Question

Two examples of massively mismanaged projects are TAURUS and the “Big Dig.” The first, formally called the London Stock Exchange Automation Project, cost $575 million before it was finally abandoned. Although most IT projects have a reputation for cost overruns, delays, and under performance, TAURUS set a new standard. But even TAURUS paled next to the biggest, most expensive public works project in U.S. history—Boston’s 15-year-long Central Artery/Tunnel Project. Called the Big Dig, this was perhaps the poorest and most felonious case of project mismanagement in decades. From a starting $2 billion budget to a final price tag of $15 billion, the Big Dig cost more than the Panama Canal, Hoover Dam, or Interstate 95, the 1,919-mile highway between Maine and Florida.

Questions 1. Explain why it faced such problems.

2. How and why do project managers allow such massive endeavors to fall into such a state?

3. What do you think are the causes?

Answer 1

The two projects that are being discussed in the case are Taurus and Big dig.

Taurus was a project focused on automating the stock exchange of UK. The project was initiated for an initial cost of 75 Million. The project got delayed due to multiple reasons and was finally abandoned after the cost and loses rose to 575 million.

The Big dig project was a project initiated to project initiated in Boston at an initial cost of 2 billion to connect the road network. The project was grossly mismanaged and the loses accumulated to 15 billion dollars.

1. One major reason why the Taurus project failed was due to the miscalculation in creation of the centralized data hub which would act as the repository for all data transactions. Such a change would have resulted in loss of jobs to large number of middlemen who were making huge profits using the manual methods. There was huge resistance to the new technology adoptment from the parties involved. Also the system was designed based on a model implemented in US. The engineers envisaged that the change from US model to UK model by swift adopting the regulatory and policy changes would be an easy task but it was not so. The major reasons for the big dig to fail were the following:

• Tunnel leaks

• Collapse of infrastructure

• Higher operational and overhead costs

The tunnel which was being dug faced lot of water leakage issues. The construction team tried to rectify them by using short term methods but it was not successful. During the construction of the tunnel, there was a fatal collapse of the ceiling too which was due to usage of substandard materials.

Looking at both the cases, there are few glaring issues which caused the problems. One of them was that the project team did not do a thorough study of the proposed solution. Also the vendors who were involved were not critically analyzed to check the materials and solutions being deployed.

2. One reason the project managers could not manage the issues was down to not planning the projects well enough, not anticipating the risks and proactively take risk mitigation approaches. For any project to succeed, there are two major areas the project teams should focus on.

• Identify possible risks and plan mitigation strategies

• Track all issues and take corrective actions as soon as possible

It is often the case that in spite of huge amount of time being invested for project planning, there will be deviations from the actual plan during execution. In reality, most of the projects globally tend to move away from the project baseline easily. While moving away from the planned due date may not be a great concern, additional resources being put to rectify the solution might cause major concerns for the project sponsors and leaders. It could be the same issue in case of Taurus and Big Dig. Someone rom project team might have identified the problems but the leadership might not have taken adequate actions to help in the issue. Also it could be possible that no one could anticipate such issues that arose during the project execution. Another reason which could have contributed to the failure of project was vendor mismanagement. The vendors and the materials should always be audited and should pass through quality checks to ensure operational issues do not rise.

3. Few major causes of the project failure for Taurus and Bid Dig are as given below:

• Lack of adequate project planning

• Lack of audit checks for vendors and materials

• No risk assessment or identification done to reduce risks

• No mitigation strategies prepared to tackle risks

• No tracking of critical issues during project execution

• There was no proper governance from experts who were involved in the project

• Underlying issues which were not rectified before initiation of project

• Lack of change management approach to ensure all stakeholders are on the same page