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1. SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN
Bachelors of Quantity Surveying (Hons)
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Name : Melvin Lim Wei Jien
Student ID : 0315772
Topic : Modern Project Management to Sydney Opera House
Lecturer : Mr. Leong Boon Tik

2. Table of Content
1.0 Introduction…………………………………….………………………………….……2
2.0 Define Project…………………………………………………………………….……..3
3.0 Project Management
3.1 Initiating………………………………………………………………………...4
3.2 Planning…………………………………………………………………….......4
3.3 Executing…………………………………………………………………….....5
3.4 Monitoring and Control…………………………………………………...……5
3.5 Closing………………………………………………………………….............5
4.0 Modern Project Management
4.1 Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK)……………………….....6-7
5.0 Analysing Sydney Opera House…………………………………………………….....7-9
6.0 Application of Modern Project Management to Sydney Opera House………………..9-12
7.0 Conclusion……………….…………………………………………………………….13
8.0 References……………………………………………………………………………...14

3. 2
1.0 Introduction
The Sydney Opera House is actually recognized as one of the best-known iconic
buildings in the world, it is also known as a global representation or symbol of Australia. It is
a masterpiece of late modern architecture and a multi venue performing arts centre in Sydney.
The Dutch architect, Jorn Utzon, designed persay a seemingly challenging piece of urban
sculpture as we can see from the shell-shaped structure roof on the building. It was initially
designed for a competition in Sydney, however he was announced as the winner and was then
contracted to construct the project. The construction started at 1959 and ended 14 years later,
1973 (Christina, 2012).
However, the Sydney Opera House is actually considered one of the most disastrous
construction projects in history. It was originally supposed to be within a budget of AUS $7
million, but ended in AUS $102 million which is a very large difference. Not only from
financial point of view but also the time management, it was scheduled to 4 years for
completion but it took the team 14 years to finish the construction. All these problems leads to
and was cause by the whole bad project management plan during that time of the team. So in
the following segments of study, we will further look into how modern project management
tools and skills compared to traditional project management can help in the complete Sydney
Opera House in achieving the goals on time, cost and quality.

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2.0 Definition of Project
A project can basically be defined as a single, definable purpose, product or result
which usually specified in terms of cost, schedule, and performance requirement. A project is
also unique, it is a doing of something different and was not done previously. Even some similar
or so called “routine” projects such as residential home, still has its uniqueness, due to the
variables such as the access, zoning laws and terrain. A project is a one-time, once-off activity
which can never be repeated exactly the same way.
A project is also a temporary activity, it consists of organization of staff, materials,
equipment, and facilities that is put together to achieve or accomplish a specific goal, and the
goal is usually within a certain time frame. The organization will then be disbanded after the
goal is achieved, therefore it is temporary. Projects also involves unfamiliarity because it differs
of what has previously been done and it may be also due to the new technology that is being
used.
In addition, a project is also multidisciplinary because most of the time in involves
collaboration between many parties or professionals from different organizational lines within
few firms. Due to the fact that, project needs to draw skills and talents of multiple technical
professions and departments within the firm.

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3.0 Project Management
Project Management Institute, Inc. (PMI) defines project management as the
application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to the project activities to meet project
requirements. Project Management basically consists of five different type process groups
being work together to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria. It includes
initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and control, and closing.
3.1 Initiating
Firstly it involves initiating, which is processes performed to define a new project or a
new phase of an existing project by obtaining authorization to start the project. It includes
analysing business requirements, reviewing of the current operations, financial analysis of the
cost and budget, stakeholder analysis, SWOT analysis which is strengths, weakness,
opportunities and threats to the business.
3.2 Planning
Planning is processes required to establish the scope of the project, refine objectives,
and define the course of action required to undertake the project. Main purpose is to plan the
time, cost, and resources adequately to estimate the work needed to effectively manage risk
during execution of project. It generally consists of selecting planning team, estimate the time
and cost of the activity, developing schedule and budget, risk planning, developing scope
statement, identifying roles and responsibilities.

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3.3 Executing
It is the execution phase to ensure the project management plans’ deliverables are
executed accordingly or to complete the work defined in the project management plan to satisfy
the project specifications. It usually involves proper allocation, co-ordination, and management
of human resources or any type of resources such as material and budgeting.
3.4 Monitoring and Controlling
Defined as the processes required to track, review, and regulate the progress and
performance of the project. It is also to identify any areas in which changes to the plan are
required and initiate the corresponding changes accordingly. Usually involves processes such
as monitoring the variables against the project management plan, measuring ongoing project
activities, also identifying corrective actions and methods to tie in with the changes made in
the project.
3.5 Closing
Closing consists of two phase which is project closure, a process performed to finalize
all activities across the process groups to formally close the project or phase. Secondly, contract
closure which involves the settlement and closing of each contract applicable to the project.
Post-project reviews is included also not only to assess the performance but to also capture
lessons learned from the project.

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4.0 Modern Project Management
Modern project management has evolved from traditional approaches that the past used
to adopt. Traditional project management is an organized system of processes and techniques
which helps and assist the standard workflow of a project. Due to this, mostly outcomes are
predictable and foreseeable. Traditional project management usually deal with long term
projects with standardized procedures to observe, or anything with such implications.
However on the other hand, modern project management is a customizable and flexible
approach to the modern needs. Unlike the traditional approach, modern project management
usually refers and involves short term projects with unique specifications and results (Moore,
2016).
In modern projects, it is inevitable that a variety of uncontrollable factors can change a
plan or course of the project almost immediately. This makes things complicated for modern
project managers, thus applying modern project management to projects is beneficial as it is
the flexibility and customization widely implemented, and involves specialized resources and
processes, that even the team members should have right skills to adapt to varying changes in
plans and scope within the project onset (Moore, 2016).
4.1 Project Management Body of Knowledge
One of the modern project management that is commonly used in the construction
industry nowadays is the Project Management Body of Knowledge Guide, (PMBoK Guide). It
is a set of standard terminology and guidelines to provide project professionals with the
fundamentals practices needed to achieve organizational results and excellence in the practice
or project management.

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The PMBoK Guide also overlaps general management which includes, planning,
organising, staffing, executing and controlling the operations of an organization. Besides that,
other management disciplines which overlaps includes financial forecasting, organisational
behaviour, management science, budgeting and other related planning methods.
The primary purpose of the PMBoK Guide is to identify and describe the subset
PMBoK that is generally accepted, meaning the knowledge and practices described are
applicable to most projects most of the time, and that there is a widespread of agreement about
the value and usefulness. It does not mean knowledge and practices described should be applied
uniformly on all projects, the project management team should be able and responsible to see
what is applicable and determining the appropriate ways for any given project.
The PMBoK Guide consists of the five process groups and the interactions as
mentioned earlier and also the breakdown of ten types of project management knowledge areas
that is helpful in the application of project management in modern projects.
5.0 Analysing Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House involves such a well-established team of architects, engineers
and constructors. It was thought that the construction of the opera house would be a successful
job running from start to finish. Nobody could have predicted what could have happened. This
ironically turned out to be the major problem during the construction, the inability to forecast
future problems. Construction should have been monitored with records kept in order to foresee
problems, but this was not the case.
There were three main important factors when it comes to any project goals and
objectives, which is cost, time and quality. By relooking into the pre-construction period of the
Sydney Opera House, it is clear that quality was more important to the team because there were

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no indications regarding the time and cost limitations, thus, the architect is able to design
however with total freedom and this resulted in the overlook of the cost and time.
In addition, according to the history, Utzon collaborated with Ove Arup, who was in
charge of the structures and engineering and also other sub-contractors involved in mechanical,
electrical, lighting, ventilations and acoustics. Due to this, there was no real project manager,
but rather a collaboration between Utzon and Ove Arup. The lack and absenteeism of a project
manager was a huge problem and a mistake as well.
There were three stages when it comes to the construction of Sydney Opera House,
Stage one was the podium, stage two was the exterior or outer shells such as roofing and stage
three was the interior design. It came to know that apparently Utzon protested that he was not
completed with the designs for the structure, but the government insisted to commence the
construction. Also, the client had changed the requirements of the design after the construction
was officially started by moving two theatres to four, so plans and designs had to be modified
during construction stage.
Stage two became the most controversial stage of the entire construction, which is the
outer shell, the roofing. After the completion of the grand podium which had an eighty six
meter wide stair, the roof had to be reworked. The sails that were used for roofing were made
from pre-cast concrete sections accompanied by glazed tiles. The roof shells were however too
heavy for the supporting columns that had been used for construction so roofing shells were
demolished and rebuilt.
As costs were rising a new government stepped in and monitored all payments being
requested by the Opera House. By the end of stage one, Utzon submitted an updated estimate
of the projects total cost as AUS $12.5 million. As more payments were being delivered and
no visible progress was seen, the government began withholding payments to Utzon. Stage two
slowed down and in 1966, and Utzon felt he was forced to resign from the project as his creative
freedom was restricted, and therefore could not bring his perfect idea to realisation.

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From the resignation of Utzon, the project was then taken over by three other Australian
engineers, and stage two was completed in 1967 with a total cost of AUS $13.2 million. Utzon
did not leave any designs or sketches to work with as he was convinced that he would be called
back to the project once the new team failed. This was not so, and due to the lack of designs to
work with, new ones had to be created based on the current structure of the Opera House and
many unforeseen complications were found. Evidently and eventually, this caused a huge
increase in the estimate of the total cost of the project, which came to about a total of AUS $85
million (Christina, 2012).
In conclusion, the pre-construction process to the construction stage of the Sydney
Opera House shows the lack of a proper goal on the accomplishment of the construction. The
government changed the supposed structure of the opera house midway into construction thus
making loopholes in the planning and execution processes. It seemed like the only aim was to
finish the construction without any clear cut lines on how exactly things were to be done, and
this lack of preparation from all parties backfired with the overrun costs and time, partially also
due to the delay payments of the government. There was no plan, only aspiration.
6.0 Application of Modern PM to Sydney Opera House
As discussed earlier, Sydney Opera House was a disastrous construction project due to
its poor way of project management. However, if we apply the modern project management
skills and tools such as PMBoK to the project in the past, it might have been taken a shorter
time to complete the project and also within budget without comprising the quality.
The process groups and knowledge areas in the PMBoK is able to assist in the project
management of the Sydney Opera House because of its modern project management tool. Such
as firstly initiation of the project phase, by establishing the initiation team it helps and assist in
carrying out the project initiation activities, such as maybe finding a better site location for the
project and this leads to establishing the project initiation plan, which is to define the activities

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required to organize the team while working to define the goals and scope of project. Besides
that, establishing management procedures is also crucial, as it concerned with the developing
team communication and reporting procedures, job assignments and roles, project change
procedure, and how the funding and billing will be handled. By properly managing all these, it
helps with the smoother running of the project, as all parties are aware of what to do at the early
stage/phase.
Secondly with planning of the project, to describe the alternatives and feasibility. It
should be properly planned on the allocation of tasks and resources. With this comes project
human resource management, which if have planned properly, the roles and responsibilities of
each parties would be clear and they would hold a greater responsibility in their work given
rather than just blaming on other people, or having communication problems internally. By
properly planning, the last minute changes from two theatres to four would not have been an
issue too. By properly planning also means to have project scope management knowledge, the
team should have properly mentioned the scope of works pre-construction stage to be done in
the project to avoid any unnecessary changes such as the example above, where two theatres
was changed to four.
Next would be the execution of the project, by executing the baseline project plan and
keep the project on schedule and assure quality of project deliverables. This is an important
process especially for the case of Sydney Opera House as most the major problems be it
financial or materials issues happens during construction stage. The team should have proper
communications and proper monitoring on the project progress against the baseline project
plan. The team should be able to manage the changes to the baseline project plan with proper
project management.
In the case of the Sydney Opera House, there wasn’t any close monitoring of the project
progress, and it resulted in the change of the roof. By properly monitoring the baseline project
plan, the team would have been prepared to apply and imply any methods or alternatives to any
last minute changes and this would drastically reduce the time and any delays. In addition to
this, it also beneficial to have some knowledge in the area of project risk management, as it

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would help in predicting any risk or changes in the future and how to handle them onset rather
than solving it after the problem had occur, as also because the Sydney Opera House is an
almost impossible task due to its unique design in the past. Unlike the Sydney Opera House,
successful projects emphasized not only the risk identified throughout the project lifecycle but
also were quantified, prioritized, and effect risk response were developed (Taylor, 2009).
Communication of the project status can be applied in the executing stage too, as it tells
the team about the financial status and time needed, this will either help in cutting cost from
other future elements if needed to stay within budget or hire more workers during that stage to
complete the works even faster. Which the knowledge area of project communication
management plays a big part. It is to ensure timely and appropriate planning, collection,
creation, distribution, storage, retrieval, management, control, monitoring, and the ultimate
disposition of project information.
With proper cost and communication management, Utzon and other parties such as the
team and client would have better communication and probably would result in him not being
forced in resigning, and this would result in Utzon still designing the Opera House instead of
the three other engineers and delays and cost would have dramatically been reduced. As
because of the three other engineering needed to redesign the rest of the Opera House with
what has been done, it costs them a huge amount and delay to the project, which supposingly
to be completed within 4 years and AUS $7 million.
Proper project quality management knowledge is important too as this would help in
the planning of the materials or specifications needed for the column to support the heavy
roofing. The team should have planned on the specification of the column before the
construction from analysing and also enough proper research. By having this area of
knowledge, the team with enough research and analysis should have known that the current
materials for the construction of column is insufficient to support the roofing.

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Not to forget, with all that has mentioned above, it adds on to also the knowledge area
of project time management, having to have proper time management from initiating to
executing, from making sure the right amount of resources is allocated and proper preparation
for any future risk would definitely help in reducing the delay in the case of Sydney Opera
House, from initially what has planned, 4 years to be done but ended up 14 years.
Beside all of that, is to also imply the knowledge area of project stakeholder
management. The processes required to identify all people or organizations impacted by the
project, analysing stakeholder expectations and impact on the project, and developing
appropriate management strategies for effectively engaging stakeholders in project decisions
and execution. In the case of Sydney Opera House, one of the main problem was also from the
delay payments of the government which is also a stakeholder. By proper engagement and
strategies, the delay would probably been much lesser.
Last but not least the closing phase of a project. Applying this process is to make sure
that all project documentation should be finalized so that the final review of the project can be
conducted. By conducting the post project review for Sydney Opera House, it makes sure that
the same mistakes that has happened in the project would not be repeated in other similar
projects. It also let all parties learn from their mistakes and improve from there on.

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7.0 Conclusion
In conclusion, the Sydney Opera House would have cost far much less than it ultimately
did and would have taken a shorter time to complete had the basic principles of project
management been followed. Although the Opera House is an iconic building in Sydney and a
symbol of Australia, it was still considered a failure in project management circles from the
construction industry point of view. Thus, what makes a project successful is not only from
what value that comes with it after but also to have proper project management throughout the
initiating stage to closing stage. Same goes vice versa, good project management during
construction does not mean it is successful, as later on the project might not give value probably
due to poor workmanship such as the London Bridge.
So a successful project not only have to have good project management in accordance
to time, cost and quality but also needs to make sure it adds value and generate profit at the end
of the day. From this study, it is clear that having to imply modern project management would
minimize any unnecessary events such as the events that has occurred in Sydney Opera House.

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8.0 References
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opera-house-and-project-management/
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