REASONS FOR MEGA PROJECTS FAILURE

Mega-projects have been classified to be projects of extreme complexity and often records poor delivery. These projects often attract massive public attention because of the considerable amounts of impacts to the environment, communities, budgets and the high costs involved. It can therefore not be said that mega-projects are just magnified versions of the smaller projects but; they are totally different version of due to their level of complexity, aspiration, led time and involvement of stakeholders. Consequently they need a very different level of management in order to ensure their success. Mega-projects are increasingly being used in the goods and service delivery in various sectors. A failure of the project would mean that all the people will still suffer from the problems that were meant to be solved by the projects.

Failure of mega projects can result to ‘mega’ negative impacts. This paper seeks to address some of the most common causes of mega project failure and identify ways in which such factors can be avoided. Such findings can be very essential to managers and those that plan the mega projects to ensure they avoid the mistakes that can result into failures. LITERATURE REVIEW Management of mega projects According to Brookes& Locatelli (2015. It is at this decentralized mode that most bulk of the work is completed. As the project matures the focus of the team and the project manager shifts into putting the project out of business(Boateng et al. 2015, pp. The reduction of manpower, equipment and indirect support activities must be properly managed at this stage.

As it is often been said, managing the last 10% of the project may the most difficult part unless there is proper planning and understanding of the going out of business phase. There is need for continuous reinforcement of the meaning of the mission to the project team in the course of the project. It must always remain constant and relevant as long as the project is still on. A mission is different from goals since goals can be set to be short term and adaptable to the changing environments while missions stay relevant throughout. The mission provides the project team a point of focus throughout the project. When the team focuses on the mission they are able to make changes to the goals without losing focus on the primary reason for the project.

The planning process should not only be left to the technicians but the top management must scrutinize the produced plans to ensure they are effective. Project tasks should be identified and categorized based on their degree of impact and risk factor to the project. It should be noted that the risk factor of a task to the project increases as the degree of direct control decreases. New technology can also be a risk factor. Things like unique logistic considerations, unproven suppliers, personnel deficiencies, and remote local’s leads to classification of tasks into the high risk category. These projects often attracts a lot of attention from a wide range of interested parties, the managers must therefore ensure the project are perceived by the project team and the outside world to be well managed, well planned and economically sound.

MEGA PROJECTS FAILURE A failure of a mega project can either mean when the project cost up to 25% above the budgeted cost, the projects comes 25% behind the schedule or the project is unable to meet the business objectives within a year of its operation(Shahhossein et al. pp. These failures results to the need of further investment in the project in terms of billions in order to ensure the project is brought back on track and completed. Even further billions are lost due to late start and the inability to provide services and products during the delay. The planning process should always have the stakeholders engaged so that at the end of the project everyone’s expectations will be met. Bad leadership As stated earlier in the section on project management, leadership of the project was regarded as the single most important component of the entire project.

The project manager makes the leader of the project management team. Selection of the project leader is one of the aspects that must be carried out with great precision and care since the entire project will be under his lead and its success is dependent on his leadership skills. However, the word leadership of a project should not only be a concept of the project manager, but should also consider the managers of at each management level of the project who are also in the business of ensuring success of the project(Kerzner& Kerzner, 2017). However, when there are proper communication channelseveryone will be able and free to express their concerns, this will ensure that everyone is always in the same page as others; as a result it will make sure that the workflow is always kept at the optimum level(Jennings et al.

2018 pp. At every level of the management of the project, a breakdown of communication will always be disastrous to the project. Inadequate documentation and tracking The project manager is largely responsible in ensuring documentation and tracking of every aspect of the project. It is through tracking that one is able to note whether the expectations of the project are being achieved. It was also a measure to revitalize the area around the River Clyde in Glasgow, Scotland. The Centre is made up of three major exhibits; the science mall, the IMAX theatre and the Glasgow tower. The tower was uniquely designed, to appear as capable of revolving 360o from the ground and was expected to be a massive landmark. The construction of this magnificent tower has presented a great deal of engineering and technical challenges to the teams of engineers and the project team that were involved in the design and construction.

The building was designed to be able to rotate with wind. The study covers various project management knowledge areas within the four phases of the project. The inception phase Glasgow tower presents a very interesting exercise about the management of project constraints and objectives. This project particularly needed careful tradeoffs between these two components. The project was first aimed at placing a view cabin on top of a slender tower 330 feet high. Second was to create space for housing the telecommunication links of the science center. The tower was designed to be the first one such tower in the world with an ability to rotate 360o from ground up. The construction of the tower could not be stated until there was proof of the concept and the test completed.

The funding was released at the time of the design award, and by the end of the concept proof it was clear that the project would cost more. The challenged estimate can be as a result of the political interests in attempts to make Scotland to appear at the cutting edge of technology. Thus too much effort was spent on public relations than in planning and estimations. The constructions appeared to be slow at the start but however gained momentum as the construction proceeded. However the changes always caused major delays in the construction process. The scope and cost change issues always resulted into some hitches bringing the project to a halt at some instances. The project management team always used a flexible approach due to the changes that marred the project during implementation and construction.

Schedule was not considered as a constraint by the management team until there was rescheduling of the public openings. In evaluation of the performance of some projects, the determinants of project failure can be identified and in that case recommendations made as what should be done toavoid failure of the mega projects. The failures of projects generally occur as a result the complexity of the projects and failure of the project management to address some critical issues in time or failure to identify such issues. Avoiding failure of mega projects can also mean moving towards success of mega projects. Thus the factors that help avoid failure can also be expressed as the factors that influence success of mega projects. One such factor is project control by the project manager and all other levels of management.