The West Gate project

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Extant project management literature demonstrates that the structure and management of a project are extremely important fundamentals in any project management effort (Lechler & Dvir 2010), and are instrumental in ensuring that projects are managed in an effective way, thus leading to significant gains in productivity, profitability, and employee morale (Patanakul & Shenhar 2012).

From the case study, it is evident that the West Gate project had a multiplicity of problems with its structure and management, particularly with regard to the major stakeholders involved and the relationships and interactions between them.

A complex project such as the West Gate project is made manageable by first decomposing it into individual constituents in a hierarchical structure, referred to as the work breakdown structure (Devi & Reddy 2012). However, the first problem with the structure of the project arose due to irresponsible assignment of responsibilities by the state-funded independent statutory authority known as the Lower Yarra Crossing Authority (LYCA).

In the West Gate project, consulting engineering companies Maunsell and Partners (M&P) and Freeman, Fox, and Partners (FF&P) provided consulting engineer services for the project and came up with the main tasks including concrete construction works and large scale steel construction works.

These tasks were allocated to two other engineering contracting companies, namely John Holland (Constructions) Pty. Ltd (JHC) and World Services and Construction Pty. Ltd (WSC). Later, after WSC went behind schedule in onsite erection and fitting of the bridge steel works, LYCA contracted JHC to complete the steel-related tasks despite the fact that JHC was only experienced in concrete constructions work but had no relevant experience with large scale steel constructions projects.

An effective project structure must have the capacity not only to define the activities that can be commenced and completed independently of other project activities, but also to measure and control the project towards successful completion (Devi & Reddy 2012).

A second problem for the structure of the West Gate’s project, therefore, was grounded on the fact that although LYCA had defined and separated project activities (construction works and steel works) to be completed independently by JHC (construction works) and WSC (steel works), it had not put in place quantifiable measurement and control strategies (checkpoints) to ensure the contracted engineering firms kept up with the pace of the project (Lewis 2007).

In this light, the work under WSC’s control (steel works and fabrication) went behind schedule, causing LYCA to authorize JHC to proceed with the bridge steel works despite the fact that the company was inexperienced in such a large-scale steel project.

The third problem with the project’s structure concerns the fact that in decomposing the project scope and the project deliverables into small, more manageable components (construction works and steel works), LYCA and the consulting engineers for the project (M&P and FF&P) failed to define the scope and the deliverables “in sufficient detail to support executing, monitoring, and controlling the work” (Brotherton et al 2008, p. 2).

Indeed, this may be the main reason why the relationship between joint consulting engineers for the project (M&P and FF&P) and the contracted engineers (JHC and WSC) was often strained and dysfunctional, and also why WSC failed to deliver in steel works and fabrications.

The forth structural issue deals with the fact that LYCA micromanaged the West Gate’s project by assigning accountabilities for end-results rather providing unambiguous statement of the objectives and deliverables of the work to be performed (Brotherton et al 2008), or developing an extensive project structure composed of measured deliverables (Devi & Reddy, 2012).

Available literature shows that micromanaging a project of such immense scope and complexity often leads to failure as it discourages project teams from solving problems or owning their results (Lechler & Dvir 2010).

In the case scenario, LYCA relied on time/deadline expectations to cancel the contract for WSC as it had assigned accountabilities for end-results rather than letting the sub-contracted engineering firm to solve its own initial problems and own its results for the project. The micromanagement of the project to meet strict timelines led LYCA to allocate extremely important project activities (steel works) to an incompetent sub-contractor (JHC), leading to project failure.

In management of the West Gate project, it is obvious that there existed two main management issues that led to the ultimate failure of the project. The first management problem concerns the lack of project leadership and planning. Little (2011, p. 36) acknowledges that successful project “need careful planning, skilful managing and some degree of good fortune.”

In the West Gate project, LYCA showed deficient project leadership abilities in that the authority was incapable of dealing with conflicting interests between FF&P and WSC, not mentioning that issues touching on the labour unions of various employees involved in the project were never resolved satisfactorily, ostensibly leading to low employee morale.

The relationship between the various stakeholders involved in the West Gate project, specifically LYCA, FF&P, WSC and JHC, was not productive, implying that there was lack of an enabling environment for successful project implementation.

This is a management issue that not only illuminates a lack of strategy on the part of the relevant stakeholders on how best to undertake the project (Lewis 2007), but also an obvious lack of adequate clarification of roles as well as sufficient identification and management of different project stakeholders (Little 2011). Ultimately, the project lacked a clear focus due to the mentioned management deficiencies and hence was unable to achieve specific goals.

A Proposal for the Structure & Management of the Project

Contemporary project management theory (systems thinking) can be used to develop a proposal for the structure and management of the West Gate project. The systems thinking approach presupposes that “the properties of the whole system are due to the dynamic interactions between the parts” (Sheffield et al 2012, p. 128).

These authors further define a system as “any group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent parts that form a complex and unified whole that has a specific purpose” (p. 128). One of the major proposals for the structure of the West Gate project, therefore, is to consider it as a system with a specific boundary depicting the scope of interest or concern that can shift as the scope of interest shifts.

In using the systems approach, LYCA could not have engaged in irresponsible assignment of responsibilities to a sub-contractor that lacked the capacity to fulfil the needed project tasks in steel works. On the contrary, it could have been more plausible to shift the scope of interest so as to accommodate the more experienced WSC in steel works and fabrications.

In systems thinking, “the parts of a system inside the boundary interact with each other but also with the environment that exists outside the boundary” (Sheffield et al 2012, p. 128). Since the project can be considered as a system, the parts of the system (different stakeholders in the project) should interact with each other in the process of planning project activities and also in measuring and controlling the project towards successful completion.

Of course there must be a project leader, but other stakeholders should be involved in defining the project activities that can be commenced and completed independently of other activities (Devi & Reddy 2012), and in developing strategies and approaches to assess and control the project towards successful completion (Lewis 2007). In all this, the stakeholders must put into consideration known environmental factors that have the capacity to change the scope and direction of the project.

Moving on, it is evident that “a system has structure that defines its parts and their relationships and uses processes or a sequence of activities to perform a function” (Sheffield et al 2012, p. 128).

Owing to the fact that project implementation employs structures, processes and activities (Bobera 2008; Patanakul & Shenhar 2012), the relevant stakeholders in the West Gate project (especially LYCA, M&P and FF&P) could have used the systems approach to define the scope and the deliverables of the project in sufficient detail to allow for problem-free project execution, monitoring and control.

Using a comprehensive structure to define the project’s parts and relationships could have solved the structural problem related to decomposing the project scope and project deliverables into small, more manageable components, hence allowing for successful completion of the project.

In avoiding to micromanage the West Gate project, LYCA should have employed the systems thinking to understand that systems are not only generally open, but they routinely interact with the environment, are organized by a hierarchy, and exhibit emergence (Bobera 2008).

Consequently, “the notion of a hierarchy in systems thinking has more to do with vitality, survivability and purpose rather than the notion of command and control usually depicted through organization charts” (Sheffield et al 2012, p. 128).

Using the systems approach, LYCA project managers working on this complex project should have realised that the multiple interactions between various stakeholders had the capacity to occasion a chaotic state of affairs, but the project could have settled down into a new state of equilibrium (Cicmil 1997; Hanisch & Wald 2011), hence there was no need to micromanage the project to the detriment of capable sub-contractors such as WSC.

The systems approach can also be used to resolve the management issues highlighted in this paper. In systems thinking, the demonstrated lack of project leadership and planning could have been resolved by developing a causal loop diagram “to understand the fundamental dynamics of the system and to develop policy levers to control variation caused by interaction of components in the system and attendant time delays” (Sheffield et al 2012, p. 130).

Project leadership will be entrenched when the relevant stakeholders mentioned in this paper understand the fundamental dynamics of the project, and sufficient planning will be realised with the development of project policy levers that guide and inform the interaction processes amongst various stakeholders.

Additionally, the causal loop diagrams could have assisted the various stakeholders involved in the West Gate project to identify the cause-and-effect relationships among a set of factors that operate together as a dynamic system (Sheffield et al 2012), hence ensuring a common basis and understanding of the project scope for the consortium and the development of an enabling environment for successful project implementation (Lechler & Dvir 2010).

Reference List

Bobera, D 2008, ‘Project management organisation’, Management Information Systems, vol. 3 no. 1, pp. 3-9.

Brotherton, SA, Fried, RT & Norman, ES 2008, Applying the work breakdown structure to the project management lifecycle. Web.

Cicmil, SJK 1997, ‘Critical factors of effective project management’, The TQM Magazine, vol. 9 no. 6, pp. 390-396.

Devi, TR & Reddy, VS 2012, ‘Work breakdown structure of the project’, International Journal of Engineering and Applications, vol. 2 no. 2, pp. 683-686.

Hanisch, B & Wald, A 2011, ‘A project management research framework integrating multiple theoretical perspectives and influencing factors’, Project Management Journal, vol. 42 no. 3, pp. 4-22.

Lechler, TG & Dvir, D 2010, ‘An alternative taxonomy of project management structures: Linking project management structures and project success’, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, vol. 57 no. 2, pp. 198-210.

Lewis, JP 2007, Fundamentals of project management, 3rd edn, AMACOM, New York, NY.

Little, B 2011, ‘The principles of successful project management’, Human Resource Management International Digest, vol. 19 no. 7, pp. 36-39.

Patanakul, P & Shenhar, AJ 2012, ‘What project strategy really is: The fundamental building block in strategic project management’, Project Management Journal, vol. 43 no. 1, pp. 4-20.

Sheffield, J, Sankaran, S & Haslett, T 2012, ‘Systems thinking: Taming complexity in project management’, On the Horizon, vol. 20 no. 2, pp. 126-136.

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The West Gate project

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