................................................................................................3
Problem Description....................................................................................................................4
Research Methodology and Data Collection...............................................................................5
Analysis.......................................................................................................................................8
Findings.....................................................................................................................................10
Recommendations......................................................................................................................11
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................12
Case Study 3..................................................................................................................................13
Introduction................................................................................................................................13
Problem Description..................................................................................................................14
Research Methodology and Data Collection.............................................................................15
Analysis.....................................................................................................................................17
Findings.....................................................................................................................................19
Recommendations......................................................................................................................20
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................21
Results and Findings (Case study 1-3)..........................................................................................22
Conclusion and Recommendation.................................................................................................23
Limitations.................................................................................................................................25
References......................................................................................................................................26
Figure 1: Research Methodology Process.......................................................................................5
Figure 2: Analyses of Interview......................................................................................................7
Figure 3: Narrative Analysis............................................................................................................7
Figure 4: Mind map as interview tool............................................................................................14
Figure 5: Data analysis..................................................................................................................15
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Case Study 2
Introduction
The case study two describes the case scenario of the project that was a construction project of
the Sydney Opera House in Australia. The building is the biggest example of the project
management failures in terms of time and cost and also the biggest example of the quality
maintenance of the project development. the case study describes the process of construction of
the Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia and the reason behind the failures of the project
cost and time constraints.
The construction of the Sydney Opera House was under the surveillance of the Danish architect
named Jørn Utzon. From the initial decision of the construction projects and the guidelines
prepared for the construction of the building, the construction was supposed to start in the year
1959 and to be completed in 4 years with an overall expense of the AUS $ 7 million.
Contradicting the reality, the construction was completed in 14 years and cost about AUS $102
million. The delay in the overall building construction and completion was caused due to the
changing funding and construction designs.
The construction of the Sydney Opera House was solely focused on the quality of the
construction and the cost and time were the secondary factors. Initially, the project design was
decided to consist of the two theatres and then in the middle of the construction, it was decided
that the Sydney Opera House will be consisting of the 4 different halls and the designs of the
halls were changed at the time of the construction. Also, the management of the project was 1 st
led by the architect Jørn Utzon and structure and engineering in charge: Ove Arup, but then Jørn
Utzon resigned and the management changed.
In this report, the discussion will be done on Sydney Opera House case study and the topics like
project description, data collection, research, and analysis will be elaborated related to the case
study.
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Problem Description
The problem with the project of the Opera Sydney House construction can be defined in the
following parts:
 Project goals and objectives: the change in the project plan and objectives at every step of
the construction of the Sydney Opera House was one of the major problems with the overall
project. The quality of the project was the main focus of the construction as it was supposed
to become the global symbol. The project cost and time were not defined. The total freedom
of the designing was one of the major issues.
 Change in stakeholder: one of the problems of the Sydney Opera House construction was
the change in the important stakeholder like the architect. The Danish architect Jørn Utzon
was the first architect of the project Sydney Opera House and when he was forced to resign
from his job, the tool all the designs, plans and scheduling with him as he was very sure he
will be asked to come back to his position but on the contrary a new architect was hired and
he did the scheduling, designing and planning again, which consumed the time.
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Research Methodology and Data Collection
Research methodology is the process which is used by the researchers to gather data and
information from various sources in order to make better decisions related to the business. The
method includes surveys, interviews and the techniques related to the research (Flick 2015).
Figure 1: Research Methodology Process
In this report, the research has been done using the methodology of data collection. The
interview of Jørn Utzon, the project Architect, had been taken. In this interview, few questions
have been asked from Utzon and he is supposed to give answers for that (Quinlan et al. 2019).
Following are the questions that have been asked by him:
S. no. Questions Answers
1 Why did it take so much time to
construct the Opera House?
The client’s changing requirements and
specifications led to project delay.
2 Why did the budget of the project
drastically increase from $7 to $102
million?
The same reason mentioned above was
the reason for increased budget, i.e.
client’s requirements along with a focus
on design.
3 According to you what was the
client’s specification?
Their specifications do changes with
time. They want a perfect building in a
budget and on time which is not
possible.
4 According to you what will be the  The solution can be proper
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solutions to the issues? supervision of the project under a
managing authority.
 Cost management
 Scope management
 Time management
5 Did you find challenges earlier in the
project execution?
The challenges were faced from the
initial stages. The challenges of goal and
objective.
6 Is there any communication gap
between team members and
stakeholders?
Sometimes it is found that there is a poor
communication inside the team as well
as in between the team.
Data Collection:
Data collection is the process of collection of data for the project or any research field. It helps in
analyzing the data related to the project. This method has been implemented at the initial level of
the project development (Flick 2018).
There are variant methods of data collection such as:
Primary Sources –
 Interview: This process includes a direct meeting of the interviewer and interviewee and
asked questions.
 Questionnaire: This method involves written questions which have to be filled using a
choice of answers.
 Observation: The observation is done to find knowledge regarding the project and the
collected observation is being analyzed.
Secondary Sources –
 Documentation: Once the data has been collected, it was documented for the proper
presentation of data and thus analysis can be done for the same.
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Analysis
Once the data has been researched and collected using various data collection technology i.e.
Interview, the analysis had to be done. The data will be evaluated and analyzed in this section.
The interview questions that have been asked from Architect were analyzed below:
Figure 2: Analyses of Interview
The data was collected and analyzed for understanding the issues and challenges faced by the
project team. To analyze the collected data, Narrative Analysis has been used. This analysis is
based on the narratives or the stories that help in engaging with the understanding of the
narrations of the research. In this, the fields were carefully reviewed and common factors are
grouped together and arranged in chronological order then events were defined and identified.
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Figure 3: Narrative Analysis
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Findings
Once the analysis of the data was done, the results were found by analyzing the case study in this
report. The finding can be listed as below:
1. It was noted that there was no specified goal in the beginning.
2. There was a need for reviewing of a plan before plan execution.
3. From the starting phase, the cost estimation or analysis of the budget was not done in a
proper manner.
4. There was a need for time management so that the project can be completed on time.
5. It was found that the government forced the architect to start the construction in the middle of
the design process.
6. The architect had a major focus on design and he is needed to put concern on time and cost.
7. The supervision team for managing and supervising the process of the project development
had become an obstacle for the team.
8. The client introduced so many changes during the development of the project that increased
the development time.
9. There was the need for a manager to manage the project team. The manager would be
responsible for supervising the entire project.
10. The architect was assumed to freely create the design and not depend on the total budget or
the time spend. At the time of construction, the client introduced various changes to the
project (Waters Macdonald & Akhurst 2015).
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Recommendations
Once the finding has been recognized from the case study of Sydney Opera House, following
recommendations have been made:
1. Proper scheduling of the budget and time was needed.
2. A manager or experienced supervising authority was needed for proper management of the
project.
3. The scheduling of time and budget must be done for their proper management.
4. The architect must include that technology that does not increase the project budget and
construction time.
5. The team must have proper communication so that the project follows the transparency
among the team and its members.
6. The architect must not focus on the design objective only and thus, must also have a concern
about the other objectives as well. These objectives may include cost and time.
7. If the design of the project is not completed then the construction must not be started.
8. There should be a representative of the client because if all the clients try to moderate the
changes in the design of the project then the consequences can be disastrous in terms of time,
cost and life.
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Conclusion
The report based on a case study of Sydney Opera House. The case study focuses on the learning
outcomes of the cost and scope management. The report focuses on case introduction motivation
and goal. Further, in this report problems have been described regarding the project cost and
scope. The research has been done along with the data collection. The narrative method has been
used for data collection. When the data was collected it was analyzed to generate the conclusion
and outcomes. Data was evaluated and analyzed and on the basis of that, the results were found.
At last recommendations were listed for making the better future enhancements of the project.
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