Reflections on "Why marvels of engineering require miracles of project management?" by Jens Roehrich and Jas Kalra at:  http://theconversation.com/why-marvels-of-engineering-require-miracles-of-project-management-104368. 

As a group of project management professionals we all want to see a project succeed.  It’s in our DNA.  So what does it mean for a project to be a “success”??  It’s an interesting term that means different things to different people, from the Project Owner to the Project Manager to the Lead Engineer to the person walking by on the street. Tourists visit iconic places every day, do you think they look up at the Sydney Opera House and think “what a complete failure?”

All of these large scale projects have a common theme, significant cost and schedule overruns, all of which sensationalized in the media. These comparisons are likely against very early numbers when the project scope was unclear. In making schedule and cost success measurements they should be in that “phase” of the project (i.e. execution), it would be unfair to the team to measure their success against and earlier phase thumb suck figure.  However, even if the project execution was 10 years late, what does that mean to the success of the project? The project must decide along the way what is important when project change is presented, for example the owner is presented with a change that says, in order to meet the original scope intent and business outcome, because of reason x, y and z, the schedule will be 10 years late and cost an additional 1000%. What should the owner say or do? Let’s reframe the earlier question; do you think a tourist would look up at the opera house that has a flat roof and half the space and say “wow, that is fantastic attraction for the city and the country, thank goodness it was delivered to the original budget and schedule?”

A key to project success is for the entire project team to be working to a common goals.  As the article suggests, the Project Manager has a remarkable task to ensure this happens with all the challenges throughout the journey.  One of the most important aspects in achieving those common goals is clear and concise communication in formats that are easily digestible for all levels of the project team.  This is where specialized Project Controls function comes in to support the Project Manager to not only obtain the data to present, but to drive and influence the project toward achieving the project goals.

The highest chance of successfully influencing a project is in the earlier phases when scope, cost and time are being developed and understood.  Unfortunately the earlier statement about being judged on cost and timing from earlier project phases, whilst unfair, is a reality, especially in high profile and public projects and especially when politicians are involved.  This is when it is more important than ever to take the time, make the effort to understand the scope together with cost and time risks so that when the data is reported up there is the best possible chance that it is correct.  Having a project controls specialist is vital in pulling this data together to support the Project Manager in their promise to the owner. 

Chad Trethowan