After a compulsory absence from this blog for about two weeks; I am back. I was in China for a business trip and as surprising as might sounds, all social networking sites are censored out in China. No blogs, no Facebook, no Twitter, and no Youtube.
Anyway, leave all this for other posts; I am planning to write about this trip and about what we can learn from China. In the matter of fact, I was planning to start blogging about China right away, but I changed my mind after seeing what is happening in my beloved city; Jeddah. Although I got a glimpse of the news, I did not expect the situation to be that bad … that devastating!
If anybody wishes to write a management book about project management failures, he will find plenty of examples in this aged bride of the red sea; Jeddah. Project management failures, this is my only explanation to what happened in Jeddah this past week.
Millions and millions of riyals have been spent on projects that promised state of the art infrastructure to the long time forgotten city and guess what; those projects could not stand four hours of rain!
If you are a resident of this city, or ever been there in the last five years, you have all the right to wonder and ask; what are those companies digging out each and every street in the city doing? Where is the long time promised water draining system that every now and then one of those city officials comes out and smile in the front of camera flashes to state that we finished 60%, 70%, 80% of the system!! So can you please tell me how an 80% completed project to drain water floods could not stand a shower of water? And hey, how come a project that took five years and millions of riyals to complete like King Abduallah road turn to be a swimming pool of death?
I believe that the situation is self-explanatory. Most, if not all, projects carried out in this city are big … big failures. Most of them are over budgeted, usually passes any reasonable time constraints, completed in poor quality, and it is clear that they do not know anything about contingency planning! Now these are the corners of project management and, forgive the language, our city planners sucks at all of them!
Now thanks God we are not on the way of any tsunami or typhoon … otherwise, a city named Jeddah would become a history by now … Having said that, watching the below videos gives you the impression that a tsunami has just passed from here … what a poor city!
saad allow me to write in arabic …. i would make is short & simple..
لا امانه في الامانه … امانه اساسها شعارات الوهم …. امتلات الجيوب قبل ان تمتلا جدة وتغرق …. حسبي الله ونعم الوكيل
Hi Waleed … I am afraid you are right, unfortunately!!
hi saad,
happy eid uladha for all here and welcome back saad.
by the way eng.saad, what happened here really is a disaster!!! no other word can be more specific than that. the north region of jeddah is ok nothing happened except some damages but what happened in south region is more than disaster. if there is a word can describe the situation i will write down. my district is one of many districts suffering my rain, here our nieghboring called it tsunami and really i believe that name fits the situation we are in.
many people have been killed by that rain and alots of cars damages and fall down. do you believe that many roads fall down like al-jameah bridge???!! also kau’s wall collabsed. no one can imagine or estimate the numbers of dead bodies. all people blames amanat jeddah for not complete of even starts the drain of rain water cause it will decrease amount of damages. now, we have to thanks god for saving us from that disaster. for me my car has been damaged and collabsed in the rain.
from this blog, i extend my condelenses to all people who lose their family or relatives or any other people in that disaster
finally, i welcomed you back again abo hossam to the kingdom.
Hi Ahmed …
I am really sorry for what happened to your neighborhood and I am really sorry for what happened to our city … and everybody seem to be right, four hours of rain is like a tsunami for us!!
I extend my condolences with you for all who lost a loved one because of this incident …
How poor people we are
I am really upset and sad
Aren’t we all Haiffa … aren’t we all
Dear Saad,
The disaster already happened with cleared reasons. The main issue now is what will happen next?
Big question need to be asked. until now, i did not hear any official response about this misery.
WHY?
Hi Alaa … you are right … what will happen next? I am not even sure how many question marks should we add to this simple question!
First of all, welcome back
This tragic night won’t be forgetten and we have to stand up for our rights. People have to learn how to speak the truth. They don’t have to listen to the long speech on TV when a reporter ends his report with: i’m sorry for what is happening in Jeddah and that’s it. Come on they’re someone’s kids,brothers and cousins. “Sorry” is not enough and “sorry” won’t bring them back to life. This useless”sorry” will cause more tragic days and nights in future if we shut our mouths and accept what happend.
Before I post my comment here, I came across a picture of a little kid who died in that night. His innocent face was covered with mud and dirt and his little hands turned blue. As my brother said;” No one cares about those who is living in small sburbs,their lives don’t matter since their poor families don’t have the “wastah power” to sue anyone”
Hi Female Symphony … you are right … that day will never be forgotten.
I just read your latest post about the incident and I saw that picture you are referring to … It is just beyond words!
(You may visit Female Symphony’s great post following this link (in Arabic): http://www.symphony88.com/ablog/?p=975)
I know you may think that the failures in Jeddah are bad, but believe you me they are nothing compared to the disasters in the UK. I can’t think of a single IT project / programme here which has been on time or been within budget.
In fact I can’t even think of one which even had viable business requirements documentation (BRD) and when you think of the billions which have been squandered, well it’s nothing short of criminal.
You know sometimes I think that if they concentrated on the simple things like a well defined project scope statement coupled with a rigorous change request process the failures could be at least reduced.
But perhaps I’m being too “simplistic”!
Regards
Susan de Sousa
Site Editor http://www.my-project-management-expert.com
Hi Susan, I like your expression about wasting those millions of riyals and pounds on lousy projects … they are really ‘nothing short of criminal’ …
And I totally agree with you on the remaining of the comment as well … I have seen a lot of projects carried out without project scopes and without change processes. Just when something goes wrong, everybody is running for a quick fix …
welcome back ya abo husam and happy Eid to you and your family.
Alaman are blaming the old Managements and they are trying to find an excuse to their failure. This might be a reason but the current municipality management are working since five years and nothing changed. I think the situation will never change we will move from thief to another . sorry to be pessimistic but this the fact.
Hi Majed and thanks for the Eid wishes.
It seems that you are not the only one who is pessimistic, a lot of people are!
[...] Al Dosari says: If anybody wishes to write a management book about project management failures, he will find [...]
At this moment I’m waiting for the news about the Misk lake dam , if it can be called so, collapse!
getting flooded by rain is way much acceptable than getting flooded by sewer!!
Pray for god that this crises can be overcome!
I just heard the situation is really bad over there … ‘quick fixing’ team is stationed over there at the moment to solve the problem!!
[...] Al Dosari says: If anybody wishes to write a management book about project management failures, he will find [...]
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welcome back Saad,
About your last Blog “Project Management Failures”, of course what happened last time, it’s very annoying and CATASTROPHE for us.
I heard news problems in East Jeddah still not solving , must be from the government put new strategy for solving problems and new PLANNING for future, not use old planning like every time.
From one of permits on the TV blame Random Houses, that’s mean start blaming and thinking for older stories.
We are going to back ,not to forward.
maybe some people not with me for last sentence but that what i feel,we heard “we done 40%,70%,… from projects then we found that all project done and not done in same time”
Fahad Adel
Hello Fahad … glad to see your name around …
I really hope with the King latest intervention Jeddah will stop falling behind and just for a change, we will be able to live and see it going forward!
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Dear Saad,
Excellent blog that gives the explanatory diagnosis about the repetitive failures of Jeddah Project Management.
All I can say is to extend my condolences to all people who have lost their family or relatives.
I have nothing but to add my condolences to yours Mohamed … and really hope this will be a critical point in this city future …
[...] from Riyadh to Hong Kong, but I made the mistake from Jeddah to Riyadh. On my way back from China, Jeddah flood had already taken place and the robustness of the Saudi Airline’s IT network had already been [...]