This report will discuss the failure story of the project of Sydney opera House. It is a tragic story that was failed and revived afterwards that shows a excellent creative work. The project was handed over to the Danish architect Joern Utzon in the year 1957 (Shenhar & Dvir, 2007). The construct was started in 1959. The budget allocated for the project was $7 million and the time fixed for it was four years. Even after nine years, Utzon failed to provide any document regarding the project. Brief background information is provided of the Sydney opera House project followed by a standard criterion is selected in the report for the evaluation purpose and the justification is given regarding the selection of the project. The criteria is then related to the case under consideration and analyzed critically.
The story of Sydney opera House is a worth analyzing one as it is both a master piece of creative work and a disaster. Prior to the Opera House, Sydney had no adequate music venue in Sydney for hosting opera and orchestral performances. They had to perform such events in the claustrophobic town hall with inappropriate stage for such events. In 1947, chief executive of Sydney symphony orchestra Eugene Gossens and director of the New South Wales Conservatorium of music brought the point in focus and initiated the project. The project was primarily handed over to Joern Utzon in the year 1957 and started it in 1959. $7 million and a time of 4 years were primarily allotted for the completion of the project. During this period, the government of NSW became involved in the project and found it disappointed and shocked to see that nothing much was materialized. The budget was turned into $102 million and 14 years. The problem arose from the very beginning of the project as the design drawing was not prepared even after the initiation of the construction work. Moreover, the government changed the blueprint requirements from 2 theater hall to 4. In the year 1966, Utzzon was forcefully resigned after the change took place in NSW government. An Australian architectural team was appoint afterwards that completed the project. The major stakeholders of the project was, government of NSW, Sydney Opera House Executive Committee now as the SOHEC, Jeorn Utzon, Hall Todd and Littlemore, Ove Arup and partners, some contractors and the general public of NSW.
Project success can be divided into two separate components that are project management success and project product success. The first one focuses the process of project management the three major dimensions that are time, quality and cost indicates the efficiency of the project execution. On the other hand, project product success concentrates on the end-product. In other words, if the project fulfils the criteria, it is considered as a successful project, regardless of the catastrophes that took place in the process (eprints.usq.edu.au, 2017).
Success criteria on the other hand are the identification marks that are followed to achieve success in the project. There are seven success criteria identified by different scholars. They are discussed in the following.
There are several stakeholders involved in major projects where. Every single stakeholders cannot be satisfied in the process of the completing the project. The duty of the management to identify the stakeholders needs to be satisfied and separate them from the ones who are to be left dissatisfied (Thomsett, 2002).
This is the major criteria of any project to achieve the objective and the requirements. Business data, business process, and the documents based on the business or information system are dealt with these requirements. Several tool and techniques used in the process of achieving the desired requirements. All the requirements need to be meet for the success of the project (Thomsett, 2002).
This particular criterion is relatively easy for understanding compared to the others. It includes all the resources that used in the project that are equipment, people, accommodations, overhead cost and others. There can be two type of budget in a project. One is fixed budget and the other one is flexible budget that changes with respect to the deadline of the project. More budget utilization requires with the flexibility of deadline of the project (Thomsett, 2002).
This is another easy measure criterion of success. Similar to the budget, the it also has two types where in one, meeting deadline is essential and in the other, flexibility of deadline is the part of the project plan (Thomsett, 2002).
It is considered as on e of the most important criteria of all. Techniques like identification of primary and secondary benefits, added-value chain, and stakeholder buy has potential ability to model the business client’s expectations of financial benefits from the project. The traditional approach of project management focuses on the cost-benefits of the project. Intangible benefits like improved customer satisfaction are commonly used for justification of the projects (Thomsett, 2002).
It is frequently confused with the functional requirements. It can not be modeled using the standard systems of modeling techniques. Some of the quality requirements that are included in the project are reusability, usability, security, audibility, portability, flexibility, maintainability, reliability, efficiency, and conformity (Thomsett, 2002).
Last by not the least, team satisfaction is considered as the most contentious success criteria of all. It the sole determinant of the sense of satisfaction of the team for the project. Some projects demands other success than the team satisfaction. There are cases where team satisfaction has been given priority. Whereas, some cases are visible where the deadline brought closer sacrificing and compromising quality of the project as well as the team satisfaction (Thomsett, 2002).
The standard criteria that can be identify for the case study of Sydney Opera House project form the above-mentioned seven standard criteria is the meeting the project objective and requirements. As mentioned in the above portion of the report, the project objective and requirement criteria focuses primarily on the fulfilment of the objective and the requirements of the project and is the primary concern of the management. The process of meeting the requirements and objective can compromise the other standard criterions that are followed in the project management. Different projects follows single of multiple project criterions for their project as all cannot be followed for a single project. The reason for choosing this criteria is to justify the case in hand and as this criteria can best explain the project management of the Sydney Opera House. Justification behind the selection of this criteria is that, it is visible in the case that the requirements and objective of the project is meet, whereas all the other criteria is seen compromised in the process. The analysis of the project using the selected criteria is present in the next segment of the report (Thomsett, 2002).
The Sydney Opera House project is an example of a failed project where it meets only the project objective and requirement, failing all the other standard criterion in hand. It is also observable that, the project fails to meet the project management success compromising the time, quality and cost of the project. A critical analysis of the case is presented in the following.
The project was primarily handed over to the Danish architect Joern Utzon on 1957. He was concentrated more on the design and the architectural aspect of the project rather than the time and the cost. It resulted in failure of presenting the framework of the project long after the construction work had been started. Ove Arup and partners was in collaboration and responsible for the structural and civil engineering aspect of the project. This failure lead the major stakeholders and the sponsors that are the NSW government and the Sydney Opera House Executive Committee to terminate the Utzon’s contract as he already wasted the fixed budget and time that were $7 million and 4years. Later the project increaser the budget and the time to $102 million and 14 years respectively. This clearly denies some of the other standard criterions of that are team satisfaction, meeting deadline, meeting budget and stakeholder satisfaction. The project was finally completed in the year 1973, long after the first deadline of the project. It is a clear case of failure of the project of project management as its primary standards were deadline and budget due to the poor management. Later it increased the budget and the time for the fulfilment of the project, as it was the primary standard criteria of the project. The objective and the requirement of the sponsors were to build an opera house for the events, as there was none. The final project fulfils the only criteria out of the seven standard criteria of project management mentioned above. An Australian architectural team named Hall Todd and Littlemore finished the project. In the Sydney Opera House project, the project product success is present as it gets the end product, but the management fails to meet the primary criterions in the process of completion.
Recommendations can be made in several aspects of project management that are to be conducted in the future similar projects. First, the project standard criteria needs to be properly state before handing over the project to any particular firm. Moreover, a project management team has to be appointed to look after the ,matters and critically analyze the risk factors present in the project and identify the possible amendments are required prior to the starting of the project. The budget in the case project was critically low which, is a possible factor that played important role in the failure of the project. The second cause that can be identified from the discussion is the poor planning skill. Utzon accepted and started the project without formulating a proper plan and design for the project neglecting the budget and the deadline of the project. Hence, these plans are risks are to be identified in prior to the initiation of the project with selecting a proper standard criteria of the project.
Conclusion
In the above case study, we can see the issues of project management failure in an extended level with brought major damage to the sponsors that are the government of NSW and the SOHEC. It fails to meet the three dimensions of project management success that are time, specification and budget. Though the specifications are, however meet at the end of the completion of the project. Project completed long after the primary deadline set by the sponsors due to the issues mention in the report. Moreover, it also fails to meet the second important dimension of the successful project management that is the budget. Initially the budget was set to $7 million which was revised in the later stage of the project after failing the budget and raise to $102 million and completed. The only dimension of successful project management that is meet in the scenario is the specifications. The budget in the case project was critically low which, is a possible factor that played important role in the failure of the project. The second cause that can be identified from the discussion is the poor planning skill. Utzon accepted and started the project without formulating a proper plan and design for the project neglecting the budget and the deadline of the project. Hence, it can be concluded that the Sydney Opera House project was a failure in the project management aspect, but was a success from the project product success.
References
Thomsett, R. (2002). Radical project management. Prentice Hall Professional.
Shenhar, A. J., & Dvir, D. (2007). Project management research-the challenge and opportunity. Project management journal, 38(2), 93.
eprints.usq.edu.au. (2017). Defining and measuring project success. [online] Available at: https://eprints.usq.edu.au/346/1/DependentVariableArticleV8.pdf [Accessed 1 Sep. 2017].
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