Principles and Strategies of Euro Disney Project - Case Study Example

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Project management is a field that is meant to bring together skills from different levels of knowhow to achieve full completion of a certain project. Euro Disney project was formally concluded in the year 1992 only for the stakeholders to realize afterwards that it was a total failure. The project had used a lot of resources in form of the resources and money that was utilized to develop the project. The downfall of the project resulted from the mistakes that were done during the construction of the project. The stakeholders did not consider the cultural values of the project before they initiated the project. They did not consider the economic status of the people surrounding the environment so there was a bad choice of location and climatic conditions. The project failed completely to a level that the resources spent on the project could not be compensated by the project. INTRODUCTION Project management is a field that has existed for some time but the level of knowledge in the industry keeps on changing with the advancement of technology. Many projects that achieve the best project management skills tend to be completed successfully and in time. Organizations that are were considered successful in the past some of them are non existence today because of the changes project management has evolved in the recent past (Harold Kenzer, 2004). Project management has changed abruptly and one requires having a clear objective to the project before the project begins to be implemented. This requires project managers to have clear measures and that’s why project has shifted from can we do the project rather than have we been able to implement the project successfully and has the project achieved the objectives that it was meant to achieve. Euro Disney project was a failure from the beginning and it is because the implementation requirements were not achieved and addressed in the initiation stage. A standard report on the project was published and it covered three categories: Project success or resolution type 1 which implied that the project was concluded effectively and it is operational. Project challenges or resolution type 2 which stated that the project was fully operational but the time and money spent on the project exceeded the one that was initially set for the project. Project impairment or resolution type 3 which stated that was withdrawn at some point in the development cycle (The Standish Group, 1995) However the Euro Disney project continued but faced major setbacks after it was completed. Euro Disney project was initiated in the year 1989 and ran up to the tear 1994 and it seemed a total failure, but the management kept changing the approach of the project. Lack of proper project management skills and proper decision making made the project almost not to be realized in the year 1994 (Gren R .White April 8, 2008). Lack of proper research on both management and cultural values of the communities surrounding the project was not conducted in an appropriate way. The project came after Disney was able to launch three successful projects in California, Florida and Tokyo but after the three parks they decide to set another one in Europe which turned sour. The top management of the of the Disney projects ventured in the few locations like united kingdom, Germany, Italy and France where it arouse that weather and market conditions would affect the project. The top management narrowed down to France since it has the same climatic conditions with Japan. Factors that were considered by Disney project managers were: i. The vast population in Paris. ii. They had the assumption that the project would work well in other regions. THE PROJECT STAKEHOLDERS Project stakeholders can be defined as the people who have influence in the project and contribute to successful completion of the project. Stakeholders range from the people who implement the project to the users who benefit from the project. They may be members of the organization or non members. The Euro Disney project stakeholders were the following. Euro Disney project was funded solely by Euro star their main role was to head the project, provide financial assistance to the project and conduct research on the feasibility study of the project. The stakeholder involved higher management (executive), the management team and the low level workers who did the real work on the project. The executive was to oversee the project by providing finances, conducting research and also advising the management team how the project should be done. The executive had the responsibility of making sure that the project runs within the stipulated timeframe and within budget The management team had the responsibility of making sure that the project runs within the stipulated timeframe and within budget. The low level workers were mandated to do the real construction of the [ark to completion and they received orders from the management team. PROJECT MANAGEMENT OF THE EURO DISNEY PROJECT: A project manager is the overall person who heads the project from the initiation stage up to the last stage the implementation and closing of the project stages. He is responsible for all the undertakings of the project and gives guidance to the project team on where the project seems to fail but he should consult the stakeholders on any changes made to the project. Project management is the aspect of coordinating the activities in a project making sure every step that was documented is adhered to. It is a field that involves planning, organizing, accounting and managing the resources used in a project. The project manager makes sure that the project runs on the allocated budget and within the given time frame. The management of the Euro Disney project was a total failure because of the following reasons. The project risk management that involves identification and defining the extent of a risk in a project was not in a proper way. The risk management process should be iterative, implying that the steps that are to be performed from planning to monitor should have a feedback from the monitoring stage compared versus planned progress to the handling and analysis steps (Harold Kerzner, 2004, page 336-337). The project management and stakeholders made a lot of assumptions after the success of the other three parks. Euro Disney lacked good project management and implementation measures and it had signs of collapse from initial beginning of the project. The implementation issues of the project were not addressed. The project also faced financial problems as the project was large and the land they had acquired the management decided to resell it at a higher price to offset the losses they had occurred. The other problem that faced Euro Disney project is the management of the project. The project manger of this project was not familiar with the French culture as he had lived in France for a very short time. This made them a major setback because for one to head a project in a certain area should have a good knowledge about the project surroundings. If the manger was familiar with the surrounding there would be no room for failure. During the implementation stage there were a lot of changes that happened to the project. A change control system was introduced to help minimize the rising cost of the project. The management ignored the use of change control system. They did not realize that change is acceptable and if it is uncontrolled the whole project may be compromised (Coley Consulting, 2007). CONCLUSION The Euro Disney project would not have been a failure if there was a good project manager who understood the surrounding environment of the project. This would have aided the project as he could have looked at the site of the project understand it and make the project a success. However this was not the case as the project manger did not have a clear understanding of the project thus he could not deliver the project successfully. The risk assessment of the project was not conducted in a good way. This would have been better if the management carried out a comprehensive risk analysis of the project they rather made assumptions based on the three successful complete parks and thought that Euro Disney project would be the same. Risk identification and monitoring of a project is a continual activity throughout the life cycle of a project (Heldman, 2007). The Euro Disney projects managers did not have a clear and proper assessment of the project and did not often check and monitor the risks that could arise. The major research that the managers would have done is what the people in the surrounding likes and whether they would be interested in such a project. The European market differs so much from the American market so a comprehensive study should have been done during the imitation of the project. Assumptions was one of the worst mistakes that the project mangers did without having in mind what they like is not what others like. The perception that people have about a certain product may have an adverse effect on the product and can lead to its extinction completely. All calculations assumed Europe as a general mass of people rather than individual countries (Zimmer). The following would have been done to make the project a success. The name should have been changed and resemble the surrounding environment. The name was not appealing to the French. The French had the mentality that the park was not owned by Europeans but felt greatly owned by Americans (Shan, 2005). The change of the name would make the people change the perceptions towards the park. It would have been appropriate for the stakeholders of the project to hire a local project manager rather than having a manager who is not familiar with France and its cultural values. The manager would provide a clear understanding of the surrounding of the project and would have been able to influence the community that the project was local. This would have marketed the park. The park offered expensive compared to other hotels surrounding the area. The hotels surrounding the park offered fair prices thus competition was high so many people opted to visit cheaper hotels. One of the changes they would have made was to lower prices thus encourage more visitors. The Euro Disney managers did not realize how hard it is to change the behavior of customer spending habits. The desire of Euro Disney to capture market to capture overseas market suffered a major setback due to lack of thorough research rather they used assumptions. If the Euro Disney would have followed the above mentioned methods the project would be a great success. BIBLIOGRAPHY Gwen R. White (April 8, 2008) Coley Consulting. (2007). why projects fail. http://www.coleyconsulting.co.uk/failure.htm Burgoyne,L. (1995). Case study –Euro Disney: it’s a limited success http://www.sikhnet.com/discussins.nsf Harold Kenzer, P. (2004). Advanced project management: Best practices on implementation. Hoboken: John Wiley & sons, Inc Zimmer. P. (n.d.). Why Euro Disney failed. http://www,patrickzimmer.co.uk/why_eurodisney_failed.htm Read More