As a project manager, how would you ensure a project meets its long-term goals as well as its short-term goals.
Individual Discussion Engagement 2 (500 words)
Discussion activity: Analysis/Critique – Risk analysis for long-term goals
Large infrastructure projects are often in the media for all the wrong reasons. The disruptions to the community and reported poor performance creates added external pressures to the already tightly constrained project.
Sydney, Australia’s M5 East Tunnel was constructed under strict budgetary and schedule requirements, but given the massive traffic delays now hampering commuters, the requirements may have been excessive. Due to an inexpensive computer system with a high failure rate, the tunnel’s security camera frequently fails, requiring the operators to close the tunnel due to the inability to react to an accident, fire, or excessive pollution inside the tunnel. The tunnel was built to handle 70,000 vehicles a day, but it now carries 100,000, so any glitch can cause immediate traffic snarls. A managerial risk analysis, including the risk of overuse, might have anticipated these problems and mandated a more reliable set of computers once the costs of failure had been included. (PM Network, 2005).
- Anonymous, Polluted Progress, PM Network. 2005. Polluted Progress. 19(3): 1.
- Do you think this project was considered a success and on what basis?
- As a project manager, how would you ensure a project meets its long-term goals as well as its short-term goals.
Focus your responses to these questions on the risk analysis tools and techniques discussed in the readings and videos.
