Do you agree or disagree that a better adherence to the standards, an analysis of the impacts to the stakeholders and a stronger communication to the parties would have avoided the issue described?

            In LaBrosse article, shortcuts are used to upgrade the route to a remote property to save money. The project does not follow any criteria, has no permits, and an experienced worker, after years, shortcuts kill ten people. The problem could be avoided by improving access to standards, analyzing the time effects of stakeholders and stronger talk with stakeholders (LaBrosse, 2010).

According to the American National Standards Institution, an Impact’s analysis of the project to the stakeholders and strong communication to the parties involved should be done. The American National Standards Institution breaks down the project management into a five distinct process;

-           Initiating process; project’s objectives would be constructed in detail including critical success factors and expected outcomes. In this process, competent teams would be tapped to join the project.

-           Planning process; includes a communication plan, quality assurance plan, procurement plan, unplanned issues, project’s breakdown plan, budgeting plan, contingency consideration, expecting risk list, and mitigation plan.

-           Executing process, to a execute the project, during this process monitoring and measuring performance against the plan should be done while the executing begins to avoid risk and make adjustment when needed

-           Monitoring and Controlling process, it starts incomparable to the executing process to avoid risk, catches up any new opportunities, and keeps everything within time and budget constraints. 

-           Closing process; accomplished by completing the project’s objectives or cancellation.

                                                                              (Balestrero, 2013) & (Watt, 2014)           

            I agree that the best adherence to standards, analysis of impacts on stakeholders and stronger communication with interested parties would have avoided the problem described. If the Project Management Professional was involved in this project, he/she will insist that obtaining an appropriate permit from local authorities is a mandatory and will take some time to inform all stakeholders about the importance of compliance with the standards. If the permit was obtained, the local authorities will inform the project manager about spillway of the dam and appropriate plans will be requested to submit it for the treatment of the waterway, in this way the loss of life and homes will be avoided.

            I disagree with the author that innovative people cannot be also people that understand, apply and adhere to standards because innovative people could use creativity to communicate the payoff from the investing time, money, and resources to build organizational management expertise, that might lead to great efficiency, enhance stakeholders’ satisfaction, lowering costs and increasing the competitive advantage. Also, flowing the project management standards based on project management methodology will standardize and align practices to business goals and objectives. Finally, transparent communication between all stakeholders will add value to the project and help in project and company success (The value of project Management, 2010)

            According to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK, I believe that cost, communication, risk, and stakeholders are the fundamental knowledge apply for this case. As the flowing

-           The project owner did not obtain proper permits to cut costs

-           The project owner failed in communication with the authority’s bodies to inform them about having failed a spillway.

-           The project owner did not assess the risk of filling the spillway

-           The project owner did not care about local people (stakeholder)

 

            In the project life cycle, it is in implementation phase because the project is being executed in the field. Hence, the initiation phase, the planning phase of the project life cycle, implementation and the closure phase managing risk from PMBOK categories I see them as crucial because

-           the initiation phases, feasibility study would be conducted to consider if they have to do the project and determine the players in the road upgrade.

-           the planning phases of the project life cycle, scope management solution would be developed where resource requirements are identified and allowed, experienced contactors are assigned, budgets would be established to monitor and control cost

-           implementation phase would compare the progress with the implementation plan, quality will be measured, and risk will be managed

-           the closure phases, communication between stakeholders about standards and deliver a high quality and standard project.

so, project life cycle phases would create an adherent to standards that in this case could save lives.

 

 References;

LaBrosse, M. (2010). The Hidden Costs and Dangers of the Shortcut. Project Smart. https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-hidden-costs-and-dangers-of-the-shortcut.php

Watt, A. (2014). Project Management. BCcampus Open Textbook project. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License,

The Value of Project Management (2010). Project Management Institute. http://www.pmi.org/Business-Solutions/~/media/PDF/Business-Solutions/Value%20of%20Project%20Management_FINAL.ashx

Balestrero, G. (2013, April 30). Introduction to PM: What's So Great About Project Management? Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOFKR5c7-NE