Why is project scope management so important to the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games project? Illustrate with examples from projects you have studied or worked on and draw parallels. Project scope management includes the processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required and only the work required, to complete the project successfully [1]. Project scope management process includes the following steps:1. Collect requirements from the all the stakeholders 2. Define the scope of the project 3. Create WBS (Work breakdown structure) 4.
Verify scope 5. Controlling scopeFor Sydney games scope comprises organizing all the games and ceremonies, putting in place technology and resources required to stage the games, public relation and fundraising. Project scope management is critical to the success of the Sydney 2000 Olympics games for the following reasons:1. There are many organizations that directly contribute to the success of the Sydney Games such as International Olympic Committee (IOC), Australian Olympic Committee (AOC), Sydney City Council (SCC), Sydney Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) and Olympic Coordination Committee. When multiple agencies are involved in a project then there are chances of scope conflict as per the expectation of individual agency. Defining and verifying the scope at the initial stages of the project will clear the deliverables & each member will be aware of their roles and responsibilities.
At Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. (MSIL), setting up of a new plant involves many stakeholders such as civil department, utility department, production engineering department, suppliers, maintenance department & production department. It takes 22 months approx to commission a plant from the kick off date. During the setup of last Manesar plant, maintenance department came with the scope change request for adoption of latest technology (addition of cameras into the robots) during the design finalization stage.
It led to major conflicts internally and huge cost implications on the project budget.2. By the project scope management process, Sydney Games project can be broken down into small work packages. As per the time dimension of the project, there is no leeway on the start date of the project i.e on the overall delivery of the project. On the other hand, time dimension for manageable items of work is something that can be manipulated.
Referring to the MSIL example, total 22 months are required for new plant setup. This does not mean that each activity has to be started from the first day itself. Many activities are not that critical and can be managed in the lesser time, so the resources can be optimized accordingly.3. Allocation of total budget to the individual activities. As in this case, total budget is A$ 1.
847 billion and to meet the cost aspect of the project, it is very much required to allocate the budget efficiently to each activity. In MSIL new plant setup, civil department overshoot the budget by INR 105 million. This led to the overall project cost increased by approx 8%.4.
Identification of activities having high correlation of time & quality. These activities should be identified early in the planning process and by WBS process these activities can be segregated. Test methods can be developed for them. Excellence can be achieved with proper planning and commitment of the personnel involved. Above points clearly states that project scope management is very important for the success of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.
Keeping in view of time, cost & quality dimension of the project, it is extremely important to identify the scope at initial stages and controlling the same during the progress of the project.
