PM 300 Week 4 Decision Making and Problem Solving Example

Wet Insulation Under the Ice: A Structured Decision on a Problem Found Mid-Project at a Duluth Arena

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

PM/300: Project Management Principles and Standards

Week 4 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

Northshore Community Arena, the slab problem, the options and all costs are composites written for a model paper.

On May 22, three weeks into demolition at Northshore Community Arena, the composite city ice facility in Duluth, Minnesota, the contractor lifted the first section of the east rink's concrete and found the rigid insulation beneath it soaked through. The heating loop below that insulation, which keeps the ground from freezing under a slab that sits at about 15 degrees Fahrenheit all winter, had not worked for years. The original project scope assumed both slabs would stay in place, with only new header pipes and glycol lines added. This paper applies a structured approach to the problem: defining it, finding its cause, setting out options, choosing among them and checking the choice for bias.

Why Method Matters

The current standard notes that project teams make many decisions under uncertainty and should match the decision method to the situation, from individual judgment for small choices to structured group methods for consequential ones (Project Management Institute [PMI], 2021). Nutt (1999) reviewed several hundred decisions in organizations and reported that about half failed, often because managers committed to an idea early and spent their effort defending it rather than searching for alternatives. A decision that could add $780,000 and a month to a public project calls for the more deliberate approach.

Defining the Problem

A wet slab is a symptom. The problem, stated in terms of the project's goals, is this: if the east rink's ground freezes, the soil can heave and crack the new slab and pipes within a few seasons, destroying the reliability benefit that justified the project. Inspection of the west rink found dry insulation and a working heating loop, so the problem is limited to one sheet.

Finding the Cause

The team used a five-whys chain with the arena technician, the engineer and the contractor. Why is the insulation wet? Water has entered the space under the slab. Why? It flows along the east wall's footing. Why? A roof drain line inside that wall cracked and has leaked for an unknown time. Why was it not found? It is buried, and the arena has no inspection program for drains. Why did the heating loop fail? Its pipe corroded where it sat in standing water. The chain points to two actionable causes: the drain leak and the absence of any check on hidden systems. Fixing only the insulation without stopping the water would repeat the failure.

Options

Option A, full rebuild of the east slab: remove all concrete, insulation and the heating loop, repair the drain, install new insulation, a new heating loop and a new slab with the refrigeration piping. Cost is about $780,000 and the work adds four weeks, using all float and pushing ice making on the east sheet to about September 20.

Option B, targeted repair: repair the drain, dig trenches to replace the heating loop beneath the existing slab edge, dry the insulation with heated air and add monitoring sensors, keeping most of the slab. Cost is about $260,000 with a ten-day delay that fits within float. The engineer estimates a 25 percent chance the insulation does not dry well enough, which would mean a rebuild in two to four years.

Option C, defer: repair the drain only, continue with the original scope and monitor ground temperature, rebuilding later if needed. Cost now is about $40,000, but the engineer puts the chance of serious heave within five years at more than half.

The cheapest option today is often the most expensive option across the life of the slab.

Weighted Evaluation

Before scoring, the steering group agreed on four criteria and weights: safety and asset life 40 percent, season opening 25 percent, life-cycle cost over 20 years 25 percent and public confidence 10 percent. Scores run from 1 to 5.

Option A: safety and asset life 5, season opening 2, life-cycle cost 4, public confidence 4; weighted total 3.90.

Option B: safety and asset life 3, season opening 5, life-cycle cost 4, public confidence 4; weighted total 3.85.

Option C: safety and asset life 1, season opening 5, life-cycle cost 2, public confidence 2; weighted total 2.35.

The scores separate deferral clearly but leave the first two options almost tied. Life-cycle cost for Option B includes the expected cost of a later rebuild, weighted by its 25 percent probability. A near tie means the decision depends on what the city values most and on the quality of the probability estimate, so the team investigated further before deciding.

Testing for Bias

Flyvbjerg (2021) described common behavioral biases in project management, including optimism bias, in which planners underestimate costs and risks, and the planning fallacy. The team asked whether its 25 percent estimate for Option B was optimistic. A moisture specialist took core samples from four more points on the east slab and found the insulation wetter than assumed at two of them, raising the estimated failure chance to about 40 percent. With that change, Option B's safety and cost scores each drop by one point and its weighted total falls to 3.20, below Option A.

The team also checked for sunk-cost reasoning. Arkes and Blumer (1985) ran ten experiments, including one with theater season tickets, and found that money already spent kept people committed to a course of action even though that money was gone whatever they chose next. Some city staff argued that the slab had been poured in 1994 at great expense and should be kept. That argument rests on past spending, not on future benefit, and the team set it aside.

Decision and Governance

Option A exceeds the sponsor's $100,000 limit and uses more than half the contingency, so under the project's governance it went to the steering group, which approved it on May 29 and asked the parks board to authorize additional funds from a capital reserve. The youth hockey association agreed to start its season on the west sheet and move to the east sheet in late September. The decision log records the options, weights, scores, the revised probability, the approvers and the rationale. The team also added a scope item that responds to the second root cause: an inspection program for buried drains and the heating loop, using the new ground sensors.

Conclusion

A wet slab could have been handled by patching insulation and moving on. A defined method turned it into a clear problem statement, two root causes, three options, a weighted evaluation and a bias check that changed the result. The rebuild costs more today, but it protects the reliability benefit that justified the project and was approved by the people with authority to approve it. The steering group will review ground temperatures after the first winter to confirm that the decision held.

References

Arkes, H. R., & Blumer, C. (1985). The psychology of sunk cost. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 35(1), 124-140. https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(85)90049-4

Flyvbjerg, B. (2021). Top ten behavioral biases in project management: An overview. Project Management Journal, 52(6), 531-546. https://doi.org/10.1177/87569728211049046

Nutt, P. C. (1999). Surprising but true: Half the decisions in organizations fail. Academy of Management Executive, 13(4), 75-90. https://doi.org/10.5465/ame.1999.2570556

Project Management Institute. (2021). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide) (7th ed.). Project Management Institute.