Strategic Vision of Wembley Regeneration
The term program management can be consolidated as an umbrella term that veils the overall process of managing a particular program mapped with business objectives for improving organisational performance (Ortiz, Pellicer and Molenaar 2019). This report intends to examine and produce a report on the context of the Wembley Regeneration Programme to understand whether the original intent and strategic vision of the program were fulfilled in the project. Additionally, supporting this specific aspect will be done based on generating a proper program blueprint along with defining a clear benefits map of the program. Furthermore, lessons learnt from the program in different domains such as project management, leadership, quality, risk, change management as well as resource allocation will be clearly demonstrated here to ensure a clear understanding of the discussing context. Finally, recommendations that may have improved the overall process will be depicted here before stating the concluding statements.
In the year 2002, Brent Council launched their vision for a new Wembley that set out a radical blueprint for the future of this particular area, with a national stadium being the heart of the area (Wembleystadium.com 2022). The underlying components of this strategic vision were the inclusion of a new national stadium, developing an effective community focus for Brent, presenting Wembley as a national, local as well as regional leisure destination, developing a London convention centre, a centre for work, improving the overall accessible development, placing Wembley as a cultural and educational centre, including high-quality retail and commercial facilities along with a mixture of tenures and housing types.
Figure 1: Strategic visions of Wembley Regeneration
(Source: Created by the author)
As per the initial scope shared by the council, the inclusion of athletics, rugby and football tournaments at the same stadium is to be developed (Wembleystadium.com 2022). However, after regeneration, the vision was extended to other cultural and other performance-related aspects. Since the shared vision, Wembley has seen significant achievements such as Wembley Park Boulevard, a refurbished arena, a new office for the council, hotels and student accommodations were developed, which indicates that the underlying vision of the project was fulfilled. Additionally, a recent report by Legacy.brent.gov.uk (2022) has demonstrated that London Designer outlet, Boxpark, Wembley Stadium, The SSE Arena, Wembley Park market, and Troubadour Wembley park theatre are some facilities developed till now. This facility development ultimately defines that the strategic visions of the council for the regeneration of Wembley are fulfilled.
A program blueprint can be considered as one of the core elements of managing a programme and managing best-practice guidance for capturing the overall plan through an effective process map (Charalambous 2021). As for the context of the Wembley regeneration programme, a blueprint to define the indicative structure of the overall plan, new park, Olympic way and enhancement of natural assets were included. Through the depiction of the physical blueprint, a master plan to define the arrangement of the building, spaces and routes have enabled the basic parameter of following the underlying plan of action to comply with the programme aims. The proposed program plan depicted the following blueprint:
Program Blueprint
Figure 2: Program blueprint of Wembley regeneration project
(Source: Legacy.brent.gov.uk, 2022)
The project initiation documentation prepared by the council mentioned that the block layout or blueprint is not intended to be rigid (Legacy.brent.gov.uk, 2022). Instead, it intended to focus on indicating broad contextual and development parameters to allow individuals to come forward in a coherent manner to further suggest a better way. Overall the programme blueprint suggests that through the incorporation of the mentioned plan, the project can further succeed.
Benefits mapping can be contemplated as a pictorial identification technique used during the early stages of the project to further understand the expected benefits and their further contribution to aligning with corporate objectives (Hough and Lawson 2019). In case a project’s objectives do not align with the corporate objectives, the project must not proceed. Likewise, in this project, several benefits such as improvement of overall Wembley in terms of physical infrastructure, becoming one of the most attractive tourist destinations, improved local economies, and other benefits are essentially found from their existing level of benefits realisation aspect. Additionally, by enabling the changes, the council ensured significant benefits which met the underlying objective of the project as well as the council to improve Wembley’s position on the tourism map.
Figure 3: Benefits map
(Source: Created by the author)
Identification of the key lesson learnt after completion of a project is essential to understand the whereabouts of a project, including its advantages as well as disadvantages, in a concise manner (San Cristóbal et al. 2018; Stanitsas, Kirytopoulos and Leopoulos 2021). In the following context, lessons learnt from different domains of the program, including project management, leadership attributes, risk management, quality management, change management, and resource management, will be defined.
Program or project management defines the overall process of managing smaller components of programs mapped with business objectives for improving overall performance (Müller, Drouin and Sankaran 2019; Tereso et al. 2019). Likewise, the project followed a waterfall methodology that was proven successful in improving organisational performance. Additionally, success in overall process development and the contribution to the regional as well as national economy defines that the project significantly contributed to the development. Improved level of employment and economy are two crucial areas of consideration that determine the level of success of a project. As the Wembley Regeneration project contributed to both due to its effective management process, it can be contemplated as successful. Besides that, the overall growth process in the discussing parameter clearly depicted that this project contributed to the context of making huge infrastructural changes. Besides that, the schedule and anticipated budget were met throughout the project, and the overall project quality in terms of construction, guiding and other parameters were properly met (Svejvig 2021). Furthermore, the project matched the initial blueprint created for improving the overall operational context, which ultimately defines that the project and program management contexts were properly met, due to which the megaproject earned success.
Leadership is considered one of the most crucial elements to evaluate a project or a program’s overall success as it defines the effectiveness of the leader or project manager in fulfilling the actual goals (Filippetto, Lima and Barbosa 2021; Bond-Barnard, Fletcher and Steyn 2018). Under the brief leadership of Brent Council, the Wembley Project thrived and became a way to generate income for the local individual on a long-term basis. Additionally, completion of the project within the identified timeline, as well as a slight overshoot of the budget, which is uncommon in such megaprojects, indicates a strong leadership parameter. Even though any direct links of key personnel who handled the project were found, yet Ruth Moher, the councillor of the borough, significantly encouraged the project with the belief that it would help Wembley to grow exponentially in terms of employment and economy. Furthermore, the project handlers of the museum reflected a great deal of leadership creativity and held up to their responsibilities till the project’s completion. Moreover, strategic thinking and goal alignment can be contemplated as other core aspects that were further focused on by the project leader, which indicates their transparency. Therefore, other similar projects can learn a lesson on the effectiveness of strong leadership in the project and imply it further for strategic development.
Benefits Mapping
The process of discovering, classifying, and reducing threats to a firm or project’s capital as well as profitability is known as risk management. Financial concerns, potential obligations, strategic management failures, technology challenges, accidents, and natural disasters are all potential causes of risk (Obradovi?, Todorovi? and Bushuyev 2018). Based on the ideas gained from the overall project, risks regarding scope creep, low performance, stretched resources, operational changes, lack of clarity and time crunch are some core challenges in megaprojects like the discussing one. However, based on their level of risk management and avoidance of the most critical risk regarding massive cost overrun, defined that megaprojects can avoid risks in case the underlying concepts of management are properly planned. Besides that, the project defined that clarity in the overall process since the initiation stage can further assist organisations in creating an effective operational change which reflects a lesson of developing a proper project charter and action plans against different contexts of a project which can be helpful for similar megaprojects. Additionally, lessons regarding optimising resources by considering the underlying strengths as well as opportunities can be further benchmarked by other organisations or councils planning similar megaprojects.
A systematic strategy for coping with the transformation as well as the transition of an organization’s goals, its technologies or its underlying process can be contemplated as change management. In the Wembley regeneration project, multiple lessons were learnt from the overall project completion. The goal of change management lies in developing proper techniques for bringing about change, controlling it, as well as assisting people in adapting to it. Likewise, in the discussion context of programme management, focuses on changing the critical notion of employment and economic development are identified. Primarily, the changes in the Wembley Regeneration project initiated with a plan of developing a new national stadium which has been completed and changed the outlook of the overall region. Apart from that, a community focus or Brent was planned against which changes regarding the infrastructural process building which can be further benchmarked by similar businesses. Moreover, the development of high-quality retail as well as commercial facilities can be considered as two critical components which have been effectively completed in the discussing project that can further impose a lesson regarding managing the quality of the overall process. In addition, developing a mixture of tenure and housing types was another planned change that has been successfully carried out (Zuo et al. 2018; Sabini and Alderman 2021). Besides that, an accessible process of development was an underlying part of change management that has been completed in this process which indicates a proper level of strategic compliance that can be considered as a lesson for other projects focusing on similar infrastructure planning development.
The underlying context of managing all activities and duties required to achieve a specified degree of perfection can be considered as the process of quality management (Levy 2018). Quality management entails multiple aspects for establishing an effective strategy, developing and implementing quality assurance and planning, alongside quality control and improvement. In large scale construction projects, quality depends on the level of functionality, architecture, civil works, and other related aspects that are properly handled in the Wembley Regeneration project. Apart from that, any news of the roads, stadium, associated facilities or the accommodations is not found even after twenty years which indicates the quality of the overall process. Moreover, a recent inspection of the stadium’s structural health did not reveal any specific issue that needs to be focused on for better demarcation (Gunduz and Almuajebh 2020). Thus, projects similar to this may consider a clear conceptualisation of the quality elements maintained during the overall process of Wembley Regeneration process.
Lessons Learned
The underlying practice of assigning as well as managing assets in a particular way that supports an organization’s strategic goals can be contemplated as resource allocation. Additionally, managing tangible assets like hardware, raw material, and others need to be managed effectively to make further use of softer assets such as human capital can be considered as a part of resource allocation. The Brent Council effectively focused on a combination of both tangible and intangible resource management, which can be considered as a lesson for other related projects. The total cost planned for the regeneration project was £3 billion, within which completion of the stadium, its associated paths and other related aspects were to be completed (Arefazar et al. 2019; Miller 2022). Completion of the project is expected by 2027, within which completion of Wembley Park and increasing the level of accommodation are expected. As resource-related information is mostly confidential, any specific idea on their allocation and overall process of management is not found. Nevertheless, considering the effectiveness of the resource allocation throughout these years, resource-related information can be considered an effective lesson for similar megaprojects. Therefore, it can be defined that the resource allocation process in the discussing parameter can be considered effective for further strategic development.
Even though the discussion project of the Wembley Regeneration programme was a success, it would have been better and could be considered as a programme benchmark for similar projects. The following recommendations can be contemplated as some key suggestions that could have been considered for further improved operational parity:
- Setting realistic expectations: The initial plan did not provide any specific idea of the actual process of budget or timeline. However, while proceeding with the project, setting realistic expectations can be contemplated as the best practice, which was not primarily adhered to in this project. Nevertheless, while the practical issues were highlighted, the project focused on highlighting these concepts based on which realistic expectations were set. Based on that, similar projects may focus on setting priority on developing realistic expectations since project initiation to avoid further hassle.
- Development of a proper communication plan: Being a megaproject run by a single entity or the council, managing an effective communication plan can be considered as an important yet complex concept. Despite that, this project is seen to thrive and fulfil its underlying goals. In order to manage the communication parameter, the organisation developed a clear plan of action for further proceeding, which may be undertaken by similar project managers for better differentiation of growth.
- Addressing problems and mistakes: In the final report or closure, a clear idea of the problems as well as mistakes found within a project needs to be strategically defined to undermine the critical issues that may be avoided by similar projects. However, in the closure report or in the planning brief, any specific ideas to address problems, as well as mistakes, are not found, which indicates that either the programme did not face any significant issues or the report did not include the details about it. This specific aspect could have been improved in the discussion program to further define whether the planned aspect here was fulfilled. The inclusion of a description of encountered risk may have helped to create a benchmark for similar projects to improve overall strategic development.
5.Conclusion
The primary intent of the study was to develop a paper on the programme management of the Wembley regeneration program. In this report, a clear idea of how the programme fulfilled its strategic vision, management of the underlying project blueprint, and the benefits map of the programme was depicted, which further helped define the core concepts of project management. Additionally, a highlighted lessons learnt report that clearly demonstrated critical areas of the program, including project management, leadership attributes, risk management, quality management, change management, and resource management, has been defined in a concise manner. Furthermore, the recommendations suggested regarding the overall process development aspect provided a clear idea of how this project could have performed better and what exact benchmarks can current projects having similar aims can consider for improving their programme management paradigm.
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