Introduction
The intention of the Victorian State Government to undertake the East West Link Project is a good move that will improve the state of infrastructure in the City of Melbourne.
The construction of 18 kilometer-road network across Melbourne to link the already existing Western Ring Road to the Eastern Freeway is a very ambitious project. Given that this project is estimated to cost about 8 billion US dollars, it is clear that the project will be very involving and therefore, needs a lot of dedication from the government and all the stakeholders.
According to Kloppenborg (2009), it is always important to understand the magnitude of a project before developing its prototype. When developing a prototype, the management should have a deep understanding of the intended goals and objectives that the project seeks to accomplish.
In this case, the project management must have an understanding of what the Victorian State Government expects from the project. This government intends to spend about 8 billion dollars in this project. It must get what its investment is worth.
The project management team has a major task of ensuring that this project yields the needed result. This must start from the planning stage of this project. Heldman (2011) says that a successful project is always seen at the planning stage.
Planning of the project involves forecasting what the project team members will be doing, the expected timeline for every activity in the project, the associated costs at every stage, and any other costs and tasks that will be carried out within the project. The planning stage also involves defining the roles of every project member.
Project Initiation
Tonnquist (2009, p. 118) observes that the first stage in project management process is the initiation stage. At this stage, the financiers and those who own the project identifies the need to undertake the project.
In this project, the Victorian State Government has identified the need to develop a road that would join Western Ring Road to Eastern Freeway as a way of decongesting the City of Melbourne. Having identified the need to be met by project, then the project team members can move to the planning stage.
Project Planning
Project Objectives
According to Meredith (2012), it is not possible for a project to be successful when project members and the stakeholders do not understand the exact objectives of the project. Defining specific project objectives is always important before the onset of the project. In most of the cases, the financier is always responsible for the development of these objectives.
This is because the financier knows what should be achieved upon completion of the project. In this project, the Victorian State Government knows why this project is important and what it should achieve when it is finally completed. Developing project objectives is not only meant for the financiers or owners of the project.
Every stakeholder has a role to play in this in order to ensure that the objectives developed are smart in nature. The objectives should be specific and implementable within a given timeline. The following are some of the specific objectives that this project should achieve when it is finally completed.
- This road should be able to link Western Ring Road to Eastern Freeway upon its completion.
- The infrastructure should be long lasting and able to meet the traffic needs within Melbourne City.
- The infrastructure should be developed based on the set standards of roads in Australia.
- The development of this infrastructure should cost this government an amount, which is within the initially set budget.
- The project should be completed on or before the set timeline in order to meet the expectations of the taxpayers.
The above are some of the objectives that the project members must work with focus of achieving them. Given that this project will commence in late 2014, it is important for all the stakeholders to ensure that they do everything within their powers to make the project start in the right manner, and that all the needed project deliverables are availed.
It is through this that this team will be assured that the project will run smoothly until the day of its completion. The Victorian State Government has a duty to play in ensuring that it avails all the resources that is needed for this project. The project managers also have a role of stipulating the path this project will take, and explaining to the financier all that which is needed to make this project a reality.
Justification of the project
Meredith and Mantel (2012, p. 71) observes that projects are always costly ventures in terms of the resources needed, and the time that is invested in it. The East West Link Project will cost about 8 billion US dollars. The project will also need about six years to be completed. These are massive resources that this project will consume for it to be completed successfully.
The taxpayers will have to meet the costs of this project. It is therefore, important to state clearly to them the importance of the project. They should be made to understand why the project is worth the cost. Making all the stakeholders understand the importance of the project helps in justifying the need to implement the project.
In the East West Link Project, the intention is to link Western Ring Road and Eastern Freeway, which already exist. The need to link them emanated from the fact that motorists are forced to spend a lot of time on the road using the existing routes, thereby creating congestions in the city.
The project seeks to ease traffic congestion within the City of Melbourne by creating a new route that will enable motorists to take shorter routes. Upon its completion, the project will ensure that traffic snarl-ups that are always experienced within Melbourne City are eliminated. This will improve efficiency of doing business in this city. It will attract more investors who will consider the city attractive due to improved infrastructure.
It will also help in eliminating millions of dollars that is lost every year because of the slow movement of traffic, especially during the peak hours. The residents of Melbourne will have a pleasant experience of moving on roads that are free from traffic jam.
The link will be cost effective for road users not only because of the eliminated traffic jam, but also because of the reduced distance motorists will have to cover. Therefore, this viable project can help this city in a great way when it is finally completed in 2019.
Project scope
When undertaking any given project, hopes are always high from various stakeholders as each individual speculates on what the project shall achieve when it is finally completed. According to Bruce and Langdon (2000, p. 56), it is always important to regulate these expectations by defining what the project scope is, in order to make everyone understand the real intention of the project.
Harmonizing the expectations of all the stakeholders is important in ensuring that the outcome of the project is convincing to every individual. It helps in eliminating some unrealistic hopes that some stakeholders may have, and making them know what to expect of the project. It is always the intention of project members to satisfy the needs of all the stakeholders when a project is completed.
Defining the scope of the project makes them understand what to expect from the project, hence increasing chances of the project satisfying the stakeholders upon its completion. This will form part of the success of the project when it is finally brought into completion.
In this project, the scope is limited to constructing a road linking Western Ring Rad and Eastern Freeway. This road will be a dual carriageway that will be able to support all types of vehicles. The road will have six lanes. This road is expected to eliminate the need for motorists who are on Western Ring Road to travel to the city center before going to the Eastern Freeway.
Those on Eastern Freeway will also not need to travel to the city center before getting on the Western Ring Road. The road under this project will link the two routes directly. This will ease congestion in the city, as it will reduce the number of vehicles travelling to the city center.
This project will save time for the road users because it would take a shorter time to use this new road than to go through the city center. It will reduce the cost of fuel for road users because of the shorter distance to cover. The project is limited to developing a standard quality road linking the two highways.
Project Execution
The Project Management Team
The first step in project execution is to identify project team members. In every project, it is important to understand the project members who will participate in various activities within the project. As Nagarajan (2005, p. 27) says, sensitive projects such as those involving infrastructure needs people with necessary skills to undertake various duties.
In the development of this infrastructure, there will be a need for civil engineers, designers, among others professionals. There will also be a need to have a lawyer who will constantly ensure that the interests of all the stakeholders in the project are protected.
There should be a clear hierarchy among all the project members defining the role of each project member and their ranks. The following diagram shows the hierarchy of the project members.
The above diagram shows the capacities held by different individuals within this project. The project manager heads the project. It is important to note that the Financier of the project, who is the Victorian State Government, occupies a special position within the project.
The government falls in a special rank within the project, which allows it to supervise the activities within the project, but neither directing nor being directed by any officer within the project. This means that the financier, who owns this project, will have an opportunity to monitor directly the operations of the project without the feeling that it is interfering with the normal operations of the project.
Under the project manager are specialists who are responsible for various tasks within the project. The project team managers will be in charge of specific groups tasked with various duties in the project. The project members, especially the junior officers will be undertaking various operational tasks within the project.
Project team manager will head each group within the project. This team manager must be an individual with the technical knowledge in the area he or she will be heading. This means that most of them will be engineers.
Each team will be reporting to the project manager who will then brief the top officials of the Victorian State Government. It is important to note that The Victorian State Government will have its own officials in the project who will carry out various investigative activities within the project and report directly to the top officials of the Victorian State Government.
The reports given by the government agents in the project will be compared closely with the report given by the project manager to determine if they agree. It is important to note that the government agents will be working independently to investigate progress of the project. The quality assurance team will be answerable to two offices about the progress of the project and the quality achieved at each stage.
The first office it will be answerable to is the project manager’s office. This must be done twice in every week. The quality assurance team is also answerable to the agents of the Victorian State Government whenever they request for any information.
The project manager will be responsible for ensuring that the project members work in line with the overall objective of the project, and in unity. This will help in ensuring that all the intended objectives are achieved successfully and within the desired timeline.
Project Costs and Timeline
It is important to state project costs and the timeline within which it should be brought to completion. Specifying project costs helps in weighing the benefits against its costs. This way, the client in the project can determine whether another cheaper option can be taken.
To the team responsible for implementing the project, it is important to define costs in order to ensure that every item within the project is catered for to avoid disruption. According to Kerzner (2013, p. 45), there are cases where a project fails because there was no precise determination of the costs of the project. In such cases, implementers may come to realize that the amount of money they had set for the project is not enough.
It would force them to ask for more funding otherwise the project may be grounded. In order to avoid such failures, defining a comprehensive cost of the project is important in ensuring that the project experiences no financial challenges once it gets underway. In this project, it is expected that the total cost of the project will be about 8 billion US dollars.
Project timeline helps in defining project success. Haynes (2002, p. 45) notes that stating the timeline helps in the assessment of the project. The project assessment team will always use the set timeline to determine if the project is running within the schedule. Every stage in the project must have a clear date on which it should be completed.
Any causes of delay that are justifiable should be communicated to the relevant authorities as soon as possible so that they can make a decision on how to handle the issue in time. In this project, it is estimated that it would take about six years for this project to be completed.
It will start in late 2014 and completed in 2019 or 2020. The timeline for this project is further stated in the Gantt chart attached. The Gantt chart explains all the activities involved in this project and the estimated time it will take to complete the entire project.
Activities to be undertaken in the Project
It is at the implementation phase of a project that a lot of attention and concentration is needed. This project is expected to begin officially in 2014. This means that the duration between now and its commencement date will involve a series of planning, and other approval activities that will be carried out by various stakeholders. This will need to start by development of a prototype (Field and Keller 1998, p. 89).
The prototype will need to be tested to determine its effectiveness and the ability to meet the required standards. The engineers involved in the project will do this. The lawyer will help them by giving advice on relevant laws and government requirements in every stage of planning and project implementation. The lawyer will tell the engineers of the consequences that the project may face when they take a given path.
Monitoring and Controlling Process
In order to ensure that the needed quality in this project is achieved, a team will monitor the project closely. When a given prototype has been developed, the project manager and the engineers who were responsible for developing the prototype will explain the model to the owners of the project (top officials of the Victorian State Government).
These officials will need to approve the prototype before it can be given green light for full implementation. When these officials reject the prototype, the engineers and all the responsible project members will be forced to go back to the drawing board and develop a new prototype that is acceptable to the project owners. When the prototype is accepted, then the project members will go to the next step of implementing the approved model.
When monitoring the progress of the project, the quality assurance team, and Victorian State Government officials will use the prototype that was approved to determine if the project is in line with its objectives as outlined in its plan.
Closure
This project can be brought to a closure under three circumstances. The first circumstance under which the project can be brought to a closure is upon its completion, which is scheduled in 2020. The project can also be brought to a closure when either of the parties breaches the contract. The third reason for the closure can be when either of the parties feels frustrated with the project.
Conclusion
The East West Link Project is very ambitious, and upon its completion, it will help improve the infrastructure within the City of Melbourne. However, the project will cost the Victorian State Government a lot of money to complete. The government will need to spend about eight billion US dollars to bring the project to completion. The project will take about six years, starting from 2014 until 2019 or 2020.
For this project to be successful, all the project members must understand the requirements of the project at every stage. All the project members must actively participate in this project.
List of References
Bruce, A & Langdon, K 2000, Project management, Dorling Kindersley, New York.
Field, M & Keller, L 1998, Project management, International Thomson Business Press, London.
Haynes, M 2002, Project management: Practical tools for success, Crisp Learning, Menlo Park.
Heldman, K 2011, Project management jumpstart, Wiley, Hoboken.
Kerzner, H 2013, Project management: A systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken.
Kloppenborg, T 2009, Contemporary Project Management, South-Western, New York.
Meredith, J 2012, Project management: A managerial approach, Wiley, Hoboken.
Meredith, J & Mantel, S 2012, Project management, Wiley, Hoboken.
Nagarajan, K 2005, Project management, New Age International, New Delhi.
Tonnquist, B 2009,Project management: A complete guide, Academica, Aarhus.