Critical Evaluation Of A Real World Project Mattala International Airport

Discuss about the Critical Evaluation of a Real World Project Mattala International Airport.

The topic ‘critical evaluation of real world project’ is a situation which is common for all types of the project irrespective of its size and complexity. All projects can be evaluated by this method. There are different expectations from the project of different people, like a project manager of the execution organization shall expect to deliver the project within time to have success; a sponsor shall get the return on investment well from the project to say it is a project, similarly in this report we shall discuss the different view of looking at the success or failure of a project.

In current report we shall evaluate the Sri Lanka’s prestigious and heavy costly infrastructure project the ‘Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport’. This international airport was opened in 2013 and the project cost was around 209 Million US Dollar (Smith, 2016). To build the facility Sri Lanka government had to invest around 210 Million US Dollar (News Limited, 2017), but the airport was built before the schedule completion date (Shepard, 2016). So the mega project was a huge success for the project management team that it could maintain all the three constraints of the project and deliver the airport before time. We shall now study the different criteria of evaluating any project and then apply those criteria to the case study project discussed above and see that whether this mega prestigious project of Sri Lanka was a success or failure.

The success and failure of any project has to be noticed from many angles, so from the angle of project manager of the project or the owner of the contracting company may be different from the sponsor of client side organization. The conventional methods for taking a gander at the achievement or disappointment elements of the task are the triple requirements recipe. As indicated by the triple requirements of an undertaking, the fundamental thought process of the task administrator and the entire group ought to be to monitor the three things of the venture the quality or degree, the cost of the undertaking or assets wanted to be utilized for the venture and the timetable of completion or the time frame of delivering the project (Enterprise PM, 2017), it may be the final delivery date or can be the intermediate milestones so that in-between progress can also be measured (refer figure 1). This technique almost covers all

the criteria in deciding the success rate of the project management method. Since the whole project stands on these three pillars (scope, cost and time), so if these are maintained then the project can be assumed as a success and project manager need to struggle a lot to maintain the equilibrium between these three factors.

As per the author (Pozin, 2012), there are even more factors which can be used to measure the achievement rate of the task. The creator has now moved out of the crate of task and the perspective of the temporary worker proprietors or the venture supervisor and is alluding the accomplishment of the undertaking with success rate as per the satisfaction level of the team and customers. The customers are the stakeholders who are looking to earn gain from the project; this gain can be monitory or social.

Different Criteria of project success or failure

Pinto and Slevin (1988) has identified many other factors which can decide the success or the failure of the project (Basu, 2017). The other different criteria are:

Commercial Success: this means that whether the mission and objective of setting up the project has met or not. This is also an important factor that can be considered to measure the success or failure of the project. The case project, Mattala International Airport Project shall be discussed under this group of discussion which shall provide information regarding the success or failure rate of the project.

Meets user’s requirement: it means that the top management are satisfied with the outcome of the project. If the management satisfies with the outcome then the project can be said as succeeded.

Meet Budget: this section is referring to the triple constraints of the project that is the scope, time and cost. The project must be done within the scope and without any change in cost or time as agreed during the baseline scheduling.

Achieve purpose: the personnel who are affected by the project should gain from the project and then the project can be termed as a real success. This is a critical factor which shall be mentioned in case of the Mattala Airport project. we shall throw more light on this topic that whether the surrounding people or the stakeholder’s purpose was fulfilled or not.

Sustainable outcome: this is a bit broader section which shall also be considered before considering the success or failure of the project. Sustainable means the project made should provide a success to its environment and it should be such that it can mix its outcome with the surroundings. The surroundings requirement can be fulfilled by the project and the project can also use the surroundings outcomes. Moreover the project should also be environmental friendly with releasing lesser carbon footprint to be termed as success.

After gaining the different ideas or factors which can decide the success or failure rate of the project, now let us find the most suitable criteria which can be used for measuring the success or failure of the project Mattala International Airport. For assessing the success or failure result of the project let us consider the ‘triple constraints’, ‘commercial success’, ‘achieve purpose’ and ‘sustainable outcome’ are the four parameters against which the project must be assed in coming part of the report.

The achievement rate of the task. The creator has now moved out of the crate of task and the perspective of the temporary worker proprietors or the venture supervisor and is alluding the accomplishment of the undertaking with dense elephant forest (Senanayake, 2015). The airport is located at the southern part of Sri Lanka. It was built to offload the rush at Colombo International Airport and the location was selected to cover the few tourist places at near sites. The serving president of Sri Lanka was planning to build the place and convert it from a typical rural place to a high-tech modern city, he not only planned to build the massive airport equipped with all modern technologies and comfort (refer appendix 1) but also few real estate and cricket stadium too. As per above discussion let the project is assessed under different circumstances:

Are these factors enough

Triple Constraints: as narrated above, that the triple constraints of the international airport a mega project was handled so smartly by the&nbsp: project management team members that the project got completed well before the baseline schedule duration without even consuming additional cost and resources. Quality of the project was also maintained very fine (refer appendix 2), the project is equipped with all modern comfort facilities for large number of people. Hence, the project is a huge success form the project management point of view.

Commercial success: it is the destinations of the task which should be evaluated for getting the coveted outcome. The client of the facility one is the customers and other is the companies engaged in flying are required to be analyzed. The customers’ always kept complaining about the location of the airport which was surrounded by dense forest and there are possibilities of wild animal attack too in the proximity, so none of the customers could move in nearby area whenever they needed to halt there. The flying companies were facing any accidental threats from the migratory birds and there had been many such instances of midair collision with group of birds which has damaged the flights. So environmentally the project is a big failure.

Achieve purpose: the purpose of the airport was to up bring the local society and bring business and development of the surrounding areas. Which could not happen, moreover the airport itself could not be run after few months itself. So the project from this angle is a big failure.

Sustainable outcome: none of the environment friendly work is executed for the project; instead the forest, around 2000 hectares land area trees was uprooted and the place was a habitat for migratory birds. Out of 2000, 800 hectares is used for the phase 1 (Airport & Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Limited, 2009). So as per these criteria of the project, the project is a big failure. The project just destroyed many trees, habitats and animals without gaining anything and even Sri Lanka is unable to pay the debt to China.

After studying all the angles or view point from different prospective, it is very clear that the project build with so much debt from China by Sri Lanka is a big failure and it has become one of the largest empty international airports in world. The biggest lessons learnt from this massive failure is that, no project should be initiated and implemented just to fulfill the wish or desire of making the place modern or better rather the feasibility study of all discipline need to be done to assess that whether the project will be a benefit or burden of the investor. Always the information shared by the stakeholders need to be assessed properly before accepting or rejecting, as the case was, the service president has rejected many advices by the government agencies to not undertake the project (Daniel, 2016). Moreover from the economist point of view, all the new ventures or project should be conceptualized if there is demand, so that the demand and supply ratio can be implemented, then such failure would not have happened. Sine there is no other industry or scope which can create the demand. If there would have been many industry or business point around the place, then such situation would not have happened. The failure project of the time can become success after some time if the surrounding grows up to the required mark. It can be recommended that none of the factors can decide that whether the project is a success or failure, the result is only time specific.

Conclusion

This international airport had all good time till it was under development or project phase because till the completion of project all good news were there, the project got completed before time. There are very few mega projects which are completed before time and it was one of them. So up to few months after the implementation the project was seemed to be a big success but after some time it became the nightmare for the Sri Lankan government. They were unable to generate any revenue from the project because none of the flights were operational here and the debt taken from China was building up above Sri Lanka, now Sri Lanka is looking to sell the airport to generate money for repaying the debt (Daily Mirror, 2017). So it can be concluded that none of the project should be made to fulfill ones dream or wish, the entire project must be assessed first and after clearing all sorts of feasibility analysis only such mega project should be formalized.

References

Airport & Aviation Services (Sri Lanka) Limited, 2009. Overview of Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (MRIA). [Online] Available at: https://www.airport.lk/mria/about_mria/overview_mria.php [Accessed 3 September 2017].

Basu, R., 2017. Project Success Criteria and Success Factors. [Online] Informa Group Company Available at: https://www.gpmfirst.com/books/managing-quality-projects/project-success-criteria-and-success-factors [Accessed 3 September 2017].

Daily Mirror, 2017. Mattala Airport in full throttle. [Online] Available at: https://www.dailymirror.lk/article/Mattala-Airport-in-full-throttle-122765.html [Accessed 3 September 2017].

Daniel, D., 2016. Government Agency Advised Against Siting Second Airport At Mattala Before Its Construction Started. [Online] Available at: https://echelon.lk/home/government-agency-advised-against-siting-second-airport-at-mattala-before-its-construction-started/ [Accessed 3 September 2017].

Enterprise PM, 2017. Triple Constraints of Projects: Quality, Cost & Schedule. [Online] Available at: https://www.enterprise-pm.com/pmbasics/triple-constraint [Accessed 3 September 2017].

News Limited, 2017. The lavish airport pretty much no one uses. [Online] Available at: https://www.news.com.au/travel/world-travel/asia/the-lavish-airport-pretty-much-no-one-uses/news-story/c3e62865b750c68684faf319d55c32a3 [Accessed 3 September 2017].

Pozin, I., 2012. 6 Ways to Measure the Success of Any Project. [Online] Available at: https://www.inc.com/ilya-pozin/6-ways-to-measure-the-success-of-any-project.html [Accessed 3 September 2017].

Senanayake, R.M.B., 2015. Surcharge Those Responsible For Mattala Airport Cost. [Online] Available at: https://www.colombotelegraph.com/index.php/surcharge-those-responsible-for-mattala-airport-cost/ [Accessed 3 September 2017].

Shepard, W., 2016. The Story Behind The World's Emptiest International Airport. [Online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/05/28/the-story-behind-the-worlds-emptiest-international-airport-sri-lankas-mattala-rajapaksa/#336183447cea [Accessed 3 September 2017].

Smith, J.C., 2016. “On paper Sri Lanka has two airports”: Mattala Rajapaska International, the airport without planes. [Online] Available at: https://www.citymetric.com/transport/paper-sri-lanka-has-two-airports-mattala-rajapaska-international-airport-without-planes [Accessed 3 September 2017].

WordPress, 2011. Scope, Time and Cost – Managing the Triple Constraint. [Online] Available at: https://programsuccess.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/scope-time-and-cost-managing-the-triple-constraint/ [Accessed 3 September 2017].