(see Figure 1). In this case, this included
parallel working and pre-emptive
designs, which exacerbated the positive feedback loops of work-arounds,
rework, and subsequent disruptions
and delays. In this way, initiating risks,
which are manageable in themselves
(such as the effects of the London fire
referred to earlier), create causal loops
that have effects much greater than
expected.
3. Individuals within the Parties
The construction of the Scottish Parliament infamously resulted in a cost ten
times higher than the original (
underestimated) budget. At the public enquiry
in 2004, the project manager was reported
as stating that there had been 15,000
design changes to the building (British
Broadcasting Corporation [BBC], 2004).
Each individual change would have had
little effect on the project; on the other
hand, the effect of a deluge of tempo-
rally overlapping design changes caused
considerable problems. These were both
engineering problems and designers’
reactions to multiple changes, with their
work sometimes becoming futile. It is
interesting to reflect on whether “lack
of governance within the client” (which
was perhaps what allowed the users to
specify changes continuously) would or
should have been a risk identified at
the start of the project, let alone its true
impact. (Further, even if a client had
been aware of the changes, would he or
she have been aware of the effects of the
changes on the project?)
4. Inter-Personal Relationships
between the Project Parties
Some of the risks themselves can be
interpersonal rather than technical; thus
the character of the project manager, for
example, can cause problems in agreeing
on designs, changes, and client accep-
tance. The need for trust between cli-
ent and contractor (Kadefors, 2004) and
within an alliance (Krishnan, Martin, &
Noorderhaven, 2006) and the effect of
lack of trust on the performance of the
project are well-known. A difficult char-
acter, or troubled interpersonal relation-
ships, can produce delays and the need
for additional work, which dishearten
the team, disrupt the project, and set
up vicious circles of delay and disrup-
tion. Indeed, some would say that trust
between the contractor and owner is
one of the most important contribu-
tors to project success, yet trust rarely
appears on a risk register. Eden, Acker-
mann, and Williams (2005) present an
example of a paper mill project, in which
there were “endless” talking and meet-
ings, slowing the rate of production and
a customer who insisted on unnecessary
benchmarking and changing documents
late in the process, and so on.
5. Contracts between the
Project Parties
Risks can result from different interpretations of contracts between the
customer and contractor. Eden et al.
(2005) present an example of a rolling-stock project, in which the passenger
doors were not sufficiently watertight
to satisfy the customer, because under
extreme test conditions there was a
small amount of water ingress. The contractor argued that no train had ever met
these criteria, and it was clear that the
contract was ambiguous on the performance specification. This led to many
tests, studies by independent experts in
the field, and a final solution, but this
caused many designs to be revisited and
changed, which created ripple effects
and schedule delays. Again, there was a
small initiating risk, but there were also
major ramifications.
6. Culture within the Project Parties
In cases in which the industrial sector has moved from the public sector
to the private sector, it can be said that
contractual relationships have changed
to reflect the new environment, yet culture and working practices have not.
Where a public-sector client is used to
1 State-of-the-art
technology
2 Immaturity of the
design
3 Acceptance criteria
not well-defined
4 Client's inspection
team unreasonably
demanding
5 Multiple
inspection failures
6 Disagreements
7 Re-work
8 Disheartened
engineers 9 Lower productivity
10 More errors
Figure 2: Combinations of risks and the resulting human reactions.
