1. Failure of Millennium Dome, London
KARAMJEET KAUR
N01194529
Submitted to Instructor:
Andrea Wilson
The millennium Dome, London. (Jpg). (2004). Retrieved from
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesjin/58712717/

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Introduction
Many projects all over the world has built and designed through various strategies and for different
objectives. Such as the Eiffel Tower in Paris, it was built for the world exhibition of 1889. The
purpose of this construct was to show the world that how France has improved in science
technology and architecture. And the Sydney Opera House, the Australians were willing to build a
world-class opera house to increase the country’s reputation after the Second World War. The
same thing happened in London, when British Prime Minister agreed to exploit the new
millennium plan to construct an impressive building for the country in this circumstance.
Therefore, the building is called the Millennium Dome. But unfortunately the project failed to grab
the more attention of people. "Failure" in this case can mean not only if the project was never
implemented, but also if it was implemented in a substantially different form, and if it took more
than 10 times the amount of time or money to complete that originally projected. It was a
remarkable project.
“Millennium Dome is a Dome shaped mega structure, built in the Greenwich peninsula in south
east London. It was designed for the celebration purpose at the time of third Millennium. Third
millennium is a time period from January 1, 2001 to end of December 31, 3000. At the time of
construction it was considered as the mega structure in the world with respect to its size the Dome
has a theme park and a scientific exhibition both which is entitled as the Millennium experience.
The Millennium Dome closed on 31st of December 2000 because it failed to attract the number of
visitors which was expected to visit the place and results in many financial problems. As a result
the Dome has been sold and converted into a sports arena” (Mitchell, 2006). This paper will look at
the analysis of project Dome along with different reason for failure.
Overview of project
The project life cycle of Millennium Dome passes sequentially through four different phases:
Defining stage, planning stage, executing stage, closing stage:
Defining stage: The Millennium Dome, subsequently referred to simply as The Dome, is the
original name of a large dome-shaped building, originally used to house the Millennium
Experience, a major exhibition celebrating the beginning of the third millennium. The main
objective of Dome was to achieve first place, in terms of visitors, among the new London
attractions (followed by British Airway London Eye, the national portrait gallery and the Stratford
cultural quarters) that, according to the London Tourist board, would increase the UK visitor
number by 3.9% to 26.5% million (Clarke, 2000).
Planning stage: The project was planned to fund from three sources: the National Lottery;
visitors; commercial sponsors. In 1996, it presented gradually that the private funds were unable to

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take the considerable risk in building, operating and maintaining the Dome project. As a result, the
government took over the project, but their funding and appointing capacities are still insufficient
referring to lack of accountability, financial balance and conflict of interest.
The Project Life Cycle. (Jpg). (March 18, 2015). Retrieved from
http://sathishchandramouli.blogspot.ca/2015/03/project-life-cycle-team-building.html
Executing stage: It was formed as a Millennium Exhibition of a scale and being achievement
comparable with that of the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the Festival of Britain of 1951. The
project was to provide the centerpiece for the nation's Millennium celebrations by opening on New
Year's Eve and running through the year 2000. The project obtained the distinctive treatment of
having been conceived under a Conservative government and raised to its full extent by New
Labor. The project and exhibition was the subject of considerable political controversy as it failed
to attract the number of visitors anticipated, with recurring financial problems. All of the original
exhibition and associated complex has since been demolished. The total estimated cost for its
construction was nearly US$1.29 billion. The other costs were shown in given table:

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Project lifetime cost of Dome structure, infrastructure and content 1997-2001
Dome structure and associated infrastructure £275
Content: Exhibitions and Attraction £242
Source: CMCS, 2000a; NOA, 2000; NMEC, 2001b
Closing stage: It was an achievement for the opening a Millennium Dome on time. Initially the
Dome attract a number of paying visitors but this number decreased so much that it beaten the
record of visitors in 1999 in England. During its operational year the company has faced many
financial problems. One reason is of decrease in the number of visitors. In order to deal with these
financial problems company has done a number of changes at senior levels, like in year 2000 the
company’s chief executive, finance director and accounting officers were replaced with new ones.
Socio-Technical Approach
There are two dimensions within the actual execution of projects. The first dimension is the
technical side of the management process, which consists planning, scheduling and controlling
projects and the second is the sociocultural side of the project management which includes
leadership, problem solving techniques, teamwork etc. (Clifford, F & Erik, W. 2013). The Project
Millennium Dome failed due to the inadequate planning, controlling, and support of team member,
because good project managers balance their attention to both the technical and sociocultural
aspects of project management. Briefly indicating the both dimensions if not, attributed to the
failure of Dome project:
Source: NMEC, 2001
4%
11%
12%
13%
17%
20%
26%
29%
34%
35%
39%
57%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
Supplier people not consistence
Insufficent measurable output
Supplier over-resourced
Supplier skills overstretched
Overall poor management
Mismanagement of progress
Cost getting out of hand
Inadequate c0-ordination of resources
Milestones not met
No quality control
Lack of planning of resources and activities
Bad communication between relevant parties
Main Cause of Project Failure

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TECHNICAL DIMENSIONS SOCIOCULTURAL DIMENSIONS
CONTROL: The company did not realize its
financial flaws at once, so there had been lack
of controlling at the company. During the year
2000, the company appointed auditors and
consultants to identified affect about quality of
financial control and forecasting its direction at
the company. And those auditors and
consultants found out that significant potential
weaknesses were hidden in internal control
over the level of creditors and other liabilities.
TEAMWORK: Project Millennium Dome
failed due to the inadequate team support and
bad communication between relevant parties.
OPERATIONAL EXPERTISE: Lack of
additional operational expertise for the
managing project. The company was short of
senior staff with experience of managing a
large visitor flow. So the company needed
additional operational expertise. In the light of
the problems experienced on opening the
dome, the company realized this issue and re-
organized some of its key operations to reflect
the demand for the dome to be more
operational efficient.
CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS: Project
dome fails to attract the more attention of
public at very large scale because the target of
project to increase the total number of visitors
from 3.9% to 26.5% million.
MARKETING STRATEGIES: Even
though the company had made much
marketing efforts, there are still negative sense
about the Dome and a lack of awareness of its
content.
POLICIES:National Audit Office publishes
report blaming unrealistic attendance targets
for the Dome's financial problems
Analysis of the Failure of Project
1) Lack of vision: The project was not properly planed; project managers were unclear with
the scope of the project. The original plan was to transform the Millennium Dome into a
soccer pitch for use of one the teams of London but in the end none of the teams seems
interested. At the end the British Government decided to find the appropriate buyer because
the cost of maintenance was too high, it was reported to be £1M per month.
2) Poor execution: Poor execution cause lackluster content resulting in negative experiences
for visitors and the resulting negative PR stemming for those experiences.

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3) Criticisms: Initial reaction from the press was poor. Lack of content, themes and creativity
were the common factors of criticism.
4) Lack of sufficient operational expertise: The Company lacked sufficient operational
expertise. Running such a major attraction called for specific operational expertise quite
distinct from that required to construct the Dome.
5) Poor marketing strategies: Marketing and sales strategies were based on the Dome selling
itself. Poor marketing results in shortfall of sales tickets. The company’s marketing budget
in the business plan was originally set very low as compared to the large visitor attractions.
As there were no competitors so the company’s estimations about building a good
reputation only with word of mouth and sales tickets was not enough to attract the new
visitors.
6) Financially mismanaged project: It was financially a mismanaged project which was
failed to attract new visitors. Throughout the planning and construction phase the cost
raises which results in more and more dispersion of money to dome’s builders.
7) Lack of contingency plan: Due to lack of contingency plan they were failed to manage
expectations.
Suggestions for improvement
The Dome project team should take up some improvement approaches. Firstly, the structure of
management should be straightforward and clear, developing a defined focus on delivering the
project. It is essential for the management structure to have strong and effective corporate
governance and be able to adapt to meet different phases’ specific requirements of a project
immediately. Secondly, project should be organized and proceed with a fully integral
understanding of the project costs. These should include sale costs, closure costs. And the
project should keep abreast of the cost change. Thirdly, the most necessary factor for a project
to proceed successfully is income. The financial success of a project depends on generating
income from visitors, and it requires the project team to make practical judgments about
possible visitor numbers and determine the proper approach to put it into marketing effectively.
On the other hand, sponsorships are likely to involve uncertainty over the level of financial
contribution, the risks need to be taken into account in project planning. Fourthly, project

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managers need to respond flexibly if things do not follow the plan. It is planning to make the
best of a bad situation. Finally, all expenditure happened within the project process should be
recorded by the company’s auditing office and matched the received invoices against these
spending. Simultaneously, the financial position should be reported accurately and opportunely
to staff who are responsible to be with oversight role in relation to the project.
Conclusion
According to Malcolm Forbes “Failure is succeed if we learn from it”. Definition phase is most
important phase. The project manager should clearly define the project objectives and assign the
duties and responsibility to each and every co-workers. The failure projects not only effect the
government and public of that country, it also affect the worldwide economy of whole nation.
Similarly in case of Dome, it may be an important ultimate property for British. The public
investment spent on the Dome cannot be just presented in a form of balance sheet, the ultimate
worth of the entire project will be measured by how well the government makes use of the project
in the future, and whether they can avoid the recurring of financial crisis and satisfy the need for
enough data supported projections. What is the future for the dome? The minister in charge
of the dome, Lord Falconer, said “I can give "no guarantee" that the dome would require no more
money to stay open until the end of the year”.

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Reference
Ravenscroft, N., Chua, S., & Reeves, J. (2001). The socio-politics of the hallmark event: The case
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http://sathishchandramouli.blogspot.ca/2015/03/project-life-cycle-team-building.html
Essays, UK. (November 2013). Millennium Dome Project Management Analysis Information
Technology Essay. Retrieved from
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Millennium Dome. (2007). In D. Watts, A glossary of UK government and politics. Edinburg,
United Kingdom: Edinburgh University Press. Retrieved from
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me/0

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