PROJECT PLANNING MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL

POST MODULE ASSIGNMENT

PROJECT PLANNING MANAGEMENT AND CONTROL

Answer all three Questions

Each question counts equally to the final mark for the module.

(25% of the marks will be awarded based on the in-module exercise)

1. During the module you were a member of a project team on the project management exercise.

· Explain the performance of your team identifying team strengths and team weaknesses (25%).

· Analyse the Belbin Profile for your team as a whole identifying predicted strengths and weaknesses. (25%)

· Compare your expectations of individual and team performance based on Belbin profiles with what actually happened in practice. Attempt to explain any difference. (40%)

· How useful and realistic were the Belbin predictions? What other factors may be relevant to team performance? (10%)

2. Based on teaching on the module and wider reading:

· Explain the steps that you would have to go through to create a cost performance baseline (S-curve) for an engineering project with 100 activities and a duration of 12 months (60%).

· What factors influence the stability of this baseline? (20%)

· What alternative approaches are there for project monitoring in a situation where the baseline might prove too volatile (20%)?

3. Why is the Project Definition Activity so important for effective project management? (20%). Based on the teaching on the module and wider reading identify what a good practice project definition process would look like? (20%)

The Wembley case-study below describes a project that took a long time in the project definition stage. Critically evaluate the Project Definition Process used on this project. What do you think went wrong, what went right and how would you improve the process for the future? (60%)

You must support your arguments with reference to textbooks, module material and wider reading.

Please do not repeat work that you have used for previous assignments or in your dissertation. If you want to, you can refer to work that you have done in the past, but you must reference that work in the same way as any other source of data or ideas.

The word count for each question should be 1,500 words.

Wembley Stadium: Project Definition Case

Wembley Stadium has been the UK’s national home of football since the original stadium was built in 1923. In 1966 it played host to England’s one and only world cup success. So, in the 1990’s the plan to replace the national stadium attracted huge media interest and much controversy. The new stadium with its iconic 135m tall halon-lit arch is now seen as a national success but the rebuild took five years longer than originally planned and costs more than doubled from the first estimate.

In December 1996, Wembley was selected as the site for a new national stadium for the sports of football, rugby league and athletics. In September 2002 nearly six years later, financing was finally agreed to allow the Australian company Multiplex to design and build the new stadium for a fixed price of £458 million. Some of the events in between these two dates are outlined in the table 1 below.

Date

Event

December 1996

Wembley was selected as the site for the new national stadium for the sports of Football, Rugby League and Athletics

June 1997

Wembley National Stadium Limited (WNSL) was set up as a private company under the authority of the Football Association (FA)

November 1998

Sport England awarded £120 million to WNSL in National Lottery Funding

March 1999

WNSL buy the existing stadium and business for £106million

December 1999

Athletics was removed from the venue and WNSL was to repay £20million of the funding to the National Lottery

October 2000

The existing Wembley Stadium business was closed down

December 2000

WNSL was unable to find commercial finance to build the new stadium. Athletics was later reinstated in the stadium plan.

April 2001

The Football Association requested £150 million from Government to support the creation of the stadium

June 2001

Government commissioned Patrick Carter to report on the need for Government finance

November 2001

Accusations of poor management of the contract award process. David James commissioned to investigate

February 2002

WNSL appoint Cyril Sweett to investigate value for money of the Multiplex contract

April 2002

New board and Chairman appointed for WNSL

September 2002

Finance for the project was finally approved. Demolition started

Table 1: Events in the development of Wembley Stadium; 1996 to 2002

Stakeholders involved in the project are shown in Figure1 below.

Figure 1: Principal Stakeholders, Contracts and Payments involved in the design and construction of the new Wembley Stadium

The target opening date for the new stadium was May 2006 for the FA cup final. This event had to be transferred to the Millennium Stadium in Wales, and Wembley finally opened in March 2007. Multiplex had to pay penalties for late delivery and made a loss on the contract of £ 148 million. They were subsequently taken over by a competitor.

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