When Flood make Blood!

When Flood make Blood!

The importance of project management could not be limited to the private organizations to make more profit and be more prosperous. Project management is a common part of our everyday life. However, it could be obvious and more important in the public and government sector.

We learned that the project management go through critical phases: planning, scheduling, and controlling. Throughout each phase, there are many critical success factors CSF that should be viable in order to make the project objectives in place.

Whether, its private or public project I can see the following CSFs are a must

1. Top-down commitment.
2. Having time to plan.
3. Careful tracking and control.
4. Having a capable project manager, and
5. Good communications.

But we should not ignore the danger of the ethical decisions the project manager facing on a daily basis. I did not realize that most of governmental projects went through the project life cycle, or followed the basic level of the project management standards. I did not realize that they have any kind of project CSF or pure of ethical decisions.

I found an interesting article “Sewage scandal story can ‘shake Saudi’ http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/sewage-scandal-story-can-shake-saudi#full  that prove and show how governmental project can lead to crisis. In his article, Mr. Wael Mahdi showed that the mismanagement of the sewage project system in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia was the main reason behind wiped out thousands of homes in Jeddah and killed at least 123 people in Jeddah floods in 2011.

Because of the delay in the project, the government lost hundreds of millions of Saudi riyals. The article as many others showed that there were abuse for the public money from the project manager who took the money allotted for the project and built himself palace in San Francisco and Jeddah equipped with a disco and a bowling alley. An Incomplete flood water drainage
and sewage system was the main cause for the disaster, arrest of more than 40 municipality officials and contractors.  The
following link is one video of many that showed the suffering of Jeddah’s people during the bad time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=D4GGQUcvHhQ&feature=endscreen

Last Wednesday, Two men have been jailed in one of the first convictions in a Saudi Arabian corruption crackdown started after deadly floods hit Jeddah in 2009 and 2011. “The defendants are convicted of the crime of bribery. Each will be jailed for five years, starting from their detention date, and will be fined $186,000,” http://www.constructionweekonline.com/article-17126-two-jailed-over-jeddah-floods-corruption/.

I can see that the lack for top-down commitment and lack of communication in addition to ethical decision in this critical project were the main reasons behind this catastrophe. Would you believe in the importance of CSF and ethical issues in project success?

 

5 thoughts on “When Flood make Blood!

  1. It’s unfortunate that so many people had to pay with their lives because of a lack of ethics, from the project manager. It is discouraging when focusing on local or federal government programs/project managers throughout the world. One only really needs to look at their local government, with an attention to detail, to see an example. Here in Chicago, an easy example of ethical corruption, where it effected the city, was the former president of Cook County, Todd Stroger. Stroger hired his cousin as Chief Financial Officer of Cook County. Although, there are a lot of ethical hurdles at CSF provides a blueprint for success, for project managers.

  2. Very interesting article I must say. The private and public sector of project and operations management is very important. A great example is the 2008 meltdown when the U.S housing market went crashing. If the politicians and economists saw and predicted the outcomes of so many mortgages then maybe today our country could have been in a better state financially and the unemployment rates could be lower. This also show how banking, which is a private sector also had a huge impact on the economy. When Lehman brothers when crashing they lost over 600 billion dollars. That will affect people of this country. Good article.

  3. This is a great example of the ethical implications involved in project management. In many projects, decision making may have limited consequences, but there are some decisions that could lead to fatal outcomes. It can be very easy for an individual, particularly one in a position of power, to let himself/herself get wrapped up on greed and personal advancement. It is very important to consider all potential outcomes when directing a project. As this article and the other comments pointed out, unethical decision making can lead to terrible consequences. If a project manager is under the pressures of trying to stay within a given budget, they may improperly choose to take shortcuts with structural engineering or safety protocols.

  4. Having just touched on the various ethical implications project management can have on the final outcome of a business plan, I think this is a fascinating real world example where the moral indicators of one decision had a tremendous impact on a large population. This is why it is so critical to not only have progression check points, as we discussed in class, but also to be able to reevaluate outcomes and be thorough on every step of the process. It can not only affect a few employees on a small scale but, as demonstrated in this article, it can also affect an entire population not only as a minor safety hazard but also fatally.

  5. This is similar to the class activity this past week “Sky’s the Limit.” Even though we only had twenty minutes to plan, I believe that if the entire group first thought it out we could have certainly gotten a better outcome and even potentially win the challenge. Ethics is certainly important. Without critical thinking it sets a risk on the project. As stated above, the CSF’s relay how the project’s outcome and decide whether it will succeed or fail. With the articles given in the blog post, it clearly shows the importance of ethical issues being addressed in a project to prevent tragedies.

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