Analysis of Project Management at Joannou & Paraskevaides Group (J&P)

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the project management practices of Joannou & Paraskevaides Group (J&P), a prominent international building and civil engineering company. The report begins with an introduction to project management, highlighting its importance in achieving successful project outcomes and then provides a historical overview of J&P, including its founding, headquarters, and business environment. It discusses the company's early projects in Cyprus, its expansion into Libya and other countries, and its involvement in significant projects such as airports, infrastructure developments, and oil and gas projects. The report then examines J&P's project management approach, detailing the nature, size, and frequency of its projects, as well as the challenges faced. Furthermore, the report incorporates the maturity model to assess J&P's project management maturity level. Finally, the report concludes by summarizing the key findings and contributions of the project management strategies employed by J&P to achieve its objectives. The report also includes a list of references from relevant project management literature and online resources.

Project
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
1. History of organisation as well as brief description of business environment........................1
2. History on doing projects........................................................................................................2
3. Nature, Size and Frequency of Project....................................................................................4
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Project management is planning, management as well as organizing the efforts to achieve
the successful project. It is one-time activity that produces a particular results or outcomes. In
order to make project successful project manager is responsible for the success and failure. In
this present project, Joannou & Paraskevaides Group will be chosen for assessment which is
better known as J&P. It is one of the top international building and Civil Engineering Companies
in the world. This present project will include brief description about the companies as well as it
business environment. Further, some recent project of company will also discuss in this report.
Addition to this, nature, size and frequency of project will also include.
MAIN BODY
1. History of organisation as well as brief description of business environment.
The Joannou & Paraskevaisas Group which better known as J&P is the top international
building and Civil Engineering companies in the world. It was founded in 1961 by George
Paraskevaides and Efthyvoulos G. Its headquarters are located in Guernsey. In a throng of
climate variations and terrains, projects as diverse as airport, industrial, commercial as well as
residential building, hospitals, hotels, roads, bridges and motorways and installation of oil &gas,
Joannou & Paraskevaisas delivers outstanding quality and magnitude of work. The history of this
group was started in 1941 when in Cyprus both George Paraskevaides and Stelios Joannou
formed a partnership. J&P began crucial works in the civil sector and for the succeeding 20 years
it was the biggest contributor to infrastructure of developing Cyprus after the end of second
world war (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2017). They built blocks if flats as well as small factories,
theatres, civil buildings, variety of housing units and the project of company is rapidly expanded
with the passage of time. Apart from this, they also built tourist development and holiday
complexes for rasing tourism industry.
The staff of J&P has well qualified staff with unified resources after 1960 when Cyprus
gain independence. It was the time when no-any other company could give challenge in the local
market. The first overseas involvement of J&P was in Libya in 1961. Libya had started to exploit
its oil reserve with the collaboration with international companies. It was the biggiest challenge
for J&P due to lack of infrastructure and unpleasant terrain but they took up the challenge as an
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opportunity. J&P was awarded by Libya government. After that, company has become one of the
famous organisation that has ability to work in challenging condition (Harrison and Lock, 2017).
J&P decide to flourish its business more by 1969. The next project was begun in Saudi
Arabia, at Dhahran Airport, New land site, extending and resurfacing the runway as well as
taxiways. They get recommendation of customer's and consultants to make the performance in
project excellent both in terms of time and quality. By their excellent performance J&P had
awarded the contract to build the whole Seeb International Airport on virgin ground by the Oman
Sultanate. J&P has become one of the major participants in building tunnels, flyover and bridges
in Saudi Arabia, UAE and Oman by high investment into the region.
They started their work from the ground and with the time goes, J&P was building huge
complexes in housing and even as entire town with broad infrastructure. It followed shopping
malls, hospitals, hotels and sports stadia. Similarly, J&P also have focus on oil, gas as well as
industrial projects, an industry that is rapidly grown and develop to claim an important part of
organisations turnover. J&P is not limited to only these three four countries but is been one of the
most popular company in Pakistan, Qatar, Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Greece and many others.
The director of company knew that it was time for further expansion and Europe was the next
target (Nicholas and Steyn, 2017).
2. History on doing projects.
J&P had done many successful projects that makes the company a very successful
organisation in the world. There are number of projects that are completed by company since in
1961. The list is very long. The project management of J&P is well defined as systematic as
there skills, knowledge of application, techniques and tools to the activities of project that meets
needs and wants of stakeholders form the projects. The vert first project that was taken and
completed by J&P was in Cyprus. Company has taken the project of building the entire city/town
in Cyprus by building complexes, flats, small factories, picture halls, shopping malls and many
other building. It was the first contract of J&P that was very successfully completed and was the
major reason for the expansion for company. On the bedrock island, they had built holiday
complexes and development of tourist to expand the industry of tourism (Takey and de Carvalho,
2015).
The next project of J&P was started as in Libya in 1961. Libya had started to exploit its
oil reserves with the collaboration of companies of all multinational level. J&P comes up with
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the collaboration of international companies and start to exploit oil and gas reserve. After the
success of this contract, J&P soon awarded major project of building houses. The success of this
project is not only in terms of profit and revenue but it was noted for its strength to work in
challenging conditions.
After 1969, J&P is now moving forward to another countries. Pakistan also made
contract with company to build roads as well as construction on Lahore international Airport.
This was also one of the successful project of J&P. In Greece, company has won number of
contract in building hotels, hospitals, roads and highways and it was followed by contract by
petrochemical plants, refineries and big commercial and industrial complexes. In the history of
Greece it was one of the largest project (Verzuh, 2015). In 2004, when the eyes of the world
were turned to Athens and the national founded Olympic games, this company was the major
contractor.
In 2005, J&P has again awarded a contract by Cyprus to build main road s that is
connected by mountains and tunnels. Incosial, Larnaca, Paphos and Limassol are the main four
cities where the construction of highways is required to link with tunnels and mountains.
Some recent project that are undertaken by J&P are
 Asprokremmos Dam, Paphos Irrigation Project in Cyprus (55 meters high).
 Hospital Shell & Core Underground car park Hamad Medical City at Asian
Games Village in Qatar. (274,000 sq.m.)
 NC-115 Filed Development Project, (GOSP A) in Libya.
Maturity Model
The best way to assess the maturity of J&P's project management is identified by the well-known
model known as Maturity Model. It is model of project management which consist of six stages
which are planning, design, scoping, tendering, scheduling and ending with the
implementation. It is very important that the level of interaction in between strategical
management and planning and successful implementation of project. Company is well settled
and organized. Thus, all the project of company is at maturity level as because the use this model
in there project management. The project manager of company follow all these steps one by one
to make the project successful. They make strategic planning that meets the requirements of
stakeholders. After that they design the project in a meaningful manner like on graph, or on
computer systems that what will be the main design of the project (Kaiser, EL Arbi and
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Ahlemann, 2015). It is not so easy to tackle different issues consisting the management of
relationship with stakeholders as well as expectations. On the other hand, effective scheduling is
also very important in order to achieve the objectives of project. Addition to this, development of
estimation tool of cost, planning of innovative project, better practices as well as the role of
technologies for effective management of project. And last implementation of the project as per
the planning is also very important as without systematic implementation, planing designing,
scheduling all are waste. Thus, to perform in effective manner it is very essential that each and
every stages of this model is fulfilled.
3. Nature, Size and Frequency of Project.
There are numerous types of project that are undertaken by J&P company. There are
several types of project that are undertaken by company which are transportation, oil& gas,
housing & urban development, civil & building, water & waste and MEP. The size of project
that are undertaken by J&P company is very big in size. In past when company is facing the
issues in infrastructure and unpleasant terrain, the project that they are undertaking is not too
small, it was huge. At the end of second war, company has taken the toughest challenge but J&P
had completed the project in Cyprus. They had build blocks of flats, picture halls, and many
other infrastructure of entire town (Alias and et.al., 2014). Another project that were taken by
company is exploiting the oil in Libya which is also a giant project for J&P. It is very
challenging project as company is facing issues in infrastructure. On the other hand, all the
project that were discussed above in the question are all very giants projects.
The characteristics of projects that are undertaken by J&P are as follows-
 The purpose and end results are well defined.
 All projects are unique in nature.
 Projects cut across organisational lines.
 All projects are very innovative.
 The schedule of all projects are very effective.
There are some difficulties that are faced by J&P company in some projects like in schedule,
budgetary and physical scope (human resource, raw material and resources). Sometimes it
happens that company is handling many projects which in turn disturb the schedule, budget of
the other project. J&P is a giant company which have presence in many countries. The frequency
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of the project which company undertakes is two to three in a month. It is only because of its huge
infrastructure and its effective project management planning and team (Sears and et.al., 2015).
CONCLUSION
The above report concluded that planning, management as well as organizing the efforts
to achieve the successful project is known as project management. The entire success of the
project is depends on planning, managing and controlling of project. Addition to this, a brief
history of the J&P was also illustrated in this report. Maturity model was also included in this
assignment that explains how company manage its project to reach its maturity level.
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REFERENCES
Kerzner, H. and Kerzner, H.R., 2017. Project management: a systems approach to planning,
scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Walker, A., 2015. Project management in construction. John Wiley & Sons.
Harrison, F. and Lock, D., 2017. Advanced project management: a structured approach.
Routledge.
Nicholas, J.M. and Steyn, H., 2017. Project management for engineering, business and
technology. Routledge.
Cannon, J. and Hillebrandt, P.M. eds., 2016. The management of construction firms: Aspects of
theory. Springer.
Takey, S.M. and de Carvalho, M.M., 2015. Competency mapping in project management: An
action research study in an engineering company. International Journal of Project
Management, 33(4), pp.784-796.
Verzuh, E., 2015. The fast forward MBA in project management. John Wiley & Sons.
Kaiser, M.G., El Arbi, F. and Ahlemann, F., 2015. Successful project portfolio management
beyond project selection techniques: Understanding the role of structural
alignment. International Journal of Project Management, 33(1), pp.126-139.
Alias, Z and et.al., 2014. Determining critical success factors of project management practice: A
conceptual framework. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 153, pp.61-69.
Sears, S.K and et.al., 2015. Construction project management. John Wiley & Sons.
Online:
About Joannou & Paraskevaides Group (J&P). 2017. Accessed through: < (http://www.jandp-
group.com/)>.
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