Table of Contents
This chapter[1] analyses ‘big,’ ‘iconic’ or ‘mega’ projects and their impact on effective project management and also on the effective allocation of funds for priority infrastructure. It is argued that part of the problem of Australia’s perceived present infrastructure shortfall is not just the lack of spending on infrastructure as many suggest. Rather, it is as much about the misallocation of spending on ‘big’ and so called ‘iconic’ or prestige projects that too often become expensive ‘white elephants’ requiring considerable post-completion maintenance and support and further wasting valuable resources that could be used elsewhere. Such projects, because of their status, size, and complexity too often disrupt effective project management practices in their original scoping, assessment and implementation and fail to have clear purposes or functions.
This is not a project management or even an infrastructure problem confined to Australia. Concerns about misallocation of funding of big, mega or iconic infrastructure type projects have been observed elsewhere. Flyvbjerg (2003: 3, 9) in his overview of ‘megaprojects’ around the world noted:
At the same time as many more and much larger infrastructure projects are being proposed and built around the world, it is becoming clear that many such projects have strikingly poor performance records in terms of economy, environment and public support. Cost overruns and lower than predicted revenues frequently place project viability at risk and redefine projects that were initially promoted as effective vehicles to economic growth as possible obstacles to such growth ... Megaprojects are becoming highly public and intensely politicised ventures ...
Indeed, despite all the techniques now available in project management what is striking, as the Economist (2005) recently lamented, was the large proportion of major projects across both the public and private sectors that failed to deliver on time and within budget. The problems that the Australian based firm, Multiplex is having with the Wembley Stadium project in the United Kingdom is a further recent example of poor project management (Australian Broadcasting Corporation 2006a).