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July 2007
The Wembley Stadium overrun
has major lessons for the implementation of Ireland's
National Development Programme and avoiding IT disasters
such as PPARS, a project management expert told a recent
meeting of the MBA Association of Ireland.
Terence O'Donnell, Director of the Project Management office
at Irish owned I.T. Alliance, said that many of the problems
with beset the Wembley Stadium project could have been
avoided. The project which was due to be completed in August
2005 was budgeted at stg 475m and eventually came in at
approximately stg 800m.
"While delivery in this country has improved, Ireland does
not have a happy record either of delivering major IT or
capital projects on budget and on time," commented Terence
O'Donnell. "There are lessons we can learn from the Wembley
fiasco."
He said that any major project needed to be based on a solid
business case and agreement by all stakeholders on the plan.
"The project was not helped by the fact that the FA
continually changed plans for the stadium," said Mr.
O'Donnell. The second lesson was the importance of having in
place proper governance. "Public backed projects must have
transparency in all decision making," he added.
The third lesson is to plan for things going wrong whether
that was bad weather or other obstacles. "An effective
change management process is essential. And risk management
is a priority." Mr. O'Donnell said that injury time on
projects needed to be built in. "It will invariably happen
and contingency and reserves will be required in even the
best laid and implemented plans."
The fourth lesson was that choosing the right form of
contract is essential. "The contractor Multiplex ended up
losing stg 147m on a fixed price project and the client
ended up paying over £30m for the design changes coupled
with the fact the project came in 18 months late and was a
PR disaster for all parties.
The final lesson argued Mr. O'Donnell is that Governments
should not get involved in the entertainment business. "If
Wembley was commercially viable then private concerns would
make a return. If not, then at least the taxpayer would not
end up footing the bill." Mr. O'Donnell said that Public
Private Partnerships should be reserved for priority
services. |
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