The Sydney Opera House Project
Sydney Opera House is one of the best iconic buildings commonly regarded as Australia’s global symbol. The construction of the Sydney Opera House started in the year 1959. Architect Jon Utzon from Denmark won in the architecture competition organized by the government of New South Wales for new building in the year 1957. The project of constructing Opera House in Sydney was scheduled originally for four years. AUS $7 million was the budget allocated for the Opera House construction project. The construction of the Opera House took 14 years and AUS $102 million was the total cost of the construction (Irvine, 2013).
Sydney Opera House is one of the most disastrous projects of construction. The construction project of Opera House in Sydney was not only disastrous in term of finance management but the management plan for its construction was also not effective, which resulted in the project management failure of the Opera House in Sydney (MIT OpenCourseware, 2011).
It is important to clearly define the objectives and the goals of the project by the client, in order to provide with the accurate guidelines. The three main factors in the project management are: quality, time and cost. In Sydney Opera House case, the quality was most important and it was an unrestricted goal of the project due to which, the project was launched. There were no indications related to the cost and the time limits provided for the competition. The architects had freedom to design the Opera House according to them. Utzon presented the report containing the indications related to sections, plans and the reports by the consultants. The funds were obtained from lottery and hence, there was no financial burden on the government (ABC Innovation, 2012). In terms of time planning, the goal was defined to complete the construction project till the end of 1962. It was decided that the grand opening of the Opera House will be commenced in the beginning of 1963. The construction of Opera House should have lasted for four years only however, it got extended greatly owing to inefficient planning and management.
Utzon was more focused on the designing of the Opera House and he completely ignored the factor of time and cost which created problems. There was no such project manager appointed for managing the entire project. There was just collaboration among Arup and Utzon (Khan, 2017). For the purpose of the supervision, a part time executive committee was formed. The members had the lack of the technical skills. For the project team, the government became an obstacle as the changes were made by the government during the operations, which resulted in the delays and the cost overrun. The public was also an indirect stakeholder as they were worried about the project success.
Factors Contributing to Project Success or Failure
The problems were faced since very beginning of the project. It was protested by Utzon that the designs for Opera House structure had not been finished. However, it was still insisted by the government that the construction had to get started. Along with this, the requirements of the clients related to the design were changed after the construction was over. They wanted to construct four theatres instead of two. This had demanded the modification in the designs and the plan in the later stage (Swmoore, 2009).
The initial financial estimation for the project was drawn for the incomplete designs and hence later, the contractors claimed AUS $ 1.2 million more in 1962, because of changes in designs. The first stage of the project completed in 1963 and consumed extra cost and resulted in project delay
In the second stage, the new government stepped in. All the payments were monitored by the new government. The architect submitted the project estimate of AUS$ 12.5 million. More payments were delivered but no such progress in the construction was seen. Due to the cost overrun, the government began holding back the payments and forced Utzon to resign in 1966. After that, the project was undertaken by three engineers and the second stage was completed by 1967 incurring AUS$ 13.2 million of cost. The new team had to carry out the construction on the basis of the prepared structure as there were no design sketches and complication were found by the team. This further increased the cost to AUS $85 million. Finally in 1973, the Sydney Opera House was inaugurated after underestimates, cost overruns and redesigns.
Roger Atkinson in his work has clearly mentioned that cost, quality and time which are also known as the Iron Triangle are the three main components of a successful project management. These three factors have the ability to decide over the project’s success or failure. Time and cost factors are considered to be only guesses as they are calculated before starting the project. Quality is something that is reflected by the attributes of the people which keeps on changing at different stages of the project. Many other scholars have also linked these factors with the success of project (Atkinson, 1999). Brown and Adams (2000), have also mentioned that project success is concerned with meeting the time, cost and quality factors of the project. Though, Atkinson and others have also suggested that apart from these three main factors, another attribute should also be considered while measuring the success of the project. Atkinson has suggested that stakeholders’ benefit should be the fourth attribute and has named this combination as “The Square Route” of project management. Jugdev and Muller are also of the view that apart from the three main factors, new factor should also be evolved in order to measure the projects’ success. The authors have focused on the strategic value of the project that is how the project is adding value to the business and how efficiently it has been done (Jugdev & Müller, 2005). The performance of the project should also be linked by the success of the project. This has the ability to improve the success of the project as suggested by Mir and Pinnington. These factors have been ignored by project managers since ages and hence, it becomes necessary to consider these factors to improve the effectiveness of the project success. This is so because these new factors are evolving in the current generation of project management and hence requires attention (Mir & Pinnington, 2013). Project success is a combined result of project management success as well as project product success. It is very important to develop a link between the two. This is so because it has been seen many times that the project management fails but the project product is successful. Project management fails because of conditions like over time taken, over budget spent on the project, etc. Hence, considering only the traditional criteria is like using a single constraint only to find out about the success of the project. Therefore, it has been suggested by many that in order to evaluate the project success, it is very important that the newly evolved constraints should be considered to get an overall result of the project success (Westhuizen & Fitzgerald, 2004).
The Iron Triangle (Cost, Time, and Budget)
Many different criteria have been developed with the evolution of the project management and as a result, it is important that the project success measuring criteria should also be evolved along with it. As a result it has been identified that along with the Iron Triangle that is time, cost and budget mentioned by Atkinson, other new criteria should also be adopted to find out that whether the project was a success or failure.
The Iron Triangle (Cost, Time and Budget)
These three factors are been considered since the evolution of project management. On the basis of the above mentioned literature review, it can be said that these factors are a single constraint of the project management process. These factors do not reflect a whole picture of the success of the project and hence, it becomes very necessary to consider other factors also. Though, these factors cannot be totally ignored as this form the base of the project management. Without knowing the appropriate budget, the cost allocation as well as the quality required of the final output, it is not possible to undertake the project management process successfully.
Stakeholders benefit
This is also one of the important factor or criteria that should be considered while measuring the project success. This is so because the project manager, project staffs, customer –client relationship, as well as the top management plays a very important role in evaluating the success of the project. It is very important to know about the value that has been added by this project to the business as well as to the clients (Thomas & Mullaly, 2008). Success of the post delivery stage forms an important part as this will help in knowing that whether the project has been able to deliver what was demanded or not. Participation of the stakeholders can lead to effective decision -making in the project management process (Siles, 2018). Assessing the time, cost as well as quality is another factor and assessing the end result is another factor. Customers and users are an integral part of stakeholders and therefore, it becomes necessary to find out that whether the project product is been able to satisfy the demands of the users or not (Usmani, 2012). Hence, it is very important to keep the stakeholders’ benefit into consideration when one is evaluating the project success.
The criteria chosen are square route, iron triangle (time, cost and quality) and performance management. It is important to consider these criteria in order to evaluate the project success. The completion of the project within the estimated time and cost is important as it is the measure of the project success (Caccamese, 2012) (Dobson & Dobson, 2004). The project that complete within the estimated cost and time provides the benefit to the project team and the other stakeholders of the project. The quality of the project is also one of the most important criteria to be considered (Schade, 2016). It is important to deliver the quality project. Along with it, the benefits to the stakeholders and organization are highly important. In order to attain the success, the effective management of the performance of the project is also important.
Stakeholders Benefit
In the case, it has been found that the estimated time for the project completion was 4 years and the total cost estimated for the project was AUS $7 million. The Sydney Opera House construction was completed after 14 years of underestimates, cost overruns and redesigns. The estimation of the time and cost by the architect was unrealistic. It is important to estimate the time and cost of the project in an appropriate manner. The consumption of the extra cost and time does not indicate project as successful. In the Sydney Opera House case, the architect made underestimation of cost and time several times. Along with this, the interruption by the government in the first stage also resulted in delays and cost overrun. When the architect resigned, the new team faced many problems in the quality of the project and continued the construction on the basis of the prepared structure. Although, the process of construction was long and consumed extra cost and time but the project was successful in the end. The project manager is considered as the main stakeholder however, there was no real project manager in the construction project of Sydney Opera House. In terms of user and customers as the stakeholders, the project was successful as it was open for the public after 14 years. The government did not suffered by the cost overrun in real because the cost was obtained by the lottery.
Conclusion
It can be concluded that the construction project of Sydney Opera House succeeded after 14 years and several mistakes in the designing, time and cost estimations by the architect. In the end, the user and the customers of the project were able to get to visit the Opera House. As the time, cost and the quality of the project are the factors that are considered for the evaluation criteria for the project success. In the case of Opera House, after the evaluation of the project, it has been found that the project was successful for the user and customers but, the process of the project construction was not successful because of the project cost overrun, delays and continuous redesigning.
- It is recommended that the proper estimation of the cost and time is important as it indicates the project success. If the proper estimation of the time and cost would have done by the architect then, the project cost overrun and delay issue could have been avoided.
- A project manager is important for the effective management of the project and hence, it is important to hire a project manager for ensuring the project success.
- It is important to maintain the quality of the project through the continuous evaluation.
- It is important to consider the stakeholders of the project so that the expectation of the stakeholders can be met.
References
ABC Innovation, 2012. Part 2 – Engineering and Construction Chapter 20: Stage 3 – Hall, Todd, Littlemore and Farmer. [Online] Available at: https://theoperahouseproject.com/#!/transcripts/Stage-3-Hall-Todd-Littlemore-And-Farmer [Accessed 31 August 2018].
Atkinson, R., 1999. Project management: cost, time and quality, two best guesses and a phenomenon, its time to accept other success criteria. International Journal of Project Management, 17(6), pp.337-42.
Brown, A. & Adams, J., 2000. Measuring the effect of project management on construction outputs: a new approach. International Journal of Project Management, 18(5), pp.327-35.
Caccamese, A., 2012. Beyond the Iron Triangle: Year Zero. Project Management Institute.
Dobson, M.S. & Dobson, M.S., 2004. The Triple Constraints in Project Management. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Irvine, J., 2013. Why Sydney’s Opera House was the world’s biggest planning disaster. [Online] Available at: https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/why-sydneys-opera-house-was-the-worlds-biggest-planning-disaster/news-story/9a596cab579a3b96bba516f425b3f1a6 [Accessed 31 August 2018].
Jugdev, K. & Müller, R., 2005. A Retrospective Look at Our Evolving Understanding of Project Success. Project Management Journal, 36(4), pp.19-31.
Khan, B., 2017. Seeking project management inspiration from the Sydney Opera House. [Online] Available at: https://www.nqicorp.com/en/2017/11/30/seeking-project-management-inspiration-from-the-sydney-opera-house/ [Accessed 31 August 2018].
Mir, F.A. & Pinnington, A.H., 2013. Exploring the value of project management: Linking Project Management Performance and Project Success. International Journal of Project Management, 32(2), pp.202-217.
MIT OpenCourseware, 2011. Project evaluation. [Online] Available at: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/civil-and-environmental-engineering/1-011-project-evaluation-spring-2011/projects/MIT1_011S11_proj_ex01.pdf [Accessed 31 August 2018].
Schade, C., 2016. Disciples of the Iron Triangle: Other People’s Guide to Projects and Project Managers. BookBaby.
Siles, R., 2018. Benefits of Stakeholder Participation. [Online] Available at: https://www.pm4dev.com/pm4dev-blog/entry/benefits-of-stakeholder-participation.html [Accessed 31 August 2018].
Swmoore, 2009. The Sydney Opera House and Project Management. [Online] Available at: https://strategicppm.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/the-sydney-opera-house-and-project-management/ [Accessed 31 August 2018].
Thomas, J. & Mullaly, M., 2008. Researching the Value of Project Management. [Online] Available at: https://www.pmi.org/learning/academic-research/researching-the-value-of-project-management [Accessed 2018].
Usmani, F., 2012. Stakeholders in Project Management. [Online] Available at: https://pmstudycircle.com/2012/03/stakeholders-in-project-management-definition-and-types/ [Accessed 31 August 2018].
Westhuizen, D.v.d. & Fitzgerald, E.P., 2004. Defining and measuring project success. [Online] Available at: https://eprints.usq.edu.au/346/1/DependentVariableArticleV8.pdf [Accessed 31 August 2018].
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