Advantages of adopting project management approach for the planning and control of a hotel refurbishment project
The fundamental principle that the project manager must keep in mind at all times is that he is to control processes, not people; he needs to manage people, they control processes. Tools, processes, methods and techniques may be neat and helpful, but they are inanimate. Alienated, empty, and dehumanized people are not motivated to contribute. The proper approach for the project manager is to avoid becoming enamored with techniques and to use people, but rather to use techniques and love people (1999).
It is advantageous to select personnel who fit the team profile whenever possible and to optimize the synergy among the participants by matching complementary skills. Another consideration for the project manager to keep in mind in evaluating potential contributors is to select for attitude and to train for skills (1996). Proper follow-up of performance is required to ensure success for the project. The project manager is well advised to give freedom to the people to be themselves, but to deal with wrong selection decisions promptly to avoid additional negative side effects on other participants. It is also a good practice not to ignore exemplary nor bad behaviors; these provide opportunities for the project manager to illustrate what is desirable for the success of the project and what is to be avoided ( 1999).
Looking beyond the surface in people allows the project manager to find undeveloped potentials and by seeing them as they can be, not as they are, and believing in them tends to make people believe in themselves because people typically make an effort to perform according to expectations. Providing freedom to act within guidelines is empowerment that brings synergistic benefits to the project though diverse experiences and perspectives that may be useful benchmarking elements to provide opportunities for improvement (2001).
The use of integrated leadership/ differentiation strategy is difficult to implement particularly in the short-run. However, some hotels have been able to somewhat accomplish the strategy giving customers wide amenities and features at competitive price. Short- and medium-term problems are primarily caused by inability of supply to realize financial gains for immediate resolution of dynamic problems. As a result, there is a need for some hotels to focus retained earnings to strengthen its facilities management. Outsourcing maintenance and repairs is helpful and less costly than internalizing. However, the firm should have a skeleton team who is able to perform simple repairs like malfunctioning telephones or lavatory leakage.
Further benefits may also be derived from a participatory environment by ensuring that the contributors to the project are involved and encouraged in all phases of the project. Establishment and maintenance of such an atmosphere requires that all participants receive sufficient and timely communication about pertinent details concerning the project and the effects of their contribution. The project manager also needs to ensure that he needs to be recognized as being willing and able to eliminate barriers that impede progress or improvement within the scope of the project. This will encourage team members to be more innovative and to take certain calculated risks as long as the project manager does not inspire fear of punishment (1999).
The concept of customer focus can be applied to project management in the hotel industry to ensure that the project deliverables will meet the expectations of the intended recipients. It is one of the prime responsibilities of the project manager to ascertain that the customer needs – both those that are stated and those that are merely implied are known. Moreover, it is vital that these needs are accurately reflected in the project plans and the stated objectives. This information must be communicated to all participants to enable them to focus on the ultimate goal – customer satisfaction. This approach will avoid the “Techie syndrome” which is to become so enamored with any or all aspects of the project as to forget that the project outcomes are not an end in themselves but were meant to fulfill a certain need (1999).
Prioritization — based on the premise that you can’t have it all — is certainly a cornerstone of time-boxed scheduling. But schedules can also be accelerated by using brute force—doing more work in a fixed period of time than you normally would schedule. This can be achieved by carrying out work in parallel to as great an extent as possible. For example, a work crew that is charged with rehabilitating a meeting room in a hotel may be able to get the job done more quickly than normal by having carpet layers lay down carpet even as ceiling tile workers install the ceiling. The safest way to do the job would be to have the ceiling tile workers do their tasks first. Any detritus that falls to the ground can be swept up, and then the carpet layers can be brought in. However, if the project is operating with tight deadlines, having both crews work concurrently can save time (2002).
The example of rehabilitating a hotel room illustrates a feature of parallel development that project managers must keep in mind: parallel development can elevate levels of technical risk. In the hotel room example, the primary technical risk is that trash falling from the ceiling might soil the newly laid carpet. So why are we willing to incur risk? Because there may be another risk associated with slow delivery of a deliverable—a business risk: our contract might stipulate that if we deliver the room early, we win a ,000 bonus. If we deliver late, we lose the bonus. A quick trade-off analysis may show that the cleaning bill for a soiled carpet would not exceed 0, which means that in the worst-case scenario, we would gain ,500 by doing the work in parallel in order to deliver the hotel room early. In this specific instance, the argument favoring parallel development is compelling ( 2002).
There is another clever scheme called concurrent engineering and many people will gasp in wonder that any industry has not always being doing this. If you are not into concurrent engineering, you have a team of designers who sort out a complete design for your new car, bicycle or whatever down to the last nut and bolt before anything solid gets underway. I guess the building industry is one of the worst in this respect. The architect spends hours pouring over a hot drawing board or CAD system, designing your hotel down to the last hinge and bracket ( 1996).
Once the design is very nearly finished the quantity surveyor takes over and lists all the components in a book called a bill of quantities. This lists all the concrete, drainpipes and doorknobs in detail. This book gets sent out to building contractors who submit bids to build the hotel and the lowest price usually gets the job. Work then starts on site in a sea of mud, progresses through the foundations and concrete frame up to the roof. Then the internal work begins and at some point much later the door hinges get fitted (1996).
This is also referred to as the ‘over the wall’ mentality. One group of people is paid to perform some function and to achieve some objectives. The design team is paid to design and their objective is to deliver a complete design package for the new product. Another group is paid to build and test prototypes. They get the design, moan like mad about those stupid designers who couldn’t design their way out of a paper bag, those designers who appear to know nothing about the practical nature of building things and who will be last in line for bread when the revolution comes ( 1996).
The project manager uses control measures so as to make sure that the project follows the right directions, which (2003) refers to as “the triangle of objectives.” Due to unavoidable circumstances, the project manager may be forced or simply choose to deviate from the project’s planned parameters. However, the adjustment of one aspect will usually affect one or all of the remaining dimensions.
(1995) state that carefully planned renovation enables the hotel to achieve effectively its objectives and vice versa. However, there are four main elements in the planning phase including team, budget, timing, and marketing.
Once the renovation decision is taken, a team for the project must be selected. However, most of the authors recommend that the assembling of the team should be an early priority in any renovation to create a plan that will enhance the marketability of the product ( 1991; 1994). Along the same line, (1994) take the view that the external parties (such as interior designer, architect, and contractors) should be involved in the planning phase to provide their collective expertise in accomplishing budgets, schedules, phasing, and contingencies. The management should hire experts in accomplishing hotel renovation to minimise risks ( 1993).
Funding the renovation programme is considered one of the most important and critical elements in the renovation or refurbishment process. Hence, an honest and realistic budget should not be overlooked. (1994) advise hoteliers to be aware of additional costs that cannot be seen and may occur in the near future. To encourage broader renovation programmes, some hotel chains (such as Ramada and Days Inn) help owners, in different ways, in undertaking renovation. According to the International Society of Hospitality Consultants (ISHC) (1995) survey, each limited service hotel should allocate about 4 per cent of its gross revenue for renovation while about 7 per cent needs to be spent on renovation in the full service hotels to stay competitive.
(1993) considers that it is important to plan around occupancy periods and to try to accomplish as much as possible during the slow times. Also, Sullivan (1994) states that recognising when to renovate is just as important as the renovation itself. (1994) pose some questions that need to be answered in order to decide to stay open or close during renovation. Similarly, there are virtues and drawbacks of the same decision. It is the responsibility of the renovation team to compile a clear written brief for the project that includes the budget, schedules, and so on (1991).
Whatever the refurbishment type in the hotel, marketing has an important role to inform the public (e.g. customers, travel agents, meeting planners and corporate travel managers) about it. Experts suggest that renovation should be marketed ahead of time through publicity, promotion or special events (2002).
The project should be evaluated from time to time during the development process as well as after finishing the programme to see how the actual situation is when compared with the expected plans. This evaluation should be based on subjective criteria (e.g. feedback from all key user groups such as customers, staff, and corporate management) (1991) and on objective criteria (e.g. revenues and occupancy rate) ( 1994).
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