Excerpt
Table of Contents
Abstract
Table of Contents
List of Figures
1. What is a project what kind of different types and structures exist?
2. Representation of the airport Berlin-Brandenburg
2.1 How was the BER airport project initially planned?
2.2 How does the current project status look like?
3. Best practice approach for construction projects
4. Deviations from the best-practice approach and failures of the BER project
5. Conclusion and Summary
Reference List
Abstract
The underlying paper was written with the purpose of understanding the reasons for project failure. Project failure in terms of project delays, cost increases and quality losses. In order to get a better understanding of the general failure reasons, the paper covers a real-time example of project failure. The chosen project is the construction project of the international airport Berlin Brandenburg (BER). The first chapter covers general aspects and characteristics of a project. Afterwards, the initial BER project plan and the current development state of the airport is explained. In the next chapter, the paper shows up a best-practice approach of how to successfully execute a construction project and how to meet arranged deliverables in a certain quality within the defined time and budget guidelines. Based on this knowledge, the following chapter deals with the actions that led to project failure of the BER project and shows up the deviations from the best- practice approach. It was concluded that several factors lead to project failure and that communication plays a significant role for project success.
List of Figures
Figure 1: Project types (Kuster et al., 2011, p. 6)
Figure 2: General project Management Process, own creation
Figure 3: History of the BER airport, own creation
Figure 4: Delays in the opening of Berlin’s new airport (DW, 2016)
Figure 5: Best-practice project process for construction projects, own creation
Figure 6: Project teams that communicate more effectively have more successful projects (PMI,2013) .
Figure 7: PESO MODEL for project communication (Immerschitt, 2017, p. 63)
1. What is a project what kind of different types and structures exist?
In order to show up the reasons for the project failure of the airport Berlin Brandenburg "Willy Brandt" (in the following BER), one first need to understand what a project is and in which category the paper's underlying project can be categorized into. A project can be described by the following characteristics. A project is a unique set of tasks, that have a specific target or defined deliverables that should be reached within a predefmed timeframe. For this set of tasks, there will further be a predefined project budget and certain people will be assigned to lead the project or be part of it at any given time of the project life cycle. (Drews et al., 2014, p. 19). Projects can be executed in all different kinds of industries, within a company or externally and can have a small, medium or big project scope.However, there are plenty of different possibilities to categorize and characterize projects. Therefore, the underlying paper will cover only one form of project categorization. The reason for the need of project categorization lies in the fact that it will allow the project lead to better structure the project, define the project organization and determine required resources. The following categorization may be applied.
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Figure 1: Project types (Kuster et al., 2011, p. 6)
On the X-Axis, it can be distinguished between closed goals, that are known and have a limited solution range and open goals, that have many possible solutions and approaches. On the Y-Axis, a distinction is done between low social complexity, where there are little possible occurring problems between team members and high complexity, where there are many different and politically sensitive interests. Derived from the axis, 4 different project types occur. Standard projects are based on a broad experience base and thus can be executed in a standardized manner. (replacing old office equipment). Acceptance projects have clear task descriptions; standardized methods can be used up to a certain degree. These are related to acceptance problems, therefore communication and information play an important role (e.g. road building). Within potential projects, one can find not clearly defined goals, less risks and a simple project organization (e.g. an initial study on certain themes). Pioneer projects are innovative, have a high-risk potential and the project scope is difficult to measure (e.g. merge of two companies). The named project types are not permanently belonging into one category and can shift with time. The usual project progress would start with a potential project that becomes a pioneer project and then develops into an acceptance or even standard project. (Kuster et al., 2011, p. 5-7). The BER project can be categorized as an acceptance project as there is already some basic knowledge about airport construction available, but can only be used up to a certain degree.
A usual project has five main phases as indicated in the figure below. The first phase consists of the Initiation, where the project objectives are captured, a high-level planning of the schedule, scope and resources takes place and where one identifies the main stakeholders and their interests. Afterwards, the planning phase covers the development of a project management plan, that includes the following topics: scope – explaining the clearly defined project objectives and deliverables; schedule specific milestones to be reached – also called Gantt chart; a budget plan; a work breakdown structure for all involved team members; a communication plan for an internal and external communication; a risk management plan that should include all foreseeable risks, a quality plan that sets standards and control metrics for the deliverables and a change procedure plan to clarify the procedure if changes need to be made regarding the current project steps. The third phase, called “execution phase” starts with a Kick-off meeting and includes the actual execution of the previous defined tasks. Further, this phase is characterized by regular status updates between the team member and a regular communication flow towards the stakeholders. The next phase “monitoring and control” is executed parallel to the third phase. Here, the project team need to ensure that the Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) that were defined in phase two are met in time and on budget. “Project Closure” builds the last phase. In this last phase, the team goes through a “lessons learned” meeting, reviews and closes the communication lines with the customer and external stakeholders and releases resources for the next projects. (McBride, 2016, p.12-87).The best-practice project approach for construction projects will be presented in chapter 3.
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Figure 2: General project Management Process, own creation
2. Representation of the airport Berlin-Brandenburg
2.1 How was the BER airport project initially planned?
As the underlying paper shall outline the failure reasons of the BER project, the project itself will be presented with the help of the defined project characteristics in the previous chapter. The following figure will help to get a better overview of the airport's history.
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Figure 3: History of the BER airport, own creation
The first characteristic to mention is the project target. Back in the 1990's Berlin's three airports (Tempelhof, SchOn.efeld and Tegel) were showing that they were not prepared for an upcoming huge increase in air traffic. As a consequence, the frrst construction plans were made in 1990 after the German reunification with the initial purpose to replace the existing two airports Tempelhof and Tegel and to build an even bigger one with a planned capacity of 27 million passengers per year. It was planned that the capacity could be extended to up to 43 million passengers per year over the years. One year later, in May 1991, the Berlin Brandenburg Flughafen Holding GmbH (BBF) was founded. It is the owner and future operator of the airport Berlin-Brandenburg building and currently operating both Tegel Airport and Berlin Schönefeld Airport. The states Berlin and Brandenburg own 37% each of BBF and the remaining 26% are owned by the Federal Republic of Germany. (Berlin-airport, 2018).
In May 1996, the decision regarding the location of the new airport was made. It was decided that the airport should be built next to the already existing airport in Schönefeld, which would lead to an area as big as almost 2,000 football fields. Due to financial difficulties, the project was stopped for the first time in 2002 by Klaus Wowereit- the governing mayor of Berlin at this time and by Matthias Platzek- the former minister president of Brandenburg. Complaints from citizen’s initiatives led to a further delay in construction start. However, the opponents of the construction project failed and the official construction start can be backdated to March 2006. The construction start was only possible with the adherence to intensified noise protection requirements. In fall 2008, the airport Tempelhof was shut down as planned. The first opening date for BER airport was set for October 2011. However, as one of the planning companies went bankrupt, the safety regulations became more stringent and the airport opening date was postponed until June 2012. When the German air-traffic control (Deutsche Flugsicherung) published first possible flight routes in 2010, the residents demonstrated and were claiming against the construction approval. Regardless of the complaints, the Federal Administrative Court decided that the suggested flights are approved. Additionally, the German air-traffic control published further flight routes in 2012 which led to even more disapproval and bad media reputation as the popular excursion destination “Müggelsee” was affected by the suggested flight routes. The second planned opening date for June 2012 was postponed as well due to huge difficulties with fire protection regulations. As indicated in the following figure, the planned airport opening date was postponed several times over the years. The exact reasons for the postponements will be named and explained in chapter 4 in detail.
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Figure 4:Delays in the opening of Berlin's new airport (DW, 2016)
Referring to another project characteristic, the project budget was initially calculated with 2 billion euros for the whole construction project. Due to several conflicts and law suits about the fact if the construction should be executed by one or more private construction companies or by a public owned one, BBF, the owner of the airport announced several times different construction companies to take over the construction plans. Further, the management board of the airport was replaced multiple times as well.In spring 2017, the last change that was made for the position of the airport manager.This position is currently hold by Engelbert Liipke Daldrup, the former state secretary for airport politics in Berlin.(ZDF, 2017).
2.2 How does the current project status look like?
The following chapter explains the current project status, challenges and forecasts.InDecember 2017, the last planned opening date was set for October 2020. However, in May 2018 it was published that the approval by TOv Rheinland was negative and that a lot of work steps would still be too far behind the planned schedule like the cable works, which lay 11 months behind. Further postponements have a probability of occurrence of over 50%.Based on the report by TOv Rheinland, there currently exist 1.415 defects thereof863 are significant defects.That's why the announced opening date in 2020 is questionable, but as for 2018 there are no other current relevant information regarding the opening date existent. (Settnik, 2018). According to the official BER airport website, a last update on the construction work was provided in June 2017. Based on this update, the construction for the passenger terminal is completed at 89%. The technical commissioning with facilities that are subject to inspection obligations is only at 47% completeness as indicated by the last update. Further, the rehabilitation of the cable runs is at a 99% and elimination of deficiencies at 95%. The completeness of further operational systems accounted only 21%. (Berlin-airport, 2017). According to a confidential report the construction sites with the biggest risk are currently the sprinkler system, the fire alarm systems with 30.000 smoke detectors, cable routing and the smoke exhaust control that Siemens plans to have installed by winter 2018. (Pleul, 2018).
Another relevant theme at the moment is the contract extension of the current airport chef, Engelbert Lüpke Daldrup. His contract is likely to end in March 2020 and therefore over half a year before the panned opening date. Both parties, the airport owners and Mr. Daldrup are interested in his extension and would not prefer another persona change at the top until the airport opening. (Metzner, 2018).
Through the fear of a further postponement and an explosion of costs, politics is thinking about a plan B. Plan B would contain an airport opening as planned but with a maximum of 15 million passengers per year. This would lead to a lower utilization of emergency exits and fire control steps and therefore allow the technical fire protection equipment could perform at a lower and adequate level. With the lower passenger capacity, the airport would correspond to the building permit from 2007. The remaining passengers 10 million passengers would be handled in separate mobile and temporary buildings and would be then transported with a shuttle-bus to the planes. (Fahrun, 2018). At a meeting of the coalition commission in June 2018, Berlin’s current government coalition decided against a plan B. Following the suggestion of the left party, the coalition agreed to examine the time planning by external experts as the statement of the opening in 2020 is only a question of faith. (Pleul, 2018).
Another relevant topic of the meeting was the cost aspect. Looking at the cost side, it can be said that the initial plan of a total of 2 billion euros was not met as well. Through bad planning, postponements, construction defects and an extension of the initial construction plans the costs account for over 7 billion euros in 2018. (Spiegel Online, 2018). The meeting outcome was that no further money from the Berlin household will be spend for the BER airport. It was decided that the BBF should rethink their financing plan and think about ways to get their own finance resources.(Pleul, 2018).
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