PROJECT POSTMOTERM REPORT
DUBAI PALM ISLAND PROJECT

Action Items (Lessons Learned)
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BACKGROUND
The Palm Jumeirah is a large artificial island built off the coast of Dubai that contains residential, leisure and entertainment facilities. Between 2001 and 2004, it was the world’s largest and most ambitious project of its kind, involving over 25km2 of new land being created and extending Dubai’s beaches by about 78 km; twice the size of Dubai’s natural coastline.
The Palm Jumeirah takes the shape of a palm tree and is divided into three main sections: the trunk, which is 1.9km long and 500m wide is considered the “hub” of the palm because it consists mostly of commercial, retail and hotel infrastructure. The fronds and the spine are attached to the trunk and extend into the sea laterally. They vary in length from 600m to 2km and mostly contain residential villas. Then there is the crescent, an elliptical shaped island surrounding the Palm that acts as breakwater offering shore protection on its outer side and contains luxury hotels and beaches.
In the summer of 2001, construction began with 4 dredgers, a fleet of 9 barges, 10 floating cranes, 40 pieces of heavy equipment, and 15 tugboats. The breakwater core was built with seabed sand and erosion was prevented by placing interlocking rocks on it up to 3m above sea level. Divers were sent constantly to ensure the breakwater was in place and standing firm. The project was delayed 3 weeks when the breakwater faced its first test of strength in the winter of 2001 when it experienced the annual Shamal, a strong northwesterly wind which affects the Persian Gulf states. The Crown Prince wanted the island and city on it to be built by 2006. The only way to meet that deadline was to build the breakwater and the island at same time. It was critical that both the sand and breakwater crews worked together to assure that they were in sync. If the breakwater progressed too quickly, it would cut off the land reclamation team’s access to
4 The JCXSK Group Dubai Palm Island Project Postmortem Report their site. If the land was being built too quickly, there was a risk that storms would erode the land (PT-2013 – Higgins).
PROJECT STRATEGIC GOAL
In 1993, the Prime Minister of the UAE and the Ruler of Dubai HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Sheik enacted the government of Dubai to initiate a strategic phase in its ambitious socio-economic plan in order to diversify the country’s economy away from its declining oil and gas reserves. It founded Nakheel, an Urban Development Company whose aim was to develop large projects and attract foreign investments. In 2000, the Dubai government and Nakheel signed an agreement to build the Palm Jumeirah as the concept was strongly supported by the Sheikh Mohammed, which in our opinion, constitutes a “sacred cow” project that should be have been maintained until success was fully concluded (Meredith and Mantel 47). The initial project’s objectives were to:
• Achieve pioneer status worldwide and improve Dubai’s international standing
• Initiate and promote a tourism based economy
• Build new coastal areas as Dubai had already maximized the use of its current shoreline
The most important benefit was to bring international attention to the Dubai as the world’s top tourist attraction through an ambitious and unique design. This leads to the discussion of the main objective and strategy used at the beginning of the Palm Jumeirah Project.
OBJECTIVES AND GOALS
The project was divided into these main phases:
• Identification of goals
• Project design
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• Project implementation
• Reclamation of land
• Building infrastructure
• Building development
The most important objective of the project was to complete the construction of the island (reclamation of land) as soon as possible. This critical path task would then allow for the construction of hotels, villas and facilities, which would involve as many foreign investors as possible to decrease cost for the local government and further improve international recognition of Dubai. As a result, Nakheel used the following strategy: the first initial two phases (Identification and Project Design) were led and implemented by Nakheel in as short time as possible. The responsibility of the land reclamation phase was given to a single contractor and started as soon as initial plans were ready with the main objective being TIME. Meanwhile, Nakheel carried on with the project design, promoted the project to foreign investors and coordinated their involvement in the latter stage.
The key features of the project as designed and planned in the early stages are summarized below:
Area
5km2
Start of Construction
2001
Land Reclamation Target Date
2004
Completion of Construction
2008
Estimated Cost
$6 billion
Housing Units
4000
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Project Overview Today:
Start of Construction
2001
Land Reclamation Completion Date
2003
Completion of Construction
2011
Estimated Cost
$12.3 billion
Housing Units
8000
PROJECT EVALUATION
Successes:
The land reclamation phase was completed 4 months prior to the deadline and established new records in terms of size and volume. Meanwhile, the land usage and housing developments sold out within days and was the target of much international attention and speculation. This peaked when several members of the UK national football team expressed interest and invested in the project. The global interest and demand for the Palm Jumeirah led to the development and construction of two larger islands off the coast of Dubai which started in 2004.
As a result, the initial aims of achieving pioneer status while sparking foreign interest in the tourism and urban development industry in Dubai was clearly attained. Another successful project that was implemented in June of 2009 was the monorail system. Incorporating the monorail system with Palm Island ensured effective and ideal means of transportation with low impact on the surrounding environment and scenery. This system was the first of its kind in the region. The monorail assisted in alleviating congestion in and around the island, as well as connecting the mainland to the Palm Jumeirah Island. Multiple rail stations were strategically
7 The JCXSK Group Dubai Palm Island Project Postmortem Report placed throughout the island to accommodate local residents and tourist. The monorail provides jobs and impacts the local economy positively, as well as lowers harmful emissions by providing a means for commuters to forego driving automobiles. The streamline design of the monorail compliments the atmosphere of the resort and inclement weather in the Middle East.
Negative Aspects:
Revisions of the plan and design of the building development caused many hotels; infrastructures and facilities to be completed behind schedule. Some more than 2 years after, which we feel constituted a cardinal change to the project. The Palm now comprises over 8000 housing units, twice the original number and costs overran to approximately $12.3 billion. Property owners and developers complain about the Island’s overcrowding and insufficient infrastructures. The mixed outcomes of the Jumeirah project led to the analysis of how the project was carried out and how effective the strategies were that had been put in place. This involves the design and planning, the overlapping of stages in the project lifecycle and the project’s organizational structure.
The building of Dubai Palm islands also causes concern regarding national sovereignty, jurisdiction, maritime boundary delimitation, development and utilization of marine natural resources, and could also cause concern for international disputes and conflicts. This project has numerous unanswered questions in regards to legal implications with the development of international law. Issues arising from this project will have worldwide implications and bring about more attention in the near future.
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Future challenges this project faces are:
• The quick delivery of the project meant that proper studies were not conducted on the impact of the island on the Persian Gulf’s ecosystem.
• Loose and/or “uncompacted” sand that has been “rainbowed” or sprayed into place presents future infrastructure issues.
• Dubai’s main source of revenue, oil, is in decline which is placing a strain on the project as a whole.
• Dubai lies on the edge of an earthquake zone; liquefaction occurs when the sand has low cohesiveness and an earthquake occurs, causing the island to sink in the sea.
• Lack of adequate water circulation around the fronds creates stagnation of water.
• The natural current is disrupted off the coast by the island, and as a result acting as a giant jetty. This disturbance causes erosion in the sense that, sand is constantly being removed in certain areas of the natural beach and deposited at a different place. To solve these effects, maintenance is constantly needed on the mainland coast.
• According to The New York Times, geologic survey data has revealed that the island is sinking at a rate of 5mm per year, much quicker than the expected 25mm over 100 years. Nakheel denies this claim, attributing the large number to the inaccuracy of satellite data. (PT-2013 - Higgins)
Design, Planning and Project Life Cycle Evaluation
The importance of the time objective led to the decision to fast track the third phase before the finalization of research, design and planning. This approach, in our opinion, constituted a big risk, which had a significant impact to the project. Employing a “fast track” approach may have seemed
9 The JCXSK Group Dubai Palm Island Project Postmortem Report to be a reasonable way to expedite a construction project considering the time sensitivity for the project; however, adequate risk analysis was not conducted to anticipate possible outcomes that could result from expediting/overlapping the project phases. Similarly, the land reclamation stage began before R&D was completed and building development (hotels, houses) began as soon as infrastructure (electricity, water, roads) was completed locally. This led to two major changes in the design of the Palm, which had different impacts on the overall project.
Midway through the land reclamation stage, engineers discovered that water was stagnating inside the Palm and could compromise the entire project because of the hazard to health and wellbeing of humans and the marine fauna. Nakheel had neglected this important aspect of R&D and the solution was to change the design of the outer crescent and create gaps in the structure such that outer sea could enter the Palm more easily. The company responsible for the reclamation phase was able to cope with this sudden change because it was the only party involved. They changed their plan, hired additional resources and finally delivered 4 months ahead of schedule.
The second significant change in the design of the project occurred during the building infrastructure stage. Developers had underestimated overall cost and needed to double the density of land development for the project to be financially viable. For example, the number of residential units sold on the Palm was increased from 4000 to an estimated 8000. Plans and infrastructure were changed multiple times which led to significant setbacks. In this case the overall construction phase fell behind schedule for two main reasons:
• The building development and infrastructure stages were happening in parallel, meaning changes in one directly impacted the other creating major perturbations in supply schedules and resource usage.
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• Because of Nakheel’s strategy, which aimed to attract foreign investment, over 50 different contractors were involved in the latter stage of the Palm Jumeirah. The resulting complexity made it impossible to deal with the design and planning changes efficiently.
Organizational Structure Evaluation
As Nakheel changed the project scope and design during the 3rd phase to comply with its financial and foreign investment objectives, the project’s organizational structure also changed multiple times. The structure evolved from the following:
• A single project manager overseeing consultants for each section of the project
• A global project director, project management team and multiple individual project managers for different sections each overseeing consultants and contractors
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As the project became increasingly more complex with the addition of new contractors and investors, so did the organizational structure. This led to a confusing hierarchy where the position and authority of different parties was unclear and confusing. As an example, local project management teams overseeing the construction of hotels would sometimes refer directly to Nakheel instead of their direct superior in the structure because the developer was considered a more reliable source of authority. The program direction and management teams were therefore left outside of the information chain and Nakheel would make decisions without them. This resulted in multiple decisions, plans and allocations of resources being made simultaneously, which considerably slowed down the project and created confusion and frustration amongst the various contractors.
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Economic and Social Impact Evaluation
The Dubai Island project has a significant impact on the region’s economy. Tourism creates jobs for local residents and brings in money from outside sources. On the flip side, an aspect of tourism that is often overlooked is that tourists require their comforts from their homeland. Imports increases to meet this demand, which in turn takes away from the revenue created from tourism because monies leave the region to support the imports. Profits are also exported from resorts and hotels on the island that have been funded by overseas investors. Developers on the island will apply pressure to local governments to improve airports, roads, and other infrastructures to enhance the quality of life on the island. These same developers also pressure the government to provide tax breaks and financial advantages as to maximize profit, which ultimately costs the country money.
The social impacts of tourism may also be important. Most jobs for local people in the tourist industry are as servants, housemaids, waiters, gardeners and other menial jobs that may give people a sense of inferiority. At the same time the tourists come from other societies with different values and lifestyles, and because they have come seeking pleasure, they may spend large amounts of money and behave in ways that even they would not accept at home. Local people seeing the tourist example may want to live and behave the same way. Tourists may also, out of ignorance or carelessness, fail to respect local customs and moral values. These, and other social effects, may be among the most important long-term impacts of tourism development.
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CONCLUSION
From a project management perspective, the Palm Jumeirah suffered from a lack of initial R&D and planning, which translated into multiples changes of design and organizational structure. The strategy to start the building and development of phase three before the completion of the two initial phases led to a mixed outcome. On one hand, the land reclamation stage was a striking success in time and scale because it was assigned to a single contractor under a clear project structure. On the other hand the later stages gave rise to an increasingly complex project with multiple hierarchies and contractors, which were unable to cope with the fast-tracking strategy.
Nevertheless, we can argue that the Palm Jumeirah successfully achieved its main objectives, which were to improve Dubai’s international standing and open its economy to foreign investment and luxury tourism. The interest and demand for the Palm was such that Nakheel soon launched two bigger artificial islands projects: Palm Jebel Ali and Palm Deira. Moreover, Dubai is now a global business and tourism hub and has opened its economy to large-scale foreign investment.
RECOMMENDATION FOR FUTURE SIMILAR PROJECTS
Based on our analysis of the Dubai Palm Island project, it is suffice to say that though the vision and strategic goals for the project were met, there were several factors that constituted the project’s implementation failure. These factors are very crucial to the successful implementation of these types of audacious projects. As a recommendation for future similar projects, the following has to be taken into cognizant:
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Project Complexity:
The decision by the Dubai government to build a man made massive island shaped in the form of a Palm Tree was an audacious task, which requires a lot of planning. Adequate consideration should have been given to the Planning Phase for this project. Several engineering studies and research should have been conducted with various recommendations before Design and Construction Phases commenced respectively. Employing this strategy would have identified potential risks associated with the project and necessary mitigation measures would have been put in place, thus preventing unnecessary rework and increased change orders. A major lesson learned from the Dubai Palm Island project was the commencement of the construction of the Megastructure Island before the completion of the research.
Unrealistic Schedule:
There was a great exigency by the Crown Prince Sheikh Muhammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum to embark on a project that would boost the tourism industry in Dubai, so as to save his country from financial ruin. However, his $2 billion plan to build a Megastructure project like the Palm Island should have been given thorough consideration. A major challenge for the project was the project’s delivery schedule, which in our own opinion was unrealistic considering the magnitude of the Megastructure Island. The schedule for the project was very aggressive (5 years) which led to the adoption of a “fast track” approach for the project implementation. The main utilities and the island itself were completed in a short amount of time and it is the possible that there were some oversights and inefficiencies in the design.
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Scope Creep and Poor Configuration Management:
The euphoria caused by demand of owning a lot in the Megastructure project pushed the developer to the limits. Requirements were constantly changing due to demand and economic opportunities. The original scope for the project called for the building of 4,000 units. However, by the end of the project, 8,000 units were constructed. This is a “Cardinal Change” which is “one where the purpose of the original agreement has been frustrated or made impossible by the extent of the requested change” (Caravella, 2011) resulting in a significant cost, schedule, and logistical impacts on the entire project. The recommendation to increase the numbers of the unit could have been treated as a different project entirely and not as a change order to the original scope. This would have enable the Nakheel project team to plan adequately for resources and materials needed for the construction of the additional units.
In addition, poor configuration management was an issue during the construction phase. The project team did not do a good job of tracking and documenting the changes as the project progressed. Instead, they kept throwing resources at the problem as they arose, which ultimately led to a cost increase. For future similar projects, our recommendation would be that adequate stakeholder analysis should be conducted by the Dubai Tourism Board, as this will ensure that all interested parties and investors requirements are reflected in the scope of work and their expectations are well managed. In addition, a configuration management strategy should be included as part of the project plan that would dictate how changes and change requests should be managed and documented, as this would minimize the impact of the litany of changes that plagued the Dubai Palm Island project.
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Design –Build Approach:
Considering the innovative nature of the Dubai Palm Island project, it is conceivable that there would be an enormous engineering and constructability challenges. In that regard, the design-build approach that was employed for the project in our own opinion was a mistake. The audacious task to build a Megastructure like the Dubai Palm Island does not only defy conventional wisdom, it challenges the law of nature. As stated by the project manager (Robert Berger) in an interview that “If God wanted an Island in the shape of a palm tree in the middle of the Ocean he would have put one here”.
The complexity of the Megastructure project cannot be over emphasized. Seemingly, there were a lot of unknowns as far the project was concerned, which posed a significant risk. The design-build approach may not have been the most appropriate approach for the project. Our recommendation for a future similar project would be to execute the project in phases (Planning, Design and Construction). This approach may not be time effective, however, it should decrease unnecessary changes and rework as lessons learned along the way would be incorporated into the design for the subsequent phases.
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References
2daydubai. (n.d.). Dubai Palm Jumeirah. 2DAYDUBAI.com. Retrieved from http://www.2daydubai.com/pages/dubai-palm-jumeirah-island.php
Darmaki, I. A. (2008). Globalization and Urban Development: A Case Study of Dubai's Jumeirah Island Mega Project. PHD thesis, University of Southampton, School of Geography.
Higgins K. (April, 2013) Coastal and Ocean Engineering ENGI.8751. Paper Code. (PT-2013 - Higgins)
Meredith, Jack, and Samuel Mantel. A Managerial Approach. 8th. Hoboken: John Wiley , 2012. 47. Print. 3/Palm-before-a-storm.html
Moye, C. (20 August 2005). Palm before a storm. The Telegraph. Retrieved from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/334418
Orrill, A. R. (2006). Strategies to Overcome Challenges on Multi-‐cultural Construction Projects in the UAE. Collaboratory for Research on Global Projects.
Van Oord, V. (n.d.). Project selector: Palm Jumeirah. Retrieved from http://www.vanoord.com/activities/palm