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Reconsidering the project management for Heathrow’s Terminal ESSAY

Reconsidering the project management for Heathrow’s Terminal

Part A Value: 20% Length: 2000 words. Task Read: Brady, T. & Davies, A. (2010). From hero to hubris – Reconsidering the project management for Heathrow’s Terminal 5. International Journal of Project Management 28, 151-157. Discuss the likely actions taken during the project management and identify FOUR separate PMI processes (according to the PMBOK) which in your opinion appear to have failed in this project. These processes may be from any process group, and may even be all from the same group if you wish. · For EACH of these processes specify ONE apparent failure in terms of their process outputs. (That is FOUR apparent failures in total) · For EACH of these four apparent failed outputs give your opinion on which inputs, or tools & techniques, might not have been done or used properly that resulted in, or greatly contributed to, that failure. Give reasons and discuss your explanation in each case. · For each failed output provide one recommendation for how that failure might have been improved or avoided by using the tools and techniques described in the PMBOK. You will be discussing FOUR apparent failures in total. Each failure should be explained in terms of the processes according to the PMBOK to demonstrate your knowledge of how those processes influence project outcomes. Each failure should have your recommendation for what might have been done to avoid or mitigate the failure. There is no requirement for introduction, preamble, conclusion or summary to combine or link these failures. You need only address the four failures themselves. You will need to adequately describe each apparent failure and explain why you believe it contributed to the problems presented in the article. Do not address any apparent failures or other information that might be available elsewhere other than this article. Ensure that the four apparent failures you do address are sufficiently different or separate from each other and avoid discussing the same failure different ways. Part B Value: 15% Length: 1500 words Task Consider the article used in Part A of this assignment and the apparent failures you chose to discuss. Describe a project which you have some personal knowledge of or familiarity with. It may be a social event, a workplace project or a public project. Use approximately one third of your words to describe and summarise this project. Choose ONE of the four apparent failures you discussed in Part A of this assignment. Discuss how well or how poorly your own project performed with regards to that particular PMBOK process. Explain your reasons for your assessment of that process in your project example. If it went well then explain what negatives were avoided by its success. If it went poorly then explain what consequences were experienced as a result. You are required to extrapolate how one of the failures you discussed in Part A also applied in another project you are familiar with. You should demonstrate your knowledge of how these PMBOK processes can influence project outcomes by explaining your reasoning in a wholly different project from the Heathrow T5 project. Highlighting the similarities or differences between the T5 project in the article and your own can also be helpful in your initial project summary so long as they help support your opinions and assessment. Rationale This assessment is intended to: · Assess your knowledge of these key project management processes and to be able to recognise their role in the success and failure of projects. · Assess your ability to be able to identify project stakeholders and analyse their influence on a project · Enhance your understanding of the cause and effect of the specific tools and techniques within the PMBOK on the outputs they are used to create. · Offer practice in corrective action to mitigate or prevent such failures in other projects. This assessment task requires students to demonstrate the knowledge and skills listed in learning outcomes 1, 3 and 4 for this subject. Marking criteria Part A Describe your chosen four apparent failures in terms of PMBOK Process outputs /10 Clearly identify and explain why specific tools or techniques may have caused each apparent failure. /15 Provide suitable recommendations on what should have been done for each apparent failure /16 Demonstrate your understanding of how to apply the PMBOK processes to this project. /16 Subtotal /57 /13 Explain the process which you are reflecting upon and describe how your project performed it. /15 Explain your reasoning for why the process in your project went well or poorly. /15 Subtotal /43 Total /100 Rubric HD DI CR PS FL Marks Describe your chosen four apparent failures in terms of PMBOK Process outputs Has fully explained 2 PMI processes that have failed in this project and shown strong logical connections to actual events. Has fully articulated 2 logical failures in each process in terms of the PMBOK process outputs and closely linked them to events in the project article. Has adequately explained 2 PMI processes that have failed in this project and shown reasonable logical connections to actual events. Has effectively articulated 2 logical failures in each process in terms of the PMBOK process outputs and has shown reasonable connections to events in the project article. Has partly explained 2 PMI processes that have failed in this project and shown at least some logical connections to actual events. Has partially articulated 2 logical failures in each process in terms of the PMBOK process outputs and has shown some connections to events in the project article. Has only briefly discussed 2 PMI processes, or has not discussed them sufficiently within the context of this project. Has identified 4 merely abstract failures without showing reasonable connection to actual project events (or has given 3 or fewer failures which may be well defined or in context). Discussion of the PMI processes is confused, incomplete or unrelated to the project. Student has not correctly identified at least 2 (of 4) reasonable failures that were related to the project. Has not shown any connections between the processes and the project article. /10 Clearly identify and explain why specific tools or techniques may have caused each apparent failure Has fully discussed the specific tools or techniques that may have caused each apparent failure. Has demonstrated a clear and strong connection between each of these tools and techniques and how they might not have been done or used properly. Has correctly shown how this influenced each failure. Has effectively discussed the specific tools or techniques that may have caused each apparent failure. Has demonstrated a reasonable connection between each of these tools and techniques and how they might not have been done or used properly. Has effectively shown how this could have influenced each failure. Has partially discussed the specific tools or techniques that may have caused each apparent failure. Has demonstrated some connection between each of these tools and techniques and how they might not have been done or used properly. Has partly shown how this might have influenced each failure. Has briefly discussed the specific tools or techniques that may have caused each apparent failure. Has demonstrated weak connections between each of these tools and techniques and how they might not have been done or used properly. Has briefly shown how this might have had some theoretical impact on each failure. Has given minimal or confused explanation of how tools or techniques contribute to any failure (or has not addressed at least 2). Has shown no connections between these tools and techniques and how they might have been done or used properly. Has not shown how this influenced the failures. /15 Provide suitable recommendations on what should have been done for each apparent failure Has clearly provided logical recommendations for all 4 failures which should reasonably have improved or avoided each one. Has fully explained these in terms of PMBOK tools and techniques. Has provided reasonable recommendations for all 4 failures which could possibly have improved or avoided each one. Has effectively explained these in terms of PMBOK in general. Has provided some recommendations for all 4 failures, but which might have only loosely improved or avoided each one. Has partly explained these in PMBOK terms. Has provided brief or lear recommendations for 4 failures (or good ones for 2-3 failures). Has shown weak or lear relationships to how these might have improved or avoided. Poorly explained in PMBOK terms. Has not provided recommendations for at least 2 failures. Has shown no relationship to how they may have improved or avoided the failures. Not at all in PMBOK terms. /16 Demonstrate your understanding of how to apply the PMBOK processes to this project. Has shown clear and detailed relationships between the PMI processes and their application in the context of this project. Has clearly used the consequences of these processes to predict outcomes and suggest improvements Has shown effective and obvious relationships between the PMI processes and their application in the context of this project. Has effectively used the consequences of these processes to predict outcomes and suggest improvements Has shown reasonable relationships between the PMI processes and their application in the context of this project. Has partially used the consequences of these processes to predict outcomes and suggest improvements Has shown limited or weak relationships between the PMI processes and their application in the context of this project. Has not effectively used the consequences of these processes to predict outcomes and suggest improvements Has not shown any reasonable relationships between the PMI processes and their application in the context of a real project. Has not addressed the consequences of these processes. /16 Background presentation on the project and the relevant aspects of the organisation to provide context. Student has given an explanation of the background info on the project and organisation which is relevant, informative and strongly within context for the remaining points. Student has given an explanation of the background info on the project and organisation which is aligned, useful and mostly within context for the remaining points. Student has given an explanation of the background info on the project and organisation which is partly useful and partly within context for the remaining points. Has given a weak or lear explanation of background info on both the project and organisation (or a clear background on only 1 of these). Background given was weakly in context of the remaining points. Background information was minimal or confused. It gave no useful context for the remaining points. /13 Explanation of one process in the project and how well or poorly it was performed in the context of this project. Student has correctly explained one important PMI process and clearly shown how it was performed in context of the project. Student has effectively explained one relevant PMI process and shown how it was performed in context of the project. Student has given a partial explanation of a PMI process and made some connection to how it was performed in context of the project. Student has given a weak or incorrect explanation of a process. Has not shown how it was performed in context of the project. Student has not explained a recognisable process and has not shown how it was performed in context of the project. /15 Discussion on why the chosen process performed the way it did in the context of its project. Has shown strong and compelling logical analysis on how and why the PMI process performed the way it did. Has shown an effective logical analysis on how and why the PMI process performed the way it did. Has shown a partially logical analysis on how and why the PMI process performed the way it did. Has shown some weak logic in their analysis on how and why the PMI process performed the way it did. Has not given any reasonable logic in their analysis of how and why the PMI process performed the way it did. /15 Presentation Use a Report format, with headings and subheadings as appropriate. No introduction or conclusion is required. Feel free to use headings and bullet-lists where you think this is appropriate. Refer to the Presentation section of this Subject Outline. 5540cf8f0cf2718618dabb87.pdfThis article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier’s archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit: Author’s personal copy From hero to hubris – Reconsidering the project management of Heathrow’s Terminal 5 Tim Brady a,*, Andrew Davies b aCentrim, of Brighton, The Freeman Centre, of Sussex Campus, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9QE, United Kingdom b Innovation & Entrepreneurship Group, Imperial College Business School, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, SW7 2AZ London, United Kingdom Received 25 August 2009; received in revised form 18 November 2009; accepted 24 November 2009 Abstract Heralded as the first stage in the regeneration of Heathrow Airport leading up to the 2012 Olympics, the construction of Terminal 5 had bucked the trend. In a world where most mega infrastructure projects fail, the T5 project was not only on schedule, it was on budget. At its official opening by the Queen it was being trumpeted as the 21st century gateway to Britain. But multiple problems emerged on the opening day culminating in the cancellation of numerous flights and thousands of lost bags requiring manual sorting before being returned to their owners. What should have been an occasion for celebration turned into a national disaster. Using accounts drawn from the media, from a House of Commons Transport Committee report and material from research into the construction phase of the pro- ject, this paper examines the episode via two theoretical lenses – normal accident theory and high reliability theory. � 2009 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved. Keywords: Normal accident theory; High reliability theory; Mega-projects 1. Introduction It was all going so well. The construction of the Termi- nal 5 at London’s Heathrow Airport was good news – ‘His- tory in the Making’ as an article in the Royal Academy of Engineering’s house journal put it (Kimberley and Jordan, 2005). Here was a mega-project that was on schedule and on budget since construction had begun, bucking all the trends of previous mega-projects. T5 was seen as the first step in the regeneration of London’s main airport in prep- aration for the 2012 Olympics. Two weeks before it was due to go operational the Queen was at T5 for its official opening before an invited audience of the great and the good and representatives (managers and operatives) of the companies who had worked on the project. “It gives me great plere to open Terminal 5 – this 21st Century gateway to Britain and, to us, the wider world,” said the Queen. T5 was a dream facil- ity that would end the nightmare that Heathrow can some- times be and transform the travel experience according to Ruth Kelly, the Transport secretary. Owner BAA and cus- tomer BA (who were to be T5’s occupants) were also gush- ing with confidence. Terminal Five marks the start of a new beginning for Heathrow said Nigel Rudd, BAA’s Chair- man. “Terminal Five is a fantastic facility and our custom- ers will really enjoy the space, comfort and convenience it offers. With the opening of T5, BA and BAA have an opportunity to make air travel, both into and out of the UK, once again a calmer and much more enjoyable experi- ence.” said BA chief executive, Willie Walsh. So, after 19 years in the planning and construction, Hea- throw’s Terminal 5 building was nearing the final whistle. Everyone was expecting a resounding victory. Instead, in the last minute of normal time, they score a spectacular own goal. On the day of its operational opening, March 27th, 2008, just two weeks after the Queen had been 0263-7863/$36.00 � 2009 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2009.11.011 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 1273 877932; fax: +44 1273 877977. E-mail addresses: (T. Brady), A.C.Davies@ imperial.ac.uk (A. Davies). Author’s personal copy officially opening the Terminal and those quotes above had been given, disaster struck. A combination of prob- lems led to complete chaos with passengers unable to check-in hold baggage and 68 flights had to be cancelled. The headlines in the papers next day were ompromis- ing. In a reference to T5’s campaign about ‘Making His- tory’, the Times piece was headlined ‘Making History? It is memorable but for all the wrong reasons’. The chaos continued into the weekend with more flight cancellations and baggage being lost. This paper asks: How could this disaster have happened? We piece together accounts of the problems that ensued dur- ing the first few days of opening and contrast this with the promises that had been made beforehand. We examine the opening disaster through two theoretical lenses which have been used to explain other disasters and accidents – normal accident theory and high reliability theory. On balance, rather than this coming as a big surprise, we suggest that the events of the opening day should be seen as a ‘normal accident’ (Perrow, 1984), one which wemight have expected, given the complexity of the system. Further we suggest that management in both BAA and BA became over-complacent to the extent that once they thought they had surmounted the considerable issues related to building such a vast and tech- nologically sophisticated terminal they suffered from techno- logical hubris (Hughes, 2004) and forgot about the people issues related to the successful ftioning of any large tech- nical system (Hughes, 1987). This paper draws on three main sources: documentation such as reports and articles appearing in the general and construction press in the immediate aftermath of the disas- trous opening; the House of Commons Transport Commit- tee report – ‘The opening of Heathrow Terminal 5’ (House of Commons Transport Committee, 2008); and informa- tion collected by the authors during a study about the learning gained from involvement in the T5 project. In the next section we show how BAA and BA built up expec- tations for T5 in the years and months preceding the open- ing. We go on to analyse the events of the opening day and show how an accumulation of relatively small problems combined to create the catastrophic outcome. We then contrast the focus of the efforts to transform the approach to managing the design and construction phases of T5 with the management of the operational phase. 2. The promise of T5 In the years and months preceding the opening of T5, BAA and BA had been pushing out press releases which promised a massive transformation in the performance of Heathrow Airport. For example, on March 27th 2007, exactly 1 year before the scheduled opening date, a BAA press release was put out annoing that over 90% of the construction-related work had been completed and that the project remained on-time and on-budget. The plan was for BAA to hand over the terminal to BA in September 2007 for six months of proving trials, involving more than 16,000 members of the public who would be recruited to act as passengers to thoroughly test every aspect of the building including car parking, check-in, baggage systems, IT systems and security. The press release (Distributed by PR Newswire on behalf of BAA plc, 2007) quoted Tony Douglas, CEO of BAA Heathrow (who had previously been T5 Managing Director) as follows: “London is a world city, a global financial centre and needs a world-class airport. T5 is already a testament to the skill and hard work of the thousands of people, including architects, planners, construction workers, air- port and airline staff, who have together made the build- ing happen. With just 366 days to go there is still much to do, but we are confident we are on track to deliver a world-class experience that Heathrow’s passengers deserve.” But, according to Douglas, T5 was only the start of cre- ating the new Heathrow. He went on to say how “. . .when T5 opens and 30 million passengers move out of existing terminals, for the first time we will have space to breath in the central terminal area and have a once in a lifetime opportunity to redevelop the rest of the air- port and bring it up to a comparable standard to T5. By 2012, we aim to have either re-built or redeveloped our existing facilities and returned Heathrow to its right- ful status as the world’s leading international airport. We will be proud to welcome the world’s Olympians through our gates.” Douglas’s optimism was matched by Willie Walsh, CE of British Airways: “This is a historic breakthrough which will transform the airport experience for our customers. T5 will mean less queuing, faster baggage systems and better ptu- ality. For comfort and convenience, it will exceed the best you can find at any other airport. The next twelve months will be extremely busy as we continue with our preparations for the move. Our plans are on track and we will be ready for 27 March, 2008 when the first flights begin.” These expectations continued to be built up during the year, and, at the official opening, two weeks before the oper- ational opening, confidence was still high as we have seen from the quotes in the introduction. In one other memorable quote which he would no doubt come to rue, BAA’s strategy director,Mike Forster, said: ‘We have aworld-class baggage system that is going to work perfectly on day one.’ But, even amid all the fanfares there were some qualifi- cation from senior people in BAA and BA. Andrew Wol- stenhome, BAA’s Capital Projects Director – who was previously Project Manager of T5 was quoted in a con- struction industry journal thus: 152 T. Brady, A. Davies / International Journal of Project Management 28 (2010) 151–157 Author’s personal copy “There is a small amount of work still left to do and the final tuning can only be achieved when the building comes under full load. For that we need a hot summer and a cold winter at full capacity. But this is all quite normal for a project of this size and we are confident we have done all we need to do.” (Wright, 2008) While David Noyes, BA’s Customer Services Director thought that “There will be some bedding down time but we do not think it will affect the customer experience in any way at all.” (Wright, 2008). How wrong they were was demonstrated just two weeks later on the catastrophic opening day. 3. What went wrong? Accounts in the press and BBC news website in the immediate aftermath of the opening day pointed to a series of problems rather than a single source of difficulties. The problems began when staff and passengers arriving at the new terminal at around four in the morning of 27th March had trouble locating car parks and car parking spaces. Apparently there was a shortage of specially designated spaces in some car parks. This was exacerbated because some staff overflow car parks were not open early in the morning. As a result some staff were stuck in their cars driving around seeking places to park when they should have been going through security checks before moving to the check-in desks. The delays in finding appropriate parking spaces were compounded when staff reached the Terminal building itself. There were problems with signage. According to one BA check-in attendant who spoke to the BBC: “It took an hour for people to get to the right place. The place is so enormous, we don’t know where we’re going; we have been given no maps, no numbers to ring”.1 Some staff had diffi- culty finding the locations for security checkpoints which they needed to pass through to get ‘airside’. These delays were compounded by problems at the security checkpoints. Long queues started to build up at these security checkpoints. Once staff had managed to find and get through security checkpoints they encountered other problems. Some work- ers in the baggage handling sorting area, for example, reported being unable to log on to the computer system. Others who had been provided with new hand-held equip- ment running the Resource Management System (RMS) which was supposed to allocate baggage handling staff to their duties – unloading or loading specific flights – found they could not operate the systems properly. This meant workers who had successfully managed to gain access to their work areas were unaware of the tasks they had been allocated. This affected both outgoing and incoming baggage. BA staff that had managed to find parking spaces and to navigate their way around the new building to their check- in desks were unaware of the problems in baggage handling and continued to load more suitcases to the baggage sys- tem. With not enough baggage handling staff to take lug- gage off the underground conveyors, the system soon became completely clogged. This led to long delays in planes taking off waiting for the baggage. Incoming planes were also subjected to delays in getting baggage handlers allocated to them so passengers faced long delays in picking up baggage before they could con- tinue with their journeys after arriving at T5. By 16.30 the baggage system failed completely and all check-in at T5 was suspended. Long queues had formed at fast bag drop desks and BA suspended check-in of all luggage into the hold, as they tried to deal with the backlog of clogged bags. These cumulative problems had led to the cancellation of 20 flights by lhtime and by the end of the first day a total of 34 flights had been cancelled and thousands of passengers were left stranded. Further cancellations and delays occurred over the next few days. The House of Commons Transport Committee report on the opening of T5 confirmed much of the media report- ing on what happened but added more detail to some spe- cific issues. Their list of problems included: � search facilities for both staff and passengers (including transfer search) were not ready, � staff facilities including parking were not ready, � a number of passenger and staff lifts were either not fully commissioned or were unserviceable for use on the day, � jetties to transfer passengers on and off the planes failed to perform as specified and caused frequent stoppages which meant maintenance crews having to reset the operating system on each jetty before they could be re- used, leading to departure and arrival delays, � regular, fixed electrical ground power units failed neces- sitating the unplanned towing of mobile power units around the apron, � stand guidance systems were incorrectly calibrated requiring attendance by airfield signalling marshals, � staff accommodation areas and staff access routes were not fully completed or fitted out, � the automated temperature controls failed.2 4. How serious were the problems and how quickly were they resolved In their oral evidence to the House of Commons Trans- port Committee in May 2008 and July 2008, and in written evidence, both BAA and BA were at pains to point out that many of the problems that occurred on the opening day 1 BBC News website. 2 See Q8 in House of Commons Transport Committee (2008). T. Brady, A. Davies / International Journal of Project Management 28 (2010) 151–157 153 Author’s personal copy were of short duration and had been sorted out fairly quickly. Their evidence to the transport committee on each of the aspects described the specific issues and their resolu- tion as follows: Car parking: there were some minor disruptions to staff car parking on opening day. According to a joint BA/BAA statement produced on the day, car parking problems affected no more than 60 members of staff, causing delays of less than 10 min.3 Staff search and control points: Delays of up to 20 min were experienced by staff passing through the ramp area control posts and the five staff search points situated in the terminal. The Apron North staff search post did not open to plan on March 27th due to a failure in the X-ray machine which was not rectified until 13.30 h. The plan for managing staff search points was devised in close coop- eration between BAA and BA based on projected through- put requirements for each location, anticipated staff routes to workplaces and search flow rates demonstrated during pre-opening trials. On the opening day 40–50% more staff turned up than had been anticipated going through the South Apron search points. Furthermore, the trials did not factor in repeat entries by individuals, non-BA observ- ers and retail staff who were instructed to report to work early. These groups contained many people using tempo- rary passes, requiring manual physical searches through security which slowed the flow.3 According to BA’s CE, Willie Walsh, the staff central search area had been significantly improved, but was still not completely operating at the level BA would want – spe- cifically he said that while there were enough BAA security staff now (in May), from time to time different security channels are either open or closed and that creates a prob- lem. . .if BA staff go to one staff search area and it is closed, they are redirected to another one, which could be some considerable distance away. This delays them reaching their work locations on time.4 Lifts and escalators not being operational: On the first day 28 out of the total of 192 lifts were not operational in passenger terminal areas on March 27th.3 By May 7th, 17 were still not working but it was expected that all but 4 would be operational by the end of May.5 Despite contin- uous testing prior to March 27th, 2 escalators out of 103 broke down on the opening day but were back in operation by 9.30 that day.3 Jetties/airbridges: BAA said that all airbridges were available on opening day but that a number had been dri- ven out of limits by BA staff due to lack of familiarity.3 BA pointed out the equipment was new. There were issues such as calibrating the equipment which had led to loss of power so it required engineers to correct and restart the equip- ment. Once people become familiar with the equipment the calibration problems disappeared, and BA agreed that the problems with the jetties had largely been resolved by May 7th. Baggage handling system problems: during the opening day, the rate at which hold bags were being put into the BHS was far greater than the rate they were being loaded onto the aircraft by BA Baggage and logistics operations which eventually created a grid-lock in the system. The sys- tem itself operated within design specifications. The test programme assumed that BA Logistics would move the full Unit Loading devices to the aircraft and load them. But on the opening day this did not happen. There were problems for staff trying to log into the baggage system which affected 48 ‘accounts’ which had been incorrectly set up on the system the day before. The problem was limited to eight members of BA staff and was remedied by 8.56 am on March 27th. The other problems related to log in fail- ures were due to barcode passwords being generated incor- rectly by BA. More than 26% of BA users were entering the wrong passwords on opening day causing the system to lock out the user after three unsuccessful attempts. BAA implemented a fast track password resetting process to solve this problem the same day.3 In his evidence, Mr. Terry Morgan, the then acting Managing Director of Hea- throw, noted that the baggage handling system is very com- plicated and relied on people putting in bags, the system working and people taking out bags. The front bit and the bit in the middle were tested incredibly thoroughly in the lead-up to the openin

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