Evaluating the huge project British Airways London Eye

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Executive Summary        

Purpose— The purpose of this report is to learn British Airways London Eye’s successful experiences on managing such a huge and complicated  project. Learning that could help people to improve the performance when they manage the similar projects in the future.

Metholody— Secondary research has been used in this report. The majority of information is collected from journal articles, academic books , libraries, and websites, etc.

Findings—The main success is that by using the scientific project management strategies, the LE project duration was successfully crashed. Besides that , the author find that the usefullness of this subject Project Management (TBS935) to the Project Manager.

Structure— The “LE” project management would be analysed mainly in the following aspects: Firstly, project initiation strategy, which includes the project selection, project manager, conflicts management and organization structure. Secondly, project implementation,which includes budgeting, cost estimations, scheduling, resource allocation, monitoring, information system and project controlling. Thirdly, is project termination strategy. In addition, at the end of the report, there will give a findings and conclusion about the project management of LE strategies .

        

Table of Contents

1. Project Background _        1

2. Project Initiation Strategy        2

2.1ProjectSelection ……………………………………………….2

2.2 Project Manager        3

2.3ConflictsManagement…………………………………………4

2.4OrganizationStructure………………………………………5.

5.Findings……………………………………………………………16

Reference List        19

1. Project Background

The British Airways LE, also known as the millinuim, which was designed by David Marks and Julia Barfield, the husband and wife team of architects, is one of the tallest structures in London (2008). In addition, it is also the world’s largest observation wheel with a diameter of 135 metres(450feets) and 1600 tonnes, which carried 32 capsules of up to 25 people on a half-hour continuous ride above London (2009).

London's spectacular new observation wheel, the British Airways LE, was built on the banks of the river Thames in just 16 months. It was "launched" on December 31, 1999 and opened to public in March 2000 (Wang, & Mann, 2003, p.10)

The objective of LE was constructed to cellebtate the new Millennium. It had become the most popular tourist attraction in London, visited by over three million people in the first year after its opening. Because it was extremely popular from beginning until now, the plans had changed from the original opening for only five years into permanent part of the London skyline (2009) .

Constructing the Merlin Entertainments LE was a massive challenge. Not only because it is the tallest observation wheel in the world, but also it is a innovation and revolutionary design which combined the best of British design, architecture and engineering with an exceptional team of experts. As the data showed: more than 1,700 people in five different countries (the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, France, and Italy) worked in this project ((Wang, & Mann, 2003, p.10). The wheel was an outcome of the united efforts of the project team comprising of Mace Ltd, Tussauds Group, Marks Barfield (the original conceiver of LE) and other specialists from different European nations making this dream into reality.

  1. Project Initiation Strategy

“Project Initiation begins with the judious selection of the organization’s projects to align them with the organization’s overall strategy” (Meredith & Mantel , 2009, p.35). The progress of project initiation is important to the whole project developing. The author will give futher discuss about the project initiation strategy as following:

2.1 Project selection

“Project selection is the process of evaluating proposed projects or groups of projects, and then choosing to implement some set of themes so that the objectives of the parent organiation will be achieved” (Meredith & Mantel Jr, 2009, p.40).

Learning from the secondary research, the LE was a “political project”, its original concept of the Wheel was an ideal symbol for London in the Millennium - representing the turning of the century. In other words, the LE was established to cellebtate the new Millennium. Moreover, the Prime Minister Tony Blair would officially open the Millennium Wheel on Dec. 31, 1999 (2007).

Based on the above objectives, the LE had followed the criterias related to the project selection and chose the optimal project proposal. First of all, it adopted the “Sacred Cow” model (Meredith & Mantel Jr, 2009, p.45). In this case, the project was suggested by the powerful official in the organization. The initial plan and the time were “sacred” by the British government. Lower-managers must follow this decision. Simultaneous, the competitive necessity model was used in the process of LE project selection (Meredith & Mantel Jr, 2009, p.45). It had brought great economic benefits because of the tourism. From official opening on March 2000, the wheel received a total of over 25 million visitors, according to 13.5 pounds to calculate fares, it had earned more than 300 million pounds. In addition to that, it had brought great honor for BA and Mace. The Project had won more than 75 awards since its first opening and remains a symbol of Mace’s commitment to innovation on high profile projects.

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In conclusion, the results proved that the operators of BA made a right decision to selecte LE project.

2.2 Project Manager

The next step is to find a good manager when the project is selected,. The functions of Project Manager is like a mini CEO, and the manager must clearly understand whether the project is suitable for the parent organization. Project managers must own some skills, such as: strong technical background, communication skills, good relationship with senior executives and so on (Meredith & Mantel Jr, 2009, p.108).

In this case, the company Mace was in charge of the LE ...

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