Project implementation

Introduction

Projects are considered to be strategic assets for many companies today, and project management occupies a central role. The progress and development of humanity are the concepts that are underpinned by the successful delivery of many projects. The Denver International Airport project is an IT project whose development was aimed at catering for the teaming of air passengers. The paper is aimed at analyzing the role that the managers played in making the project fail. The project was considered to be an all-around disastrous colossal failure. 

Discussion

The Denver project, called the Denver Airport Automatic Handling System, was meant to create a new to be a mega monumental accomplishment as well as the largest automated baggage handling system in the globe, but it, unfortunately, ended up being a colossal tragedy (Calleam Consulting Ltd, 2008). 

The Denver city wanted to address the problem of low capacity of the greater airport, and through the same, the city emanated to cement its position as an air transportation hub. It was intended to handle over 50 million passengers every year (Neufville, 1994). The project began in 1989 and in 1991 the airport management said that there would be an addition of an airport-wide integrates a system for baggage handling to the project scope.   There were three bidders, and the report showed that none of them could achieve the deadline of delivering the project by October 1993.

The airport management talked to BAE and requested them to expand the airline's baggage handling system to be integrated with all the three concourses and all airlines. The managers wanted to reduce the aircraft turnaround time to 30 minutes, thereby fostering the efficient operations as well as eliminating the wastage of time by the manual conveyor and the old system used earlier for handling asserting the baggage (Goetz & Szyliowicz, 1997). It was impossible to achieve what those managers wanted as it became obvious with time while the development of the project was ongoing. It was discovered that the managers and the development team underestimated the complexity of the project, and the project risks were not fully identified. The managers wanted to see then project implemented, and their late inclusion of other systems to the projects scope contributed to the failure of the project (Calleam Consulting Ltd, 2008).

The airport became dysfunctional for 16 months and them, in turn, incurred a financial impact amounting to $1.1 million per day I term of maintenance. As money continued to be pumped into the project besides the amount that was planned for and as the project lagged behind the schedule, it became apparent that the project would fail; not mentioning the sophistication of the project. The cost of projects had been estimated to be $5 billion including the Federal government contribution and the airlines contribution of over $400 million. The project, however, overran the planned for the budget by more than 30 percent due to the complexity around the construction of the new system. Denver Airport, by 1994 it had run into a bonded debt amounting to $3.8 billion plus. These many issues made the Denver Airport project not to have delivery at the intended date that was October 1993. It also missed other three opening dates that were April and May of 1994 due to heightening pressures from the stakeholders.

The other role that the business managers played to resulting in the failure of the project was the change of the strategy of the project during its execution. They also failed to introduce the rights scope control to the project that resulted in the introduction of new systems such as the automated baggage system. The new system introduced was very complex, and it was vulnerable to errors. The managers also failed to plan for the project properly because of the lack of the estimation of the efforts required to accomplish the project.  For instance, the managers gave a tight timeline for the project, and they stuck to it even after making other additions to the scope (Neufville, 1994). They also ignored the expert advice that the development of the project was not achievable within that limited timeline. The tight schedule was not inclusive of the system testing.

There was also a poor procurement management system as it assumed the professionals’ bids that indicated that the new system would not have completion within the remaining duration of 2 years (Sandeep & Chhillar, 2012). Another issue was the presence of efficient communication management whereby that lack of efficient communication resulted in the cancellation of the purchase of the electricity filters without having full knowledge that those filters were part of the project. When the filters were reintroduced, it was very late. Thos problems were further compounded by the death of the de facto sponsor of the project, Mr. Walter Slinger in October 1992. The Airport Management did not have effective plans for the sponsorship of the project, and the death of that sponsor left them frustrated. Things became worse when the management chose the successor of Walter that was devoid of the technical know-how for managing the project.

What did the management Miss Out?

The management missed implementing effective change control for the project. Changes are constant in a project, and therefore project teams need to be ready for them so as to avoid frustration (Stare, 2010). Also, it is crucial to measure the effects introduced by the changes to a project. Denver needed to implement a proper management process for the project so as to have better control of the changes. That would be helpful in addressing the complexities that were introduced by the changes to the project.  The other thing that lacked was proper planning and control to make sure that tasks have co0mpeletion before their successors. That was missing in the project because the tasks were not logically organized. The other missed opportunity for the management was good stakeholder management. The leading cause of many project failures is a lack of paying attention to the stakeholders that have the greatest influence on a project (Kangas & Phillipson, 2010).

The management also lacked proper communication management. A sure way to a project’s failure is the lack of proper communication (Harding, 2012). The management of Airport should have developed a communication matrix so as to establish the desired communication channels that could, in turn, make sure nothing is missed. Risk management for the project is also another thing that the Airport Management missed. That is why the project risks caused the project to fail. The management also failed to utilize the people with proper skills I the leadership and management of the project. The cost was also not properly controlled resulting in cost overrun. They needed to have had solid plans for controlling costs and assessing the managers and leaders of the project.

Conclusion

The Denver Baggage Handling project was the one that was faced with so manage issues regarding the management. Many issues were not put into consideration and the management was very stuck with their decisions even though they could not bear any fruit. That made them even to ignore the advice of professionals, and the result was a total failure of the project. The underestimation of the project's cost caused the company to incur many debts because they had to borrow money and try to see if they would save the project from failing. Had they followed the guidelines highlighted in this paper, the project would have been successful.

References

Calleam Consulting Ltd. (2008). Denver Airport Baggage System Case Study-An illustration of ineefective decion-making. 

Dalal, Sandeep, and Rajender Singh Chhillar. "Case studies of most common and severe types of software system failure." International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering 2.8 (2012).

De Neufville, Richard. "The baggage system at Denver: prospects and lessons." Journal of Air Transport Management 1.4 (1994), 229-236.

Goetz, Andrew R., and Joseph S. Szyliowicz. "Revisiting transportation planning and decision making theory: The case of Denver International Airport." Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice 31.4 (1997): 263-280.

Harding, Jeffrey. "Avoiding Project Failures." Chemical Engineering 119.13 (2012): 51.

Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove, and Robert Phillipson. "The global politics of language: markets, maintenance, marginalization or murder." The handbook of language and globalization (2010): 77-100.

Stare, Aljaz. "Comprehensive management of project changes." Economic and Business Review for Central and South-Eastern Europe 12.3 (2010): 195.

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in custom nursing essay writing services services if you need a similar paper you can place your order for college essay writing services.