Project Management, The Building Of The Three Gorges Dam

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Recommended: Evaluation of budget planning as an effective tool in construction cost control

1. Introduction

The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River will probably be finished by 2009 and will be the largest hydroelectric dam in the world.

Being the present manager and being appointed by the government at the feasibility stage I am asked to write a report in order to outline the activities required to successfully manage this major project and to ensure that it is completed on time and within budget.

This report will be divided into six parts beginning with an introduction and ending with a conclusion.

At first should the terminology be defined. A project is "a unique set of coordinated activities, with a definite start and finishing point, undertaken by an individual or organisation to meet specific objectives within defined, scheduled costs and performance parameters" (BS 6079-1,200:2, Material of Sunderland 2005, page 5). The individual who undertakes the organisa-tion is usually the project manager. This person plays a special role and is supported by his team.

The project manager leads the project and provides vision, direction and encouragement. The project manager takes lead in project planning to determine the schedule and budgets neces-sary to meet the project objectives and is responsible for delivering the project once the pro-ject has been approved by senior management. The project manager is also responsible for the project support team.

The skills a project manager should have are defined by Richman as people skills, project management skills and technical skills. In the case of such a large project such as the building of the TGD the project manager also needs to have integration skills and great knowledge of the organisation.

All skills mentioned above will be further described within the follo...

... middle of paper ...

...oard and the support teams, need to collaborate and not only think about their personal gain in order to achieve the goal of completing the project in time.

Bibliography

Book

Field, M. & Keller, L. (1998). Project Management. London: The Open University.

Other

University of Sunderland. (2005). Contemporary Developments Distance Learning Pack: Management of Projects. Sunderland: University of Sunderland.

Microsoft. (1999). Encarta Encyclopedia 99. The Three Gorges Dam.

Internet

1. Wikipedia. (2006) Three Gorges Dam. [Internet]. Wikipedia The Three Encyclopedia. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam [10. November 2005].

2. http://www.irn.org/programs/threeg/resettle.html

3. http://civcal.media.hku.hk/threegorges/introduction/default.htm

4. http://www.germannatcom-icold.de/info/index.cgi/page/tgp_exkursion

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