Project Management Assignment: Parametric Estimation of GERD Dam

Question

Task: You are supposed to prepare a project management assignment answering the following questions:

1- Identify the complexity characteristics in the GERD dam.
2- Re-evaluate these weights depending on the GERD dam case. You may assign new weights based on the GERD case.
3- Sum up the similar characteristics within the relevant complexity type and plot a radar diagram based on your new evaluation.
6- Since the GERD is a complex project, explain how this complexity can affect the cost and the time estimate in the GERD case. For this task you need to provide specific example about how you may use the parametric/ empirical CRE to define this. Note it is a general thing not a real estimate

Answer

Project Management Assignment Question 1: Complexity Characteristics
Multiple Stakeholders: Africa’s biggest dam building project covering the benefits for around 20,000 people in Eethiopia. It includes Sovereign, federal government, national government, state government, and others. Thus, besides 20,000 people, the project will have to consider the impact of the project on these stakeholders too. When it comes to large number of stakeholders or stakeholders group, the project becomes more complicated.

Ambiguity of Project Features, Resource Phases, etc: The building reservoir, binding rivers, and other resources consideration including human labour and the machines makes the project more complex (El-Nashar & Elyamany, 2018). The conventional water resources limitation in Egypt are limited, including the water resources infrastructure.

Significant Political/authority influences: Authorities are in support for the development however, agreement and certification required from all the sector (Elyamany, 2017).The project will also hamper the neighbouring countries impacting on the Unknown Project features, resources, phases, etc: Most of the features are already there in the project plan however, the demographic and soil conditions make it a genuine concern for the project members.

Dynamic Project Governance: Different executives and managers are handling the project at different hierarchical levels however, large number of executives are required for governing the entire project (International Rivers, 2014).

Significant External influences: External influences like climatic conditions, budget sanction, government regulations, human labour act, and others can have possible impact on the project.

Technological application: Construction tools are being used in addition to the modelling tools and technologies those can support the project development. New Technology application: Neither traditional technologies nor very new technologies are being used for the construction of the dam nor hence, the complexity of the project is worth considerable. Significant internal personal or social influences: These factors are higher as compared to that of other projects due to the involvement of large number of stakeholders. Highly regulated environment: Less complexity contribution as the construction is being done considering the climatic conditions and evaluating surroundings. Project duration exceeds the cycle of relevant technologies: Not much complexity contribution.

Question 2:

Question 3: Radar Diagram

Question 6: Parametric Estimation
The causes of the cost overrun in the case of the Kinoni 1 Dam Construction Project

• Lack of coordination and planning or less importance given to the planning
• Lack in the control of the excessive changes those occurred due to the complexity of the project
• Regular changes in the drawings and the plan
• The contractors were not appropriate or experienced
• Handing over the possession of their respective work was not with the terms of the contract
• The estimation of the cost was not done properly (Nyandi, 2017)
• Accepted risks lead to serious damages or losses
• Additional or supplementary agreement
• Shortage of the client and problems with funding delayed the contractors’ agreements
• Executive bureaucracy in the client’s organization

The complexity of this project is not similar to the case study selected or the primary data collected however, the properties of both the projects are same. The complexities identified using the above tools for the GERD case suggests there could be possibility of the high increment in the cost. The factors mentioned contributed in the certain increment of the budget of project (Shabanzadeh-Khoshrody et al., 2016). Considering the parametric estimation structure, it can be observed that the project size is one of the biggest construction work. While calibrating the actual cost of the project considering its complexity, ‘estimated cost’ of the project can be estimated. Organization and environment is more complex as compared to the selected case study, and thus, deflection in the timeline is the accepted risk here (Zhang et al., 2019). However, more deflection could cause severe timeline deflection and thus, hampering the project budget. The tolerance of 15% for the cost is worth considering in this case.

Considering the complexity of the project, it can be observed that timeline of the project will be deflected. Meeting and managing the needs of the end consumers and the authorities can be a complex matter for the project manager or the other executives of the project. The different phases of the project includes, design construction, monitoring, and closing those could be deflected from its original path (Kondolf et al., 2018). Taking the approach of redesigning or regularly accepting the changes can have greater impact on the project cost. ?

References
Question 1:
El-Nashar, W. Y., & Elyamany, A. H. (2018). Managing risks of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on Egypt. Ain Shams Engineering Journal, 9(4), 2383-2388.

Elyamany, A. H. M. M. (2017). Managing risks of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on Egypt. Elsevier.

International Rivers. (2014). The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Fact Sheet.

Question 2:
Gebreyohannes, S., Bogale, T. E., Edmonson, Wb., & Worku, L. Y. (2016, December). Systems engineering education for east africa. In International Conference on Complex Systems Design & Management (pp. 203-214). Springer, Cham.

Question 3:
Mohamed, M. M., & Elmahdy, S. I. (2017). Remote sensing of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: a hazard and environmental impacts assessment. Geomatics, Natural Hazards and Risk, 8(2), 1225-1240. Elkhidir, A. M., Aboalbasher, A. H., Eltayeb, A. A., & Bakhit, O. G. (2018, December). A Mathematical Model for Water Inflow Forecasting at GERD Before and After the Construction of Karadobi Dam. In Conference Proceedings Civil Engineering 2018.

Question 6:
Nyandwi, E. (2017). Understanding wetlands reclamation and soil-transmitted helminths and schistosomiasis incidence patterns in Rwanda (2001-2012). University of Twente Faculty of Geo-Information and Earth Observation (ITC).

Shabanzadeh-Khoshrody, M., Azadi, H., Khajooeipour, A., & Nabavi-Pelesaraei, A. (2016). Analytical investigation of the effects of dam construction on the productivity and efficiency of farmers. Journal of cleaner production, 135, 549-557.

Zhang, L., Gelet, R., Marot, D., Smith, M., & Konrad, J. M. (2019). A Method for Estimating Suffusion Susceptibility of a Compacted Dam Core from Construction Data. Risk Evaluation and Climate Change Adaptation of Civil Engineering Infrastructures and Buildings: Project RI?ADAPTCLIM, 105-145.

Kondolf, G. M., Schmitt, R. J., Carling, P., Darby, S., Arias, M., Bizzi, S., ... & Oeurng, C. (2018). Changing sediment budget of the Mekong: Cumulative threats and management strategies for a large river basin. Science of the total environment, 625, 114-134.