Evaluation of project scope planning in the engineering megaproject management process for transport sector projects

Evaluation of project scope planning in the engineering megaproject management process for transport sector projects

Despite rapid growth of mega-projects, they still suffer from failure in a range of critical management areas, including significant cost and time overrun. A major reason for this failure is a lack of good planning and management of the project scope, which was the focus of the research discussed in this thesis. An extensive literature review confirmed that the process of planning and managing project scope management in transport mega-projects was not well executed. As a result, these projects suffered from significant problems of escalation in the cost and time of their execution. Qualitative approach methods, case study strategy, and interviews with higher management members were subsequently specifically designed and applied for the collection of data that would achieve the objectives and aims of this research. The key findings of the study were that a number of factors affected the accuracy of the project scope planning process for Australian transport mega-projects, especially misdefinition of the project scope, unclarity of the sponsor requirements, poor business case, poor design process, deficiencies in the planning process, assumptions, lack of expertise staff, and insufficient scope document. The main implication of the study's findings was that a lack in the project scope planning process was the major factor that impacted cost and time overruns, scope change, deficiencies in the cost and time estimates, execution risks, and conflicts among project stakeholders. Thus, there is a need to improve these processes in order to avoid or mitigate similar pitfalls in the future. So, the main aim of the research study was to design and develop an improved framework for the project scope planning management process and recommend it for the future. Therefore, the findings of this study provided the basis for developing a new process for transport mega-project scope planning.

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