Sample Project Management Paper on Mega Projects
Recommendations
The main reason for writing about mega projects is to ensure that challenges encountered in the previous projects are not experienced in the future. The workers, engineers, government and the contractors are expected to learn from the previous projects and make sure their projects are established efficiently. There is need to establish program management offices (PMO). PMO standardizes the governance processes and enables the sharing of techniques, tools, resources, and methodologies. Managers of this program organize the project’s efforts but do not directly manage the individual components. This program will ensure that many projects are managed by one centralized program rather than separately. Megaprojects attract the public attention and face high scrutiny. Because of this, there is need to involve the public before the initiation of a project (Greiman, Virginia 3). This helps build public trust in the Federal Government. Failure to involve all stakeholders during the initiation of a project will affect the chances of its success. Additionally, there is need to establish a Government Accountability and Transparency Board, which will give directions on how the funds are spent. This committee will investigate on various cases of fraud, wastage, and abuse in the federal projects. After the investigation, the commission will give recommendations to the President on what should be done to enhance transparency. Such actions will be necessary when carrying out public mega projects to preserve the trust of the public in spite of whether the projects are publicly or privately funded. This is because all projects are aimed at delivering products and services to the public citizen.
Questions
What is the role of professional organizations such as PMI, APM in the management of the mega projects?
Why does the conduct of the federal officials raise key ethical concerns? What would be the impacts if they continue without being punished?
Should the contractors and the government stand accountable for the actions of their workers? If so, what actions should be taken on them?
What should the Department of Transportation do to educate the employees about their legal and ethical violations?
Should the public be involved in initiation and construction of a mega project? If yes, to what extent should they be involved?
Difference
Small projects are easy to define where one phase starts and where it ends. On the other hand, it is difficult to determine where one phase of a mega project starts and where it ends. The start of some parts of the project may occur late after the closure of other parts. Additionally, the processes of a mega project are repetitive and recurrent throughout the life of a project.
Characteristics
Project delivery entails the contracting methods that are used by the designers, contractors and the owners when designing a certain construction project. It involves planning, financing the project, design, budgeting, and the operations during construction. Megaprojects have unique characteristics to those of the other less complicated projects. Megaprojects are of large size and are likely to have multiple owners. In most cases, the mega projects have significant impacts on the communities, environment, and the state budgets and thus attract the political interest and the public attention. These projects also encounter high public opposition because of their environmental, social, political, and economic effects. Additionally, the megaprojects require a lot of time to plan, design, and build them. This is because they are complex and require high-level attention. In most cases, these projects are initiated in the remote areas to ensure that not many people are affected because of resettlement. As a result of this, employment is created to people living in these areas (Molenaar, Keith 350).Despite the creation of employment, the projects have financial difficulties, as it is difficult to find a firm or country willing to finance the huge amount of money needed. Senior managers in these projects risk their careers. This is because they are only involved in the planning stage and do not advance beyond that stage. Furthermore, these projects destabilize the markets since demand and supply of labor are affected. Lack of experience is also experienced in these projects particularly when managing the difficult undertakings, which require high-level skills. High collaboration, collaborating, and integration are essential to reduce the time needed to complete the projects. Other characteristics include; pursuit of large scale policymaking, continuity of management, organizational structure, and a high degree of regulation among others.
Characteristics of Big Dig
Big Dig had a widespread communication process involving many stakeholders both external and internal to the project. The collaborative relationship among the stakeholders played a key role in the success of the project. Big Dig had several strategies on how to manage the influence and expectation of the stakeholders and how to deal with those stakeholders, which were not known (Greiman, Virginia 97). The stakeholders included the residents, media, contractors, designers, suppliers among others. In addition, Big Dig had many management officers. It had 110 general contractors and 132 contract packages. It had over 9000 processes involving, procurement, testing, designing, and completion among others. The project had supervisors who would monitor each phase to ensure all difficulties are handled.
Work Cited
Greiman, Virginia A. Megaproject management: Lessons on risk and project management from the Big Dig. John Wiley & Sons, (2013): 1-457
Molenaar, Keith R. “Programmatic cost risk analysis for highway mega projects.” Journal of Construction Engineering and Management 131.3 (2005): 343-353.