Introduction

‘Death marches’ are common features that characterise projects with circumstances

necessary for the successful completion of the project are greatly compromised and therefore

posing high possibilities for failure. Ranging from funding to management, the issues

responsible for death marches in project management need to be seriously considered before

any project is commenced if chances of failure are to be reduced. The cost for failure can be

immense depending on the level of compromise of the issues. Experienced management and

appropriate application are of project management principles some of the reasons that can

avert or lessen the risk of failure of the projects.

The USA Government committed to constructing a sewerage system in Iraq in the

aftermath of the war that ravaged most of its infrastructure including water and sewage

system. The project that was scheduled to take three years and be completed in 2006 ended

being a fiasco, adding to a series of failures that the USA faced. Initially budgeted to cost

$32.5-million, the project in Fallouja, Iraq cost the Government almost triple the amount to

almost $ 100 million besides being delayed. The audit report discovered communication

barriers that led to the failure of the project. Being a project that was managed by high profile

officials of the countries, bureaucracy and long chains of communication made supervision a

challenge. Thus management and progress of the project were compromised in the process.

According to Pritchard (2004), communication is the most important and powerful tool that a

manager can use to assess and determine the success rate of the project. Constant

communication in a free and coherent fashion can help identify loopholes early enough and

the solution be rendered before the whole project tumbles down.

Inexperience in management by overseers of the Fallouja project in Iraq were from

USA and had little conceptualised the whole issue of management and terrain in the country.

The project had o redesigned in twice, meaning more cost was committed for each

redesigning assignment. Individuals assigned the duties had no experience in designing

similar projects in the area and that was the reason design had to be redrawn. Gido and

Clements (2009) advise that a contractor needs to present experience of prior successful

completion of similar projects before awarding the contract. There was also an element of

little agreement between the stakeholders on the terms and conditions of the project for the

parties involved to be bound to the terms and conditions of the contract while at the same

time focussing on the deliverables on successful completion of the project (Gido & Clements,

2009). The charter failed to outline all the essential elements that ought to have been noted

for the both stakeholders, i.e. the contractor and US government. The charter also failed to

outline full responsibilities of all the stakeholders. When the USA Government required

residents to contribute US $ 10000 to cater for the stretched budget, an article that was not

identified in the article initially, it emerges that poor planning and poor identification of

responsible parties or stakeholders were not identified in the project. The charter should have

been specific enough in terms of deliverables, functions and responsibilities of the

stakeholders and the scope prior to commencement of the project (Rad & Anantatmula,

2010). With all these failures, the project ran a high risk of failure like was witnessed in the

audit report.

Another project that failed on almost similar grounds is The Secure Border Initiative

Project in the USA between the Government and SBInet. The project was supposed to

supplement to the existing 600 miles f physical border fence by adding a 2000 mile security

wall. Of these, only 53 miles was constructed at a cost of US $ 1 billion in four years. Key

principles in management of projects were also overlooked by the parties involved. The key

stakeholders in the project were the Department of Home Security with SBInet and Boeing as

the main contractors. In the report by GAO (2010), key failures are noted that refer to the

scope, poor monitoring and management of the issues were identified responsible for the

failed project.

Management issues emerged after GAO discovered that DHS did not adequately

monitor the progress and what was expected to be achieved by the contractors. This is

important to ensure what was planned for and documented in the charter is actually what is in

the progress of achievement by the contractor. Both stakeholders ought to have understood

the quality of deliverables. It was the duty of the contract manager or the break down the

activities into deliverables, distribute and delegate them, follow up on the progress and

review them after designated periods (Means & Adams, 2005). DHS had the duty of

following up the project manager to ensure individual activities were delivered as agreed.

Failure of this resulted in realising important aspects of the project had not been achieved

when it was too late.

The scope of the project were also not agreed upon and adhered to strictly. For

example, whereas it was envisaged that strategic geographic locations would be equipped

with operational equipment, the exact operationalisation and exact points were not specified

and thus they diminished with time. The scope changes also affected the type of project from

being a cost-plus-award-fee to cost-plus-fixed-fee. The contactor did not define what was to

be achieved when and where and quality of the technology deployments at surveillance

locations. This left the team to work in a haphazard manner, low success rate of deployed

system, delays and increased cost to the financier. Poor documentation in the charter and

expectation from both parties led to failure of the Secure Border Initiative Project.

Conclusion

Most of the projects that fail have common weaknesses in them that are not difficult

to identify should any audit be carried out. The two separate cases present classic and typical

weaknesses in management, setting up a clear and succinct charter, identification of

stakeholders and key deliverables in the progress and at final completion of the project.

Failure to appreciate all key principles have led to widespread project failures as evidenced in

the two projects that were considered ‘death marches’.

Reference List

Pritchard, C L (2004). The Project management communications toolkit. Norwood: Artech

House

Gido, J. & Clements, J. P. (2009). Successful project management. New York: Cengage

Learning.

Rad, P. F. & Anantatmula, V. S. (2010). Successful Project management practises. Bingley:

Emarald Group Publishing.

Mean, J & Adams, A. (2005). Facilitating the project lifecycle: Skills and tools to

facilitators, and six sigma project teams, New York: John Wiley and Sons.

GAO (2010). Report to Congressional Requesters: Secure Border Initiative, retrieved 5

September 2011, from http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d116.pdf