Creeping

By this June, the school’s new auditorium should be open. This would be great, expect that I was supposed to be completed five years ago.   

It began as the grand dream of a former Parent Teacher Association’s (PTA) president. He recognized the need for a place where all the students could assemble at one time unaffected by the pelting sun or the rain. The building fund raising started off with great enthusiasm and there was talk of having graduation in the new building “next year”, which was 2010. The PTA president planned a series of concerts, barbecues, fish fries and other fund raising activities confident that if a certain amount were to be raised, the Ministry of Education (MOE) would chip in with the rest. It was a pity that no one thought to share this information with the MOE.

So, back to reality. A parent, who is also a contractor, strongly encouraged the building team to come up with a solid plan of exactly what this new auditorium should look like, what function it should serve and where on the compound it should be built. At last, an actual scope emerged where an estimate was done based on an actual building plan drawn, and a ground breaking ceremony took place. At this point there was still no substantial building money.

Then the creeping began. This school had a fairly good soccer team and considered that, if they had the practice area, they could have a good basketball team as well. And so the plan, and the required resources, changed. But the school also had a great performing arts record. Their dance and choral groups routinely won national medals. Wouldn’t it be great if these groups had a “home” in the new auditorium? Shouldn’t it be a state-of-the-art performing centre as well? Creep, creep, creep.

Then the PTA president’s daughter graduated from the school and he could no longer therefore be president. The new president had other priorities and so the gaping, zinc-fenced hole remained untouched for a few years until the new principal decided to take matters into his own hands and spearhead the project. He simplified the design and re-instituted the original, less expensive and more practical building plan which was eventually approved by the relevant authorities.

As an interested onlooker who had friends at the school I was never really involved in the project except as a supporter of the various fund raising events. If I had been the project manager I would have first investigated the steps involved in building on the MOE lands. There are specific guidelines involved in any project that involves the ministry and a key stakeholder, the permanent secretary or at minimum the education officer in charge of the school would have been consulted to get a clear picture of the MOE’s role and expected resources. These resources would also include the MOE’s building officer who would have to be an integral member of the project team. I would have to effectively manage well-meaning persons with great ideas of what the building should be by treating them courteously but sticking to the MOE’s budget, unless they have the cash up-front to accommodate any building changes. It is very difficult to predict fund raising gains, therefore in project scheduling I would not have planned a ground breaking ceremony and the resulting wasted resources to re-dig and maintain a prolonged security barrier to prevent unauthorized access before confirming what exactly was to be built and where the resources would come from.

Time, money and other resources are wasted when no one controls project changes.