Investigating Reasons for Underestimated Costs and Time in Public Works Projects

Project Report from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 75%, , language: English, abstract: The debate about whether project costs or time often exceed forecasts has been framed as a research topic and investigated in different scales, methods and locations. The study of Flyvbjerg et al (2002) suggest that project sponsors are lying with their original estimates to ensure funding for their projects. However, other project management theories, such as Turner’s Five Core Functions, the MacLeamy curve and the McKinsey 7S framework, suggest that there are possibilities that cost and time exceed forecasts when other factors surround a project are not managed properly. Therefore, this report is going to, first, review the aforementioned theories; second, compare and contrast the theories with a public sector project, the NHS National Programme for IT; and third, measure the extent to which the project can be explained by theories. The finding of this report shows that there are a variety of pitfalls associated with a project that could lead to costs and time exceeding forecasts, but strategic misrepresentation might be one of the reasons as well.