TABLE OF CONTENT

ABSTRACT..................................................................................................................... 1

1.0 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Definition of Project Management..........................................................................2

1.2 Background of The Sydney Opera House Project.................................................4

2.0 APPLICATION/BAD PRACTICE OF MODERN PROJECT MANAGEMENT............6

3.0 RELATED INNOVATION IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

3.1 Discussion and Framework Development.............................................................9

4.0 OBSERVATION.........................................................................................................11

5.0 CONCLUSION........................................................................................................... 13

6.0 REFERENCES........................................................................................................... 14

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ABSTRACT
Project management is often recognized as one of the most significant strategies for
increasing the likelihood of a successful project. Despite this, most initiatives fail to meet
their objectives, which hurts the organization's competitive edge. In this situation, innovation
practices have become the engine for improving project management methodologies,
relationships, and procedures to improve project success and competitive advantage. Value
delivery and client satisfaction are primary objectives of all construction companies. The
innovation process in the construction industry is an important source of competitive
advantage and value delivery. However, it is hard to achieve a sustainable innovative
culture, and many critics claim that the construction industry is being very resistance to
change. The goal of this research is to look at the use of innovation in the building project
management process at The Sydney Opera House Project. between five innovation
practices which is Strategic Management, Internal Innovative Working Environment, External
Innovative Working Environment, Stakeholders Management, and Project Management. The
value of this research is the identification of the main innovative practices being used in the
construction projects.

KEYWORDS: Project Management; Innovation; Construction Industry.

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1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Definition Project Management
Project management, according to the Project Management Institute, Inc. (PMI), is the
application of knowledge, skills, tools, and methods to project operations to achieve project
requirements. Project management is made up of five main types of process groups that
collaborate to achieve specified objectives and fulfil specific success criteria. Initiating,
planning, executing, monitoring, and controlling, and closing are all part of the process which
is:

I. Initiating

Firstly, it involves initiating, which is processes performed to define a new project or a new
phase of an existing project by obtaining authorization to start the project. It includes
analyzing business requirements, reviewing of the current operations, financial analysis of
the cost and budget, stakeholder analysis, SWOT analysis which is strengths, weakness,
opportunities, and threats to the business.

III. Planning

Planning is processes required to establish the scope of the project, refine objectives, and
define the course of action required to undertake the project. Main purpose is to plan the
time, cost, and resources adequately to estimate the work needed to effectively manage risk
during execution of project. It generally consists of selecting planning team, estimate the
time and cost of the activity, developing schedule and budget, risk planning, developing
scope statement, identifying roles and responsibilities.

IV. Executing

The execution phase ensures that the project management plan's deliverables are followed
or that the work stated in the project management plan is completed to meet the project
specifications. It generally entails the right allocation, coordination, and management of
human resources, as well as other resources like materials and finances.

V. Controlling and Monitoring

The processes that are necessary to track, review, and govern the project's progress and
performance. It also includes identifying any areas where adjustments to the strategy are
required and initiating the necessary changes. Monitoring variables against the project
management plan, assessing ongoing project activities, and establishing corrective
measures and techniques to tie in with project changes are all common tasks.

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VI. Closing

Closing consists of two phase which is project closure, a process performed to finalize all
activities across the process groups to formally close the project or phase. Secondly,
contract closure which involves the settlement and closing of each contract applicable to the
project. Post-project reviews are included also not only to assess the performance but to
also capture lessons learned from the project.

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1.2 Background of The Sydney Opera House Project.

It is also renowned as a
worldwide image or emblem of
Australia. It is one of the most
well-known iconic structures in
the world. It is a late-modern
architectural marvel as well as a
multi-venue performing arts
centre in Sydney. Jorn Utzon, a
Dutch architect, developed an
apparently difficult work of urban
art, as seen by the building's shell-shaped structural roof. It was originally created for a
competition in Sydney, but after he was named the winner, he was hired to build the project.
Construction began in 1959 and was completed 14 years later, in 1973. (Christina, 2012).
The Sydney Opera House, on the other hand, is widely regarded as one of the most
catastrophic building undertakings in history. Ultimately was planned to be under AUS $7
million in budget, but it ended up costing AUS $102 million, a significant disparity. Not just
from a financial standpoint, but also in terms of time management, the project was supposed
to be completed in four years, but it took the team fourteen years to complete. All these
issues stem from and were caused by the team's poor project management strategy at the
time. As a result, in the next sections of the research, we'll look at how modern project
management techniques and skills, as opposed to conventional project management, may
assist the Sydney Opera House achieve its schedule, cost, and quality targets.

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 A project is a single, definite
objective, product, or outcome that is often described in terms of cost, timing, and
performance requirements. A project is also unique in that it involves accomplishing
something new that has never been done before. Due to elements such as access, zoning
rules, and geography, even comparable or so-called "regular" projects such as residential
homes retain their distinctiveness. A project is a one-time, one-of-a-kind action that can
never be duplicated identically. A project is a temporary activity that consists of putting
together a team of people, resources, equipment, and facilities to attain or complete a
certain goal, generally within a set time limit. The organization will be abolished after the goal
is met; therefore, it is just temporary. Unfamiliarity arises from the fact that the project differs
from what has previously been done, and it may also be related to the new technology being
employed. Furthermore, a project is multidisciplinary since it frequently includes
collaboration among several parties or individuals from many organizational lines within a
few organizations. Because the project necessitates the participation of many technical
professions and departments inside the company, it requires a diverse set of abilities and
competencies.

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2.0 APPLICATION/BAD PRACTICE OF MODERN PROJECT MANAGEMENT.

Sydney Opera House was a disastrous construction project due to its poor way of
project management. However, if we apply the modern project management skills and tools
such as PMBoK to the project in the past, it might have been taken a shorter time to
complete the project and within budget without comprising the quality. The process groups
and knowledge areas in the PMBoK can assist in the project management of the Sydney
Opera House because of its modern project management tool. Such as firstly initiation of the
project phase, by establishing the initiation team it helps and assist in carrying out the project
initiation activities, such as maybe finding a better site location for the project and this leads
to establishing the project initiation plan, which is to define the activities required to organize
the team while working to define the goals and scope of project. Besides that, establishing
management procedures is also crucial, as it concerned with the developing team
communication and reporting procedures, job assignments and roles, project change
procedure, and how the funding and billing will be handled. By properly managing all these,
it helps with the smoother running of the project, as all parties are aware of what to do at the
early stage/phase. Secondly with planning of the project, to describe the alternatives and
feasibility. It should be properly planned on the allocation of tasks and resources. With this
comes project human resource management, which if have planned properly, the roles and
responsibilities of each party would be clear, and they would hold a greater responsibility in
their work given rather than just blaming on other people or having communication problems
internally. By properly planning, the last-minute changes from two theatres to four would not
have been an issue too.

By properly planning also means to have project scope management knowledge, the
team should have properly mentioned the scope of works pre-construction stage to be done

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in the project to avoid any unnecessary changes such as the example above, where two
theatres were changed to four. Next would be the execution of the project, by executing the
baseline project plan and keep the project on schedule and assure quality of project
deliverables. This is an important process especially for the case of Sydney Opera House as
most the major problems be it financial or materials issues happens during construction
stage. The team should have proper communications and proper monitoring on the project
progress against the baseline project plan. The team should be able to manage the changes
to the baseline project plan with proper project management. In the case of the Sydney
Opera House, there wasn’t any close monitoring of the project progress, and it resulted in
the change of the roof. By properly monitoring the baseline project plan, the team would
have been prepared to apply and imply any methods or alternatives to any last-minute
changes and this would drastically reduce the time and any delays. In addition to this, it also
beneficial to have some knowledge in project risk management, as it 11 would help in
predicting any risk or changes in the future and how to handle them onset rather than solving
it after the problem had occur, as also because the Sydney Opera House is an almost
impossible task due to its unique design in the past. Unlike the Sydney Opera House,
successful projects emphasized not only the risk identified throughout the project lifecycle
but also were quantified, prioritized, and effect risk response were developed (Taylor, 2009).

Communication of the project status can be applied in the executing stage too, as it
tells the team about the financial status and time needed, this will either help in cutting cost
from other future elements if needed to stay within budget or hire more workers during that
stage to complete the works even faster. Which the knowledge area of project
communication management plays a big part. It is to ensure timely and appropriate planning,
collection, creation, distribution, storage, retrieval, management, control, monitoring, and the
ultimate disposition of project information. With proper cost and communication
management, Utzon and other parties such as the team and client would have better
communication and probably would result in him not being forced in resigning, and this
would result in Utzon still designing the Opera House instead of the three other engineers
and delays and cost would have dramatically been reduced. As because of the three other
engineering needed to redesign the rest of the Opera House with what has been done, it
costs them a huge amount and delay to the project, which supposedly to be completed
within 4 years and AUS $7 million. Proper project quality management knowledge is
important too as this would help in the planning of the materials or specifications needed for
the column to support the heavy roofing. The team should have planned on the specification
of the column before the construction from analysing and also enough proper research. By
having this area of knowledge, the team with enough research and analysis should have

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known that the current materials for the construction of column is insufficient to support the
roofing.

Not to forget, with all that has mentioned above, it adds on to also the knowledge
area of project time management, having to have proper time management from initiating to
executing, from making sure the right amount of resources is allocated and proper
preparation for any future risk would definitely help in reducing the delay in the case of
Sydney Opera House, from initially what has planned, 4 years to be done but ended up 14
years. Beside all of that, is to also imply the knowledge area of project stakeholder
management. The processes required to identify all people or organizations impacted by the
project, analysing stakeholder expectations and impact on the project, and developing
appropriate management strategies for effectively engaging stakeholders in project
decisions and execution. In the case of Sydney Opera House, one of the main problems was
also from the delay payments of the government which is also a stakeholder. By proper
engagement and strategies, the delay would probably been much lesser. Finally, the closing
phase of a project. Applying this process is to make sure that all project documentation
should be finalized so that the final review of the project can be conducted. By conducting
the post project review for Sydney Opera House, it makes sure that the same mistakes that
has happened in the project would not be repeated in other similar projects. It also let all
parties learn from their mistakes and improve from there on.

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3.0 RELATED INNOVATION IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT
3.1 Discussion and Framework Development

Based on this research findings and literature reviews, a framework for enhancing innovation
practices in the construction industry has been devised. The framework is intended to be an
effective management tool for supporting innovation in construction project management. It
gives the potential for the managers to enhance their project management process and
enables them to cope with change and development in external and internal environments.
To stimulate innovation in the construction project management, successful innovation
requires more than just putting creative people in a room and hoping they come up with
valuable new products or processes. So as shown in Fig. 1, the framework rests on a
foundation of five building blocks comprise four main levels for achieving innovation in
construction project management. These levels are explained below.

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 Fig 1: Conceptual Framework for Project Management Innovation

Level 1: Strategic Management

At the beginning, each organization, whatever its business, should focus on specific areas of
interest by making strategic management. Without a clear vision, mission and objectives,
organizations cannot survive in such turbulent environment, especially the construction
environment. Therefore, organizations need to have a clear vision that embraces innovation
besides defining the optimal desired future state to what an organization is focused on
achieving in five, ten, or more years.

Level 2: Internal Innovative Work Environment

After doing strategic management and before looking for enhancing the external
environment, top managers must provide an internal innovative work environment for all
individuals within the organization. Research has shown that enhancing construction
industry requires a good internal atmosphere and innovative culture to motivate staff to think
in creative ways and requires also open minded and supportive top management to create
the challenge and push people to think out of the box. Moreover, for continuous
improvement, organizations need to provide reward and recognition for creative work
besides offering the sufficient requirements and training for their employees.

Level 3: External Innovative Work Environment

To make tangible improvements and to be competitive in the market, where technology is

changing fast, and customers become more sophisticated; companies need to create
external innovative work environment. They need continually to cope with change and react
to the external forces of change, such as customers, competitors, suppliers, technology,
economic, social, environmental, and political variables.

Level 4: Effective Stakeholder Management and Project Management

To be successful, project management and stakeholder management must operate together.

Project managers must be able to manage both at the same time. Project management
equips project managers with the tools they need to manage the scope, time, cost, quality,
risk, and procurement of all interconnected tasks. It also includes a guide for integration
management, human resource management, and communications management, so you can
figure out the best way to finish your projects. Effective communication connects varied
cultural and organizational backgrounds, different degrees of knowledge, and multiple
viewpoints and interests in the project execution or conclusion, creating a bridge between
diverse stakeholders participating in a project.

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4.0 OBSERVATION
Every industry has its own set of rules, cultures, and markets that influence innovation.
Construction is a tremendously varied profession, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach
to innovation. Innovation means something different to a small, specialized subcontractor
than it does to a large worldwide construction company (Abbott, Ozorhon, Aouad, & Powell,
2010). Construction, engineering, design, surveying, consulting, and management are the
most common services provided by building and construction firms. As a result, the
organizational environment of building inventions is very different from that of many industry
advances (Slaughter, 1998). According to Slaughter (1998) divides the spectrum of
innovation into five forms in the building industry: incremental, modular, architectural,
system, and radical. A tiny modification based on current knowledge and experience is
referred to as incremental innovation. Modular innovation comprises a substantial shift in
idea inside a component while maintaining the component's connections to other
components and systems. Architectural innovation, on the other hand, entails a minor
change inside a component but a significant shift in the components' and systems'
interconnections.

Radical innovation is a completely new method that leads to significant changes in the
industry's nature. Due of the dangerous nature of the building sector, contractors mostly use
incremental and modular improvements. Like industrial innovation, the construction life cycle
begins with Opportunity Exploration, where market trends, client insights, technological
trends, data analytics, regulatory, and competition information all play a part in directing
projects or contractors to examine new technologies. If a new tool, technique, or technology
is found, we examine project needs to see whether the innovation is appropriate, useable,
and scalable, as well as conduct user experience testing to determine whether the project
team will be able to maintain utilizing the innovation.

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 Figure 2: Innovation in Construction Life Cycle - Contractor Corporate/Project-based Approach

During the Back End Design on the corporate or the project level aspects such as
usability, serviceability, robustness, and manufacturability and assembly are considered. In
Commercialization culture, change and leadership that are required for continued
operational excellence are applied. Daily Management and Project Engagement, training
and project team engagement should be highlighted in this phase, reporting and innovation
implementation progress monitoring is applied. Final phase is Improvement, lessons learned
from applying this innovation is evaluated and innovation evolvement is investigated.

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5.0 CONCLUSION

Conclusion In conclusion, if the basic principles of project management had been

followed, the Sydney Opera House would have cost substantially less and taken significantly
less time to construct than it did. Even though the Opera House is a landmark in Sydney and
a symbol of Australia, it was nonetheless seen as a project management failure in the
construction business. As a result, what makes a project successful is not only the value that
it adds afterward, but also having excellent project management from the beginning to the
end. Similarly, competent project management during construction does not guarantee
success, as the project may subsequently fail to deliver value owing to bad craftsmanship,
like the London Bridge did. As a result, a successful project must not only have effective
project management in terms of time, cost, and quality, but also create value and earn profit
at the end of the day. As a result of this research, it is apparent that using current project
management practices will reduce any unneeded incidents, such as those that happened at
the Sydney Opera House.

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 6.0 REFERENCES

1. Ahn, M. J., Zwikael, O., & Bednarek, R. (2010). Technological invention to product
innovation: A project management approach. International Journal of Project Management,
28(6), 559-568.

2. Geraldi, J. G., Turner, J. R., Maylor, H., Söderholm, A., Hobday, M., & Brady, T. (2008).
Innovation in project management: Voices of researchers. International Journal of Project
Management, 26(5), 586-589.

3. History Of Sydney Opera House Construction. (n.d.). Retrieved May 16, 2017, from
https://www.lawteacher.net/free-law-essays/contract-law/history-of-sydney-opera- house-
construction-contract-law-essay.php.

4. Project Management Body of Knowledge. (2017, May 19). Retrieved May 19, 2017, from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Management_Body_of_Knowledge.

5. The Sydney Opera House and Project Management. (2011, October 19). Retrieved May 15,
2017, from https://strategicppm.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/the-sydney- opera-house-and-
project-management/.

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