Project Management in New Urban Project

Can Tho City is one of the five central cities, a center of economics, politics, culture, education - training of the Mekong River delta. It is a young city in the process of urbanization to become a powerful modern industrial city in 2020. As reported by Can Tho Department of Construction new urban projects are being invested and constructed with a total area of 1700 ha.

Although the urbanization in Can Tho City is very important and developing quite quickly, the process of implementation of its new urban projects raises some serious problems to be taken into consideration. According to the recent report of Can Tho Department of Construction, new urban projects in Can Tho city are encountering problems such as:

1. Most projects were small in scope; the planning was not consistent and modern. There were many limitations in managing planning and projects.

2. There was not sufficient care and attention to quality control and costs management. The work of examination and inspection was not done strictly.

3. The investment for new urban areas faced many problems and risks such as: changes in policies from the government, shortage in financial resources, the ups and downs of the real-estate market, changes in material prices.

4. The safety management in construction was limited, which was not frequently checked to assure safety at work.

5. The progress of most new urban residential areas was especially all late in comparison to the original plan. Usually, each project was from 3 to 5 years longer than the plan.

Mr. Huynh Thanh Su made a case study Hung Phu New Urban Area Project in Can Tho City which objectives were to: (1) study the project management theories applicable in urban project development; (2) study the existing project management process of new urban development; and (3) analysis the effectiveness of the existing project management process in terms of project management functions, process and outcomes (i.e. cost, quality and schedule)

Conclusion

Industrialization has taken place very fast and strongly all over the world in general and in Vietnam in particular, and it will continue to happen even faster in the future. Constructions works, projects for urban development and new urban areas expand every day. These projects have played major role in improving people’s living environment. However, there has been inadequate attention on researching and applying theories and process of project management in new urban areas for each particular place at a specific time. Therefore, this research paper aims at studying theories in project management in developing cities and the process of managing new urban areas in Vietnam. From the analysis of the quality of project management (managing time, costs, quality and risks) in this case study; the following conclusions were drawn:

Objective 1: Studying theories on project management with the application on new urban projects.

This is done mainly through the study of all documents to accumulate knowledge and methods of project management that were studied previously. From this, main functions of project management and the process of project management in different stages are identified. From all of these, strengths, weaknesses and specific suggestions for real project management tasks are proposed.

Objective 2: Studying the management process for new urban areas in Vietnam.

New urban areas are developing very fast in big cities in Vietnam. The study on current legal documents, mechanism, local policies, the procedure and process of new urban management which have been applied into a specific project can help us find out strengths, weaknesses of the managing process for the management of new urban.

From this, it can be concluded that projects for new urban area development in Vietnam are rather complicated with regards to their investment procedure and process. Although project managing procedures in recent years have become clearer and stricter, in reality, however, its application seems to show many limitations that need to be improved.

3. Objective 3: Analyzing the effectiveness of project management process.

Through the analysis of some major tasks in project management e.g. time, costs, quality and risks, in Hung Phu new urban area, the following conclusions were drawn:

a) In terms of time management:

The whole time for the project was 8 years, which was much slower than the time set in the FS (3 years). Almost all items in the project were slower than in the planned timeframe. The main reason was identified, which was the delay in land clearance (about 7 years after the project initiated) and the uncertainty in financial resources for the implementation of the project. All of these show that there were many limitations in the work of planning and setting the timeframe for the project that needs to be improved.

b) In terms of costs management:

Although the investor implemented the costs management following the current regulations, the estimated costs for the whole project were not accurate due to the delay and the extension of time for the project (the total capital and costs). Therefore, there was a shortage of capital for construction and payment in the stage of execution.

c) In terms of quality management:

In general, project quality management has been implemented in accordance with all the current regulations. However, due to the fact that the examination for all conditions for starting the project (the land clearance must be finished before the project started) was not done well, as well as the poor work of checking the contractors’ ability, the duration of the whole project was much longer, which increased the costs of the whole project and also the product price and affected the quality of the whole project.

d) Risks management:

Although risks have been identified, analyzed, evaluated and plans to deal with them have been developed, the work of risks management for the whole project was not professional and effective.

However, in general, the whole project has gained certain success in financial aspects including: turnover, profit which increased many times in comparing with the expected amount in the FS and all other financial criteria were all positive. The project has successfully developed a new urban area that can meet the demands for housing and urban sustainable development in Can Tho City (social effects). To gain this success, the project management plays a very important role.

His thesis abstract is copied and posted.

Abstract

This thesis paper aims at studying theories in project management that have been studied previously with their application first of all in the management of new urban areas in Vietnam in general and in the case study, Hung Phu New urban area project in Can Tho City.

The thesis analyses the tasks of project management in Hung Phu Project with a focus on the management of time, costs, quality and risks in comparison with theories in project management, from which suggestions for better management tasks for new urban projects are proposed.

From the case study of Hung Phu project, it can be seen that the task of time management was not done properly and effectively due to the problems in land clearance. This, in turn, affected the costs, products prices and the general quality of the whole project.

The thesis proposes that a profound understanding of all legal documents related to the task of project management and to the specific project is of great importance. In addition, the management of time for the project can be seen as the key factor that brings effectiveness to the management of costs, quality and risks of each project. This requires that the work of land clearance should be paid more attention to as this is considered as the number one cause for any delays and lateness of a project.