LONDON — Nearly two years ago, the “Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life” published a report on the role of religion in society. The paper made it clear that Britain is no longer a Christian country in any meaningful sense and should be systematically de-Christianized due to the decline of church-going and the rise of Islam and other beliefs.
Britain Is No Longer A Christian Country
The commission has attracted particular controversy because of the authority of those behind it. Patrons include Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury; Lord Woolf, the former chief justice; and Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the former general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain.
“Britain is no longer a Christian country and should stop acting as if it is, a major inquiry into the place of religion in modern society concluded in 2015, provoking a furious backlash from ministers and the Church of England.”
The report triggered a argument as it was condemned by cabinet ministers as “seriously misguided,” while the Church of England said it appeared to have been “hijacked” by humanists.
Remarkably, the overall decline of religion in Britain has coincided with the arrival of three million migrants who tend to have more religious belief than British Christians. In particular, the visual impact of Islam, most obviously expressed in the proposal for a 9,000-capacity ‘super-mosque’ in east London that was rejected by planners about 18 months ago, might give the impression that migration has brought a religious revival to Britain.
You Can’t Throw the Baby Out With the Bathwater
Inevitably, the question of what is to be done about our national Christian institutions will soon arise. Is it appropriate that we are still invited to swear on the Bible in court?
Down The Inquiry Rabbit Hole
The Commission on Religion and Belief in Public Life document said that faith schools are “socially divisive” and the selection of children on the basis of their beliefs should be phased out. The report claimed that the number of Church of England bishops in the Lords should be replaced with imams, rabbis and other non-other non-Christian clerics as well as evangelical pastors. The report also backde moves to cut the number of Church of England bishops in the Lords and give places to imams, rabbis and other non-other non-Christian clerics as well as evangelical pastors. It also recommended that the coronation service for the monarch ought to be overhauled to include other faiths and that thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4’s should include non-religious messages. And it recommended new protections for women in Sharia courts and other religious tribunals — including a call for the government to consider requiring couples who have a non-legally binding religious marriage also to have a civil registration. Most controversially, perhaps, the report also called for a rethink of anti-terror policy, including allowing students to voice radical views on campus without fear of being reported to the security services.
Some will find this sad, others as a sign of progress, but the greater majority will view it with indifference.
Educating The Public
Given all that, why do Christians in the country have so much political and educational power?
“England has an established Church. Its bishops sit in the House of Lords. The Queen is both head of state and also supreme governor of the Church of England. One of the monarch’s titles is Defender of the Faith.”
Because of this, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has told the Daily Telegraph that claims the UK was not a Christian country ignored “both historical and constitutional reality”, its not fact. The Bible features heavily in the architecture and decoration of the Houses of Parliament, paying silent tribute to its significance in English jurisprudence. Most British law is ultimately derived from the codes of law within the Bible, of which the Ten Commandments is pre-eminent.
“The Equality of All People Before The Law is Another of The Bibles Legacies.”
In short the social institutions and safeguards, as well as many of the benefits people take for granted, were supported by the understanding of human life which was found within the Bible. In this sense, the foundations of Britain’s culture and society can truly be said to be biblical.
The report is dominated by the old-fashioned view that traditional religion is declining in importance and that non-adherence to a religion is the same as humanism or secularism.
Today, as people are facing ever more clearly the perceived threats of global war, the Bible, with its vision of man’s position within creation and responsibility under God to care properly for it, still has a major contribution to make to the future of all humankind.
Global resourcing specialist BPS World has warned that one of the main challenges facing employers in the UK in 2017 will be the impact of Brexit on the ability to attract talent, particularly in the high-value digital, technical and engineering industries where recruiters are already struggling with severe skills shortages. This follows the publication by BPS World, of: “Brexit: What the World is Saying” which, for the first time, researched the global impact of Brexit and how other countries believe it will impact on skills.
Simon Conington, Founder of BPS World, has urged the government to ensure that the UK continues to have access to skilled professional from Europe, particularly in the sectors where there are already skills shortages, or face a sharp decline in the UK’s ability to compete.
Although the UK will not be leaving the EU until 2019 we can expect an announcement this year on the shape of Brexit and what it will mean in practice.Under so-called ‘hard-Brexit’ freedom of movement would be restricted and it would be as difficult for talent to be recruited from France as from the US. It is this that alarms those at the sharp end of skills shortages, such as BPS World. Recruits themselves are already showing signs of being aware of these new competitive forces: research revealed that almost half (48 per cent) of UK jobseekers were more concerned about finding a job than before the referendum.
Last year BPS World spoke to business leaders, representative bodies and professionals in the recruitment and retention sectors in Europe, India, Australia and the USA. The research focussed on the sectors most affected by skills shortages in the UK and overseas. It is in these sectors that the impact of Brexit and any restrictions or changes to work permits, is likely to be most keenly felt.
One of those they spoke to was Marco Dadomo, from the Verein Deutscher Ingenieure (VDI, Association of German Engineers) in Düsseldorf: “As we know, Britain has already problems finding enough specialists in this sector. Brexit will make it less attractive for international experts to work in Britain for a British company. We have also heard that quite a lot of UK experts of different sectors plan to leave Britain when Brexit will be implemented.”
Simon Conington, Founder of BPS World argued;
“2017 is going to be a pivotal year for the UK economy. The decisions the government makes now on the implementation of Brexit will affect our ability to attract the talent we need to grow. The impact will be felt immediately as talent will not come to the UK if they know they will have to leave within two years.We urge the government to continue to ensure we have access to skilled people, particularly in sectors where we’re already struggling to find the talent we need.”
Kevin Green, Chief Executive of the REC welcomed the report:
“This review of the international community’s fears and needs following the EU referendum contains warnings about the challenges employers could face in the future. The prospect of skill and talent shortages intensifying in higher-end sectors is a huge concern. The government must ensure that any changes to immigration policy as a result of the EU negotiations reflect immediate labour market needs so that businesses can continue to grow.”
Brexit: What the World is Saying is available free to download from www.bps-world.com
Notes to Editors
BPS World are global resourcing experts who work across a number of sectors, specialising in technology, marketing and engineering.
Atkins has been chosen as the sustainability consultant to develop an environmental sustainability target for Old Oak Common, a £26bn urban redevelopment in London.
“Gentrification has profoundly influenced religion. In the context of Christianity, of course, gentrification takes on a new, existential dimension.”
At five times the size of the King’s Cross redevelopment, Old Oak and Park Royal is London’s largest opportunity area and urban regeneration investment project with an estimated worth of £7bn per annum to the UK economy. Old Oak and Park Royal has the potential to create up to 25,500 homes and some 65,000 jobs, constructing a transport hub to link Crossrail, National Rail and High Speed 2.
Atkins will create a set of sustainability targets to be used for the development in partnership with Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation (OPDC) and its cost control and project management advisor Faithful+Gould. The sustainability targets will be based on six core themes comprising urban form and public space, transport, energy, waste and materials, water, and access to nature, watercourses and green spaces.
Flexibility and adaptability will be a key focus area when developing the sustainability targets together with the combination of green infrastructure with urban planning and design, and the role of fast developing smart technologies.
“The Sustainability Targets Are Expected to Be Used for Anything up to 20 to 50 Years’ and Will Involve a Sensible Combination of ‘Open-Minded Thinking with Real-World Analysis.”
Sean Lockie, sustainability director at Faithful+Gould, said: “Old Oak and Park Royal is a massive opportunity for London to do things that haven’t been done before. “It means creating a vision which sets out clear goals, such as being healthy to live in, flexible over time, affordable, comfortable, and being energy and resource efficient, and then taking a systematic approach to delivery. “We’ll need to come up with some new business models to achieve this but in doing so we have a great opportunity to make a real difference in people’s lives.”
Atkins will lead stakeholder engagement workshops with the OPDC, designers and the local authority until August 2016 and is set to deliver its sustainability report to the OPDC in September 2016.
“Is urban regeneration about more than the material?” It’s about a piece of heaven on earth ”¦ where true expressions of what Jesus did or how he lived actually articulates itself into society.”
Over the past decade business procurement has experienced rapid technological upheaval that, in the main, has made life easier for everyone involved.
The first ever Global Procurement Technology Summit was held in March 2016. It shows the emphasis procurement is now putting on understanding and utilising new technologies, and that it’s clearly a huge talking point for professionals across the world.
Looking in greater detail: which technology has been responsible and what has the effect been on procurement and buying professionals?
1. More informed decisions are being made
The digitalisation of procurement processes and integration of data-sharing across buyer behaviour, ratings and history of purchases over extended periods of time, has made for smarter and more informed decisions.
Despite the greater insight into decision-making, a study of US procurement professionals still revealed accurate forecasting to be the biggest challenge, something that’s possibly down to the rise in budget responsibilities over the last ten years.
The Coupa ‘Top 5: Constants and Change in Cloud Procurement’ report revealed that in 2003, budgets were reported as an average of $31m, compared to $100m in 2013.
2. Response times have drastically reduced
Procurement solutions are now quicker and easier than ever thanks to new marketplace technologies.
Buyers can take advantage of online purchasing possibilities, using websites like Amazon to source, purchase and arrange delivery of items.
The speed of procurement reflects the new speed in which consumerism moves ’’ the integration of digital mediums with online shopping has made the process of deliberation through to transaction much easier, a trend which has been reflected in the world of procurement.
3. Integration has brought its own problems
Technological integration has created many positives for procurement, but it’s also created challenges.
Millennials will make up 40% of the workforce by 2020, which is great for improving current procurement solutions as younger generations have higher expectations for technology and are early adapters.
However, the average age of procurement professionals in the UK is currently 44 – much older than the next generation of workers, who fully understand the capabilities of technology, and who will be easier to train and able to work with increased speed and accuracy.
The gap will close in the coming years, but procurement faces a struggle as older workers need to ensure their skills are relevant to the changing world around them.
Additionally, Hays’ ‘Procurement Salary Guide’ revealed that demand for procurement professionals has increased at all levels within the public sector, pushing salaries up. This demand is the result of a squeeze on public finances and attempts to cut costs following the slowdown in the economy.
4, Technology and the future of procurement
To conclude, technology is clearly a powerful enabler that’s here to stay. Plenty of companies are now seeing the importance of procurement technology as a means to improve their bottom lines, which was reflected in the inaugural Global Procurement Technology Summit earlier this year.
Integration of contract management, risk management and supplier lifecycle systems through investment in improved systems with added capabilities, has ensured more accurate sourcing is possible and due to the skills involved in running these systems, has driven salaries up.
Sophia Chapman is a guest contributor from Portfolio Procurement, expert recruiters in the compensation, benefit and reward sector.
Everyone wants to be a success. I have never met anyone who purposely set out to be a failure. Undoubtedly, this is why so much has been written on the topic “How to be a Success” and why these books are so popular.
However, The New Day daily newspaper closed just nine weeks after launching, Trinity Mirror confirms.
The New Day was a British compact daily newspaper published by Trinity Mirror, launched on 29 February 2016. It was aimed at a middle-aged female audience and was politically neutral. The editor, Alison Phillips, intended readers to get through the newspaper in under 30 minutes.
The new paper was initially available for 25p for two weeks, then rising to 50p. Two million copies of the New Day was given away on the first day, as the turquoise-branded upstart attempted to spark a revival in readership and gain ground against the mid-market Mail and Express offline.
Arrogance about their own ability to rescue a situation can prevent leaders from changing course
The New Day had no leading articles, no website, and columnists and believed it could successfully drag readers back to print? The sad truth is that it did not attract enough attention and failed to create a daily newspaper that could co-exist in the digital age, especially as tabloids and broadsheets continue to suffer a significant circulation decline.
Shareholders at Trinity Mirror’s annual meeting called the failure “demoralising”. Analysts said it was “embarrassing”.
Assume for a moment that the leaders of The New Day had no idea about the changes swamping the print media as a result of the digital revolution, and carelessly decided to invest millions into the venture without undertaking a risk assessment and also decided to ignore every indication that the paper was failing. That would have been embarrassing and demoralising.
However, the leaders decided to fail quickly and shut down the project they started.
Abandonment is a rare, difficult and a valuable management skill. The natural instinct of most people is to persist, particularly when the project is a collective commitment, as most corporate ventures are, but then it becomes even harder to hit the red “stop” button.
The New Day’s editor, Alison Phillips, said in a statement posted on Facebook that the team “tried everything we could” but were unable to reach the figures needed to make it work financially.
We dread failure. We don’t like talking about it. Some of us will internalise and rethink our failures in our heads time and time again. Others will swipe them away, moving onto the next thing immediately. In the public, we prefer sweeping our failures under the rug, silently, while nobody is watching.
While this might save our feelings momentarily, this is not the way learn and innovate.
According to Albert Savoia – ex Googler and innovation expert, most project innovations will fail.
“Most New Things Will Fail – Even If They Are Flawlessly Executed.” – Albert Savoia – Ex Googler
Does this mean you should stay away from trying new things (and failing in the process)? Certainly not. It just means you need to accept failure will inevitably be a part of the process.
In most cases, however, a combination of arrogance about personal ability to rescue the situation and blindness to the lengthening odds of success stops leaders from changing course.
The natural lifespan of most projects is finite, and the rarities are companies that survive.
The Art of “strategic Quitting” Will Become More Important as Careers Fragment and Companies Exert More Discipline
So if an idea is doomed, organisations usually treat the person who pulled the plug early on as a hero right? Not exactly, it’s complicated.
Roy Greenslade, Professor of Journalism at City University London, wrote a report in The Guardian explaining how The New Day had failed. He pinpointed the error of marketing a newspaper to people who inherently despise newspapers, and the short period of time between the announcement and launch, leaving no time to advertise the product. It was also published early in the evening thus missing out on late-night breaking news such as Leicester City F.C.’s shock win of the Premier League.
“Nothing so powerfully concentrates a man’s mind on innovation as the knowledge that the present product or service will be abandoned in the foreseeable future.” – Peter Drucker
The first thing the Bible wants to say is that all of us have failed. None is without failure. If you think you haven’t failed, two things are true of you. One is you are blind to your failures and the other is you probably haven’t taken enough risks to try enough hard things so that you would be aware of your failures.
Peter Drucker’s influence on business management is legendary. Peter realised that “systematic abandonment” a regular, unsentimental spring-clean is critical to the fostering of new business ideas.
Conclusion, every organization needs to have a regular “rummage sale” to determine which products, services, and programs are worth keeping and which ones must be abandoned.
The Nigerian construction industry is mostly concerned with the development and provision of projects such as roads, bridges, railways, residential and commercial real estates, and the maintenance necessary for the socio-economic developments contributes immensely to the Nigerian economic growth (Bureau of Statistics, 2015). Butcher and demmers (2003) described projects as an idea which begins and ends by filling a need. However, a project fails when its idea ends without meeting the needs and expectations of its stakeholders.
Nigeria Has Become the World’s Junk – Yard of Abandoned and Failed Projects worth Billions of Naira!
Hanachor (2013), revealed that projects form part of the basis for assessing a country’s development. However, a damming report from the Abandoned Projects Audit Commission which was set up by the Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan in 2011 revealed that 11,886 federal government projects were abandoned in the past 40 years across Nigerian (Abimbola, 2012). This confirmed the assertion by Osemenan (1987) “that Nigeria has become the world’s junk –yard of abandoned and failed projects worth billions of naira”.
Abandoned projects including building and other civil engineering infrastructure development projects now litter the whole of Nigeria.
Physical projects do not only provide the means of making life more meaningful for members of the community where the projects are located, successful projects also result in empowerment and collective action towards self improvement (Hanachor, 2013).
This Issue of Abandonment Has Been Left Without Adequate Attention for Too Long, and Is Now Having a Multiplier Effect on the Construction Industry in Particular and the Nigeria’s National Economy as a Whole. (Kotngora, 1993)
PROJECT FAILURE
Project Failure might mean a different thing to different stakeholders. A project that seemed successful to one stakeholder may be a total failure to another (Toor and Ogunlana, 2008). Some stakeholders, more especially the project users and some private owners, think of failed projects as a situation where a completed building project collapsed, a situation where by a completed dam project stopped working after few days of completion, or a completed road project that broke down after few months of completion. Other experienced stakeholders, such as engineers and architects conform to the iron triangle by Atkinson (1999) which states that the most strategically important measures of project failure are “time overrun”, “cost overrun”, and “poor quality”.
Turner (1993) noted that a project fails when the project specifications are not delivered within budget and on time;the project fails to achieve its stated business purpose; the project did not meet the pre-stated objectives; the project fails to satisfy the needs of the project team and supporters; and the project fails to satisfy the need of the users and other stakeholders. Lim and Mohamed (1999) cited in Toor and Ogunlana (2009) clarified that there are two possible view points to project failure namely; the macro-level and the micro-level. They further explained that the macro view point reviews if the original objectives and concepts of the project was met. Usually the end users and the project beneficiaries are the ones looking at the project failure from the macro view point, where as the project design team, the consultants, contractors, and suppliers review projects from a micro view point focusing on time of delivery, budget, and poor quality.
In the early 1990s, the failure as well as the success of any project was determined by the project duration, monetary cost, and the performance of the project (Idrus, Sodangi, and Husin, 2011). Belout and Gauvrean (2004), also confirmed that the project management triangle based on schedule, cost, and technical performance is the most useful in determining the failure of a project. Moreover, a project is considered as an achievement of specific objectives, which involves series of activities and tasks which consume resources, are completed within specifications, and have a definite start and end time (Muns and Bjeirmi 1996, cited in Toor and Ogunlana, 2009). Reiss (1993) in his suggestion stated that a project is a human activity that achieves a clear objective against a time scale. Wright (1997) taking the view of clients, suggested that time and budget are the only two important parameters of a project which determines if a project is successful or failed. Nevertheless, many other writers such as Turner, Morris and Hough, wateridge, dewit, McCoy, Pinto and Slevin, saarinen and Ballantine all cited in Atkinson (1999), agreed that cost, time, and quality are all success as well as failure criteria of a project, and are not to be usedexclusively.
FACTORS OF PROJECT FAILURE
Cookie-Davies (2002) stated the difference between the success criteria and the failure factors. Hestated that failure factors are those which contributed towards the failure of a project while success criteria are the measures by which the failure of a project will be judged. The factors constituting the failure criteria are commonly referred to as the key performance indicators (KPIs).
Timeand Cost Overrun
The time factor of project failure cannot be discussed without mentioning cost. This is because the time spent on construction projects has a cost attached to it. Al-Khali and Al-Ghafly, (1999); Aibinu and Jagboro, (2002) confirmed that time overrun in construction projects do not only result in cost overrun and poor quality but also result in greater disputes, abandonment and protracted litigation by the project parties. Therefore, focus on reducing the Time overrun helps to reduce resource spent on heavy litigation processes in the construction industry (Phua and Rowlinson, 2003). Most times, the time overrun of a project does not allow resultant system and benefits of the project to be taking into consideration (Atkinson, 1999). Once a project exceeds the contract time, it does not matter anymore if the project was finally abandoned or completed at the same cost and quality specified on the original contract document, the project has failed. Furthermore, Assaf and Al-Hejji, (2006) noted that time overrun means loss of owner’s revenue due to unavailability of the commercial facilities on time, and contractors may also suffers from higher over heads, material and labour costs.
Poor quality/Technical Performance
The word “Performance” has a different meaning which depends on the context it is being used and it can also be referred to as quality. Performance can be generally defined as effectiveness (doing the right thing), and efficiency (doing it right) (Idrus and Sodangi, 2010). Based on this definition of performance, at the project level, it simply means that a completed project meets fulfilled the stakeholder requirements in the business case.
CAUSES OF PROJECT FAILURE
A lot of research studies have investigated the reasons for project failures, and why projects continue to be described as failing despite improved management. Odeh and Baltaineh, 2002; Arain andLaw, 2003; Abdul-Rahman et al., 2006; Sambasivan and Soon, 2007; all cited in Toor and Ogunlana, 2008, pointed out the major causes of project failures as Inadequate procurement method; poor funding and availability of resources; descripancies between design and construction; lack of project management practices; and communication lapses
The contract/procurement method
A result obtained from two construction projects which were done by the same contractor but using different procurement methods showed that rework, on the design part which occurs when the activities and materials order are different from those specified on the original contract document, makes it difficult for the project to finish on the expected time (Idrus, Sodangi, and Husin, 2011). This is as a result of non-collaboration and integration between the design team, contractor, and tier suppliers. The rework on the design portion has a huge impact on project failure leading to the time overrun. The traditional method of procurement has inadequate flexibility required to facilitate late changes to the project design once the design phase of the construction project has been concluded.
Nigerian most widely used procurement method is the traditional method of procurement (design-bid-construct) which has been confirmed to be less effective to successfully delivery of a construction project (Dim and Ezeabasili, 2015). And, the world bank country procurement assessment report (2000) cited in Anigbogu and Shwarka, (2011) reported that about 50% of projects in Nigeria are dead even before they commence because they were designed to fail.
The way the construction projects are contracted, in addition to the way the contracts are delivered, contributes to the causes of projects failure. Particularly, among the methods of project contracting is lump-sum or a fixed-price contracting method, in which the contractor agrees to deliver a construction project at a fixed price. The fixed-price contract can be low-bid or not however, once the contract cost has been agreed upon the contract award, it cannot be changed. And, contractors are expected to honor and deliver the contract agreement, failure to do so can result in a breach of contract which can result in the contractor being prosecuted.
Awarding a contract to an unqualified personnel also contributes to project failures. When a contractor places more emphasis on money and the mobilization fee after a construction project has been initiated instead of getting the right workforce and skilled professionals that will execute the project. Instead the workforce chosen will often not be base on competence and required skills rather it will be based on availability. Moreover, poor strategy and planning by contractors who have overloaded with work also contributed to one of the causes of project failure.
Poor funding/Budget Planning
A lot of public projects in the Nigerian construction industry failed as a result inadequate funding, and the difference between the national annual budget and the budget actual released. Most of the Nigerian public projects are signed even before the actual release of the national budget. The difference in budget of the contracted project and the actual budget release can get the contracted company stuck as a result of inflation of prices, scarcity of construction material at the time of the budget release and mobilization to site. Also un-planned scope of work which can be as a result of the contractor working on another contract when he is called back to mobilization to start work. Moreover, poor budget planning is a regular mistake made by some contractors by not undertaking feasibility assessments before starting the design. The construction project should be planned according to the available resources and not according to the unrealistic expectations a client has in mind.
Discrepancies Between the Design and Construction
Limited collaboration between the contractors, engineers, and the architect results in discrepancies between the project designs and construction on site, and further leads to rework. Changes on a project designs, and changing to the scope of work in the middle of construction processes on site can be dangerous, and can lead to time overrun, increase in cost, and most of all can lead to abandonment. Moreover, many cases have been seen where the designs from the architects are not buildable on site, whileIn some cases, most contractors are unable to adequately specify the scope of work for the construction processes on site. Therefore any default on the design by the architect can be an opportunity for the contractor to make more money which might cause the project duration to exceed the time specified on the contract document.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This research starts with a general reasoning or theory which says that the major cases of project failure in the Nigerian construction industry are defined based on time overrun and cost overrun. The findings from the data analysis will help on the decision to accept the theory or not. The research data was collected from the progress report for the month ending of October, 2015 published by the Nigeria of Federal Ministry of works on thirty-nine on-going highway construction projects at the South-South geopolitical zone. The table 1 below shows the information on the data collected which comprises of the project title, contract Number, project description, the contractor that was awarded the projects, the date of project commencement, date of completion and the extended date if any. The scheduled time for each project was specified as follows: project commencement date labeled as “a”,project completion date labeled as “b”, and the extended date labeled as “c”.
Table 1: The analyzed data on the highway project at the South-South zone in Nigeria.
DATA ANALYSIS
The data analysis was done with the use of Microsoft excel. The analysis started by obtaining the number of days between the date of commencement of each project and the date of completion to show the duration of each highway project. And, the number of days between the project completion date and the extension date showed the time-overrun. The project duration and the extended days were obtained with the use of NETWORKDAYS function in Microsoft Excel which calculates the number of working days between two dates excluding weekends and any dates identified as holidays.
The standard deviation between the specified project duration for each highway projects and the extended days was calculated to obtain the extent to which each highway project contract failed on its time of delivery. This was denoted as the degree of failure. The table 1 above showed the projects ranking which was done based on the degree of failure of all the highway projects. The highway projects that were ranked from one to sixteen have low degree of failure and are represented with green color, while the rest are those with high degree of failure and are represented with red color.
FINDINGS
The findings made showed that the successfully completed highway projects have no extended days or time overrun, and the successful on-going highway projects are still on schedule and have no extended days unlike the on-going highway projects that have already failed as a result of the extended dates. Other projects have been abandoned because they have exceeded the delivery date as specified on the contract document, and have no extended date of completion. Thus, no work is going on.
Figure 1: Abundance of failed highway projects at south-south zone, Nigeria.
Figure 2: On-going failed highway projects
Figure 2 above showed that 14% of highway projects are still on-going projects because they have not exceeded the original date of completion as specified on the contract document. However, they are heading towards failure because they have been given an extended date of completion which can be as a result of some critical activities running behind schedule, causing delay on the critical path network of the projects. Moreover, the other 86% completely failed because they have exceeded their completion date specified on the contract document.
Figure 3: Successful on-going highway projects
The figure 3 above showed that 63% of the successful highway projects are still on-going because they have not exceed their completion dates, and they are not yet completed. However, those on-going highway projects might end up as failed projects as a result of poor funding, discrepancy between the design and the construction on site, and conflict between the construction parties or stakeholders.
“Say what you will do, and do what you said” or “Say as you will do it, and do it as you said”
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
The idea of knowing what a failed project is, the factors and the causes is very important in project management. Success in project management can neither be achieved nor measured without the knowledge of project failure, its factors, and causes in the Nigerian construction industries. This work has shown that project failure is as a result of exceeded time of delivery, cost overrun, and poor quality. However, the analysis was only done based on exceeded time of project delivery because of the nature of the data collected.
This work suggested a few approaches to help reduce the number of failed projects in the Nigerian construction industry if properly implemented. Firstly, Having good collaboration between the project stakeholders involved in a construction project at the early stage of project conception is most important in order to accomplish the project objectives, and deliver the project on time, within budget, and quality specified on the original contract document (Othman, 2006).
Secondly, Adopting the ISO 9000 technique which is used for quality management will also help in achieving a successful project delivery. This technique states “ say what you will do, and do what you said” or “say as you will do it, and do it as you said”. This technique is not an indication of high quality but it promotes control and consistency which leads to specialization, and improved productivity and quality. Also, adopting the principles of lean construction will help to reduce waste within the construction and stream-line activities in order to improve the on-time delivery of projects.
Thirdly, Learning from the precedent failed projects, how those projects failed, and the reason for their failures. This will help the project manager to plan and mitigate the risks of project failures in the future. And, finally, more seminars and workshops will help to educate and enlighten clients (the federal government representatives), users, contractors, engineers, and architects on what is project failure, the factors that contributes to abundant failed projects, and their causes.
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LONDON – The debate over the £19 billion scheme for the third runway at Heathrow airport has been a long-running row which has grown into fierce opposition within the last couple of months.
We shall not be moved, Heathrow Airport management has stuck to its original course of action, while ignoring constant protests and public discontent and insists that expanding Heathrow will provide the growth, jobs, experts, and connections to make Great Britain greater still.
Sir Richard Branson Urges Heathrow Expansion, and Says “Britain Is ‘being Held Back Massively”.
The billionaire founder of the Virgin Group has accused politicians of neglecting to back the expansion project at Heathrow because they are more concerned about their own jobs rather than doing “what is right for the UK”.
The entrepreneur, Sir Richard Branson urged the Government to be ” bold and brave on big infrastructure decisions like this”.
Hounslow Council, on the other hand, has been accused of “throwing in the towel” over the Heathrow expansion after it promoted the “opportunity of a third runway”. In response, Hounslow Council leader Steve Curran stated its stance on Heathrow had not changed but said it needed to be prepared if the government approves the recommendation for a third runway later this year.
Meanwhile, twelfth century St Mary the Virgin sits right in the middle of flight paths in the village of Harmondsworth, Middlesex and under blueprints for the expansion of the airport, most of the buildings in the village will be demolished but the 951-year-old grade II listed church will be spared. Protesters say there would no longer be anyone to use it.
Worshippers have already prayed at a Service of Hope that the Government will reject Heathrow’s expansion plans.
Amid mounting concerns and opposition from the whole community Justine Greening, the International Development Secretary predicts the government will ditch the £16bn plan for a third runway at Heathrow.
“Trying to Expand Heathrow Is like Trying to Build an Eight Bedroom Mansion on the Site of a Terraced House. It Is a Hub Airport That Is Just Simply in the Wrong Place” – Justine Greening
London Mayor Boris Johnson has been a vehement opponent of Heathrow expansion and has said
that the New Heathrow runway will negatively affect public health. In his report ‘Landing the Right Airport’ presented in March, Boris Johnson evaluated damages caused by the new runway to be between £20bn to £25bn during the next 60 years.
Both Zac Goldsmith and Sadiq Khan, respective Conservative and Labour candidates to succeed Mr. Johnson are also on the bandwagon and are campaigning against a third runway. This controversial debate has also resulted in Downing Street issuing an instruction to ministers asking them not to discuss the proposed third runway at Heathrow airport.
The North West Runway Will Be Two Miles (3,200m) Long, Making It Big Enough for Any Aircraft in the World to Use It
The commission, which was ordered by the government coalition, stated that the Heathrow expansion is ‘the best answer’ to easing the pressure on the UK’s crowded air terminals and that it will not increase noise above current levels, but will generate up to £147 billion in GDP impacts over 60 years.
Furthermore, if the plan for the third runway is approved, it will provide 740,000 flights a year, putting it on equal footing with Paris, Frankfurt, and Amsterdam.
A decision on whether to build a third runway at Heathrow Airport has been delayed until summer 2016, the government has confirmed.
The project management landscape is changing with an increased emphasis on productivity, reporting, and information technology. A number of studies have been completed that look into the success and failure rates of projects.
Below are 15 shocking statistics that reveal how project management has changed and is performing across various industries over the last 5 years.
There is projected to be 15.7 million new project management roles to be added globally across seven project-intensive industries by 2020 reaching an economic impact of over $18 trillion, across seven project-intensive industries including Manufacturing, Finance & Insurance, Information Services, Utilities, Business Services, Oil & Gas and Construction (Project Management Institute)
75% of IT executives believe their projects are “doomed from the start. (Geneca)
The healthcare industry is projected to increase project management roles by 30%, a higher growth rate than any current project intensive industry between 2010 and 2020. (Project Management Institute)
A third of all projects were successfully completed on time and on budget over the past year. (Standish Group)
80% of “high-performing” projects are led by a certified project manager. (PricewaterhouseCoopers, Insights and Trends: Current Programme and Project Management Practices 2012)
One in six IT projects have an average cost overrun of 200%. (Harvard Business Review 2004)
44% of project managers use no software, even though PWC found that the use of commercially available PM software increases performance and satisfaction. (Pricewaterhouse Coopers)
More than 90% of organizations perform some type of project postmortem or closeout retrospective. (The Standish Group: CHAOS Research Report 2013)
On average, it takes 7 years in the profession to go from entry-level to managing large, complex projects. (ESI International: Annual Salary Survey 2013)
The average large IT project runs 45% over budget, 7% over time, and delivers 56% less value than expected. (Project Management Institute: Pulse of the Profession 2015)
Only 64% of projects meet their goals. (Project Management Institute: Pulse of the Profession 2015)
60% of companies don’t measure ROI on projects. (KPMG New Zealand: Project Management Survey 2010)
The United States economy loses $50-$150 billion per year due to failed IT projects. (Gallup Business Review)
In just a 12 month period 49% of organizations had suffered a recent project failure. In the same period only 2% of organizations reported that all of their projects achieved the desired benefits. 86% of organizations reported a shortfall of at least 25% of targeted benefits across their portfolio of projects and many organizations failed to measure benefits so they are unaware of their true status in terms of benefits realization. (KPMG – Global IT Project Management Survey 2005)
According to an IBM study, only 40% of projects meet schedule, budget and quality goals. (Harvard Business Review 2004)
If you have any other project management statistics please share them with us.
New research suggests that tech-savvy women might face gender discrimination in jobs at high-tech firms, partly due to mismanaged projects.
It shows gender discrimination is still as prevalent in the UK as it was 20 years ago, and comes as International Women’s Day will be celebrated this week on March 8, for the 103rd year.
The book “The Recruitment, Retention and Advancement of Technical Women: Breaking Barriers to Cultural Change in Corporations” by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, a Palo Alto-based nonprofit organization focusing on the role of women at high-tech firms.
“More than a Quarter of Women Have Experienced Some Form of Gender Discrimination in the Workplace, a New Study Shows.”
Tech firms typically rely on a “hero mindset” to save poorly organised runaway coding projects. As a result, employees with family responsibilities (generally considered to be women) are left out, the report said.
The Research Also Suggests out of 1,500 Office Workers in the Uk, 26% of Women Felt That Having Children Held Them Back in Their Career
The research also suggests that there is evidence of bias against women in recruitment and job assignment in places where high-tech corporate cultures thrive on this “hero mindset” that “rewards a ‘last minute’ crunch where 24/7 work becomes necessary to ‘save’ a project.” However, these environments fail to acknowledge family responsibilities and flexibility needs, the report said.
This fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants workday culture represents a pattern that’s grown mainly because an organization poorly defines project management and requirements.
For example, Silicon Valley’s sometimes frantic fire-fighting pace and in-your-face communication style produces many technical cultures that often “leave women feeling isolated and crushed,” notes the report.
The study also reflects what 59 senior business and tech managers — both men and women from companies like Cisco, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, Google, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft and Symantec — shared during a closed forum organized by the Anita Borg Institute. According to the report, it’s common in the high-tech world to find the modern equivalent of the “good old boys network” that tends to hire “people who are like them.”
Technical women these days are “still a rarity,” said Dr. Carolyn Simard, author of the report. She added that in the United States, women earn just 18 percent of computer science degrees in college. That figure is sharply down from the 37 percent observed in 1985. Yet technical demand is still expected to grow as much as 32 percent by 2018.
The Institute published a second report titled “Senior Technical Women: A Profile of Success,” which surveyed approximately 1,800 participants from seven unidentified high-tech firms in Silicon Valley.
It found that women now hold about four percent of the senior-level technical positions at high-tech firms and an estimated one-quarter of all tech jobs. On higher levels, women are more likely to end up in a managerial position compared to men (36.9 percent of women compared to 19 percent of men), who are more likely to hold “individual contributor positions” in technical coding jobs.
The second study also found that men and women in technical jobs value most of the same attributes for success, such as being analytical, questioning, risk-taking, collaborative, entrepreneurial, assertive, working long hours and being sociable.
Far more often than men, women generally have “primary responsibility for the household,” the study showed. However, senior-level tech women are much more likely to have a partner who holds primary responsibility for the household and children (23.5 percent of partnered senior women) compared to entry or mid-level women (13.4 percent). Senior-level tech women are also more likely than their male counterparts to forego a partner and children because they believe they might hinder their careers.
To improve work-life balance and stop any perceived gender bias against women in the high-tech world, the Anita Borg Institute is pushing a few ideas that will generate debate and controversy.
“The Equality Act 2010 Makes It Unlawful for an Employer to Discriminate Against Employees Because of Their Gender.”
One recommendation suggests that because there is evidence that women are eliminated in the hiring process at the resume review level, companies might consider “that all women candidates should at least get an interview.”
With backing from firms like HP, Google, Facebook, Intel and Intuit, the Anita Borg Institute even suggested that it might be possible to create a software tool designed to weed out any unconscious bias against hiring or promoting women in the tech world.
This “software tool for detecting bias” was proposed at the Institute’s forum. It can use language recognition to zero in on everything from performance evaluations to letters of recommendation that exhibit gender bias. An online tool like this can be found at Harvard’s Project Implicit.
“We envision building on such research to create a system where specific language can be fed and analyzed for the existence of bias,” the report said. “Using machine learning and text analysis methods would help organizations and individuals address the existence of bias before the damaging language is formally used in recommendations or evaluations.”
Additionally, the software would be a “high-impact diagnostic tool for calibrating organizations with regard to hiring and promotion decisions.”
Only one in three software projects will turn out to be successful. According to Standish Group’s 2015 Chaos report, 66% of technology projects (based on the analysis of 50,000 projects worldwide) end in partial or total failure. More surprisingly, these statistics have been the same for the last five years, the report shows. Furthermore, 17% of large IT projects go so badly that they can threaten the very existence of a company.
On Average, Large It Projects Run 45% over Budget and 7% over Time, While Delivering 56% Less Value than Predicted
Despite such failures, huge sums continue to be invested in IT projects and written off. For example the cost of project failure across the European Union was ┚¬142 billion in 2004.
It Projects Always Come with an Element of Risk, but There Are Huge Gains to Be Had If We Can Just Avoid Some of the Factors That Contribute Frequently to Project Failure
What makes a IT project successful, though?
According to the Standish Group, a successful project is on time, on budget and has satisfactory results (value, user and sponsor satisfaction, and meets target requirements). Other measures of success are widely known and accepted as true such as getting requirements right, providing effective leadership, and having full support and engagement from sponsors and users. Without these, it’s unlikely that any project would succeed.
But there’s more to success than what is widely known and, apparently, rarely followed. To reduce the risk of failure for your tech project, here are six key actions to take on the road to success.
1. Executive Vision and Involvement
Without a Executive Senior Sponsor Its Easy for Projects to Fail with the Organizational Resistance That Accompanies Large Change
Executive involvement is a primary variable in predicting the success of an IT project. Having a leadership team aligned across an organization articulating the purpose, value, and rationale for a project goes a long way towards getting stakeholders and end-users pulling the proverbial rope in the same direction.
2. Have a clear view of scope and timetable
Oftentimes, a tech project flops because its developers fail to plan and rush forward with an idea. However, some project managers plan so meticulously that they end up falling behind and lose momentum. The best approach is somewhere in between.
Interviewing team members, documenting requirements, prioritizing what is “mission critical” versus “nice to have,” getting agreement across stakeholders can feel like a never-ending cycle. As a result, requirement gathering has fallen out of fashion with many organizations in the past few years.
However, the ideal starting point for a successful technology project is to have a set of fundamental requirements with sufficient detail to develop against.
Requirement Gathering Is Labour-intensive and Challenging but Remains the Roadmap and Measuring Stick for Software Projects
This approach allows you to maintain sight of the business benefits as well as engaging stakeholders and responding to their feedback. In combination with a clear business case, a well-defined set of requirements also simplifies design and testing, two areas where projects tend to go sideways.
Ensure that requirements for the project are clearly defined and agreed upon among stakeholders and that you have a way to track, measure, and manage changes in requirements as appropriate during the project.
3. Define how you will deliver
When it comes to delivering a major project, one size does not always fit all. All products are customizable to some degree, so what might have worked in one company may not work in another company.
That being said, why reinvent the wheel if it’s already proven successful? Sometimes it can be more beneficial to use an existing off the shelf solution. Whichever direction you take, choose the delivery mode that works best for your company.
4. Risk Identification and Management
Every project has risk and there are many factors out of your control. People leave the organization, for better or worse, leadership changes, budgets get cut, however, many risks to projects can be mitigated or even eliminated with some forethought and on-going management. For example, do you have the resources you need to deliver the project (resource risk). Are project goals clearly understood and requirements clearly defined (scope risk). Do you have a realistic project plan and timeline (time risk).
Mitigating Risk Is a Combination of Science and Art, and Always a Balancing Process
5. Test your product again and again
A technology project is something that should overall support your business. It should not be something that dictates and forces you to change your operations. If this is happening, you should shift gears and focus on tweaking the technology, rather than lowering expectations and adopting less ideal requirements.
Adequate testing is a must for any tech project. While some features may be fine with automated testing, the best approach is to have a dedicated testing team. Testing activities should mirror those with the development team throughout the project’s lifetime. With thorough testing, a project should deliver with less design flaws or missing requirements.
6. Prioritize simplicity and performance
Developers often leave the external look and feel of a product to the wayside thinking these things are not necessities for the consumer to enjoy. However, user experience is absolutely critical to the success of the project.
Developers must consider things like storage, network requirements, processing speeds and overall performance in order to satisfy the customer. If users are going to have to wait for an extended period to allow information to load, there must be a good reason for the wait, otherwise they won’t return for future products.
Simplification and Improved Efficiency Is What Adds Value
Ultimately, using the product should be a smooth and intuitive experience. Additionally, tools and alternative routes must be placed logically without being intrusive. The process can be complicated, but the finished product should emit simplicity. After all, that’s what makes companies like Apple so successful. Simplification and improved efficiency is what adds value.
It’s Monday afternoon at the office. The week has only begun, but you’re already swimming in a sea of memos, spreadsheets, and schedules. Just as you’re daydreaming about what leftovers you might reheat for a late dinner, your boss pokes his head into your office. He or she mutters something about quotas and deadlines before he or she drops the bomb about a “little project” he or she needs you to complete by the end of the week. And just like that, you know you’ve been handed a nightmare but for whatever reason accept the challenge.
“According to the Cranfield School of Management in the Uk, 68% of Projects Are Destined for Failure Before They Even Start.”
The lack of project management training or experience of many Christian leaders can be an enormous stress factor for them. Whilst natural organizational ability is enormously helpful, in itself it is no guarantee of any project being both successful and low stress.
What is a nightmare project? It’s something we’re all familiar with. The boss assigns us some vague task and a deadline but leaves the means to a solution up to our creative intellect.
So how do you solve the problem of this dreaded “project”?
1. Understand the scope of the project
First things first, create a list to layout your ideas on how to go about the job at hand. Write out questions you might have that need to be answered, people you might need to work with or talk to in order to understand what work must be done.
Without fully understanding what work must be done, it is impossible to accurately estimate a project’s schedule or budget.
After creating a list, share your ideas with colleagues. Work with peers who have the same goal and share the same work ethics as you. Too often, when faced with an unrealistic project, we tend to work with just about anybody who wearily agrees to have their name on board. The enthusiasm of a new project quickly fades when actual work is needed. Instead of “How can I help?” were met with “I’m busy right now” and “Can it wait until next week?” The sponsor, project manager, and project team must share a common understanding of the scope of the project.
2. Get estimates from the people who will be doing the work
To avoid the stress of friendly fatigue, create a solid plan of action with your co-workers. Assign duties and responsibilities and set a deadline for each task.
4. Re-estimate as soon as you realize an estimating assumption was wrong
Don’t get discouraged if people and other things fall through. Even though it’s frustrating with the broken promises, missed deadlines, mistakes, and poor quality outputs. As soon as you realize a mistake was made, assess the impact and re-estimate the project.
“Unfortunately When Project Managers Spend the Majority of Their Time Trying to Achieve the Unachievable, the Result Is Frustration and Potential Burnout.”
But say you’ve followed those steps and were able to remain positive throughout this grueling week. You completed the assignment, whether enthusiastically or completely drained of all energy, only to be told the higher-ups decided to go a different route and don’t need the results of your project after all. “Good effort, though,” your boss tells you as he or she hands back your laminated report.
If you find yourself in this situation, just remember to never say “yes” to a “little project without first taking a look at what you’ve been handed.
