Ultimate Athletic Championships Experience - Program Management - Case Study Example

THE PROGRESS REPORT FOR THE ULTIMATE ATHLETIC CHAMPIONSHIPS EXPERIENCE 2016 (UACE) NAME: INSTITUTION NAME: DATE OF SUBMISSION: Table of Contents Table of Contents ii 1.0 Background 1 2.0 Event Location, requirements and specific objectives 2 3.0 Program Management 3 4.0 Effectiveness assessment 5 5.0 Recommendation 7 7.0 Appendices 11 Table 1: Schedule 11 Organisational Structure 11 Table 2: Field and transportation 12 Table 3: Accommodation, catering and entertainment 12 Table 4: Security and safety 12 Table 5: Game preparation and management 13 1.0 Background The document shows the progress report for the Ultimate Athletic Championships Experience 2016 (UACE).The event is organized by Sydney Athletic Association in collaboration with Olympic Stadium as part of the corporate social responsibility. According to Wiggins (2005), the general goals of the event include; Increasing cohesiveness within learning institutions and country Recognition and celebration of talent Inculcating work ethics Improving students’ planning skills Developing team spirit among students Molding students to overcome adversity in academics and their professional life. The ultimate goal achieved is the creation of cohesive society through a social linkage which is usually associated with sporting activities. According to previous studies, athletics has been associated with four major merits (Wiggins, 2005). First, planning skills is crucial to any strong game since individuals need to devise strategies that will give them an advantage over their competitors. It ensures that student nurtures their planning skills which are crucial in their future career. Secondly, teamwork spirit is natured through athletics where members learn to work for the common purpose of winning. The major characteristic of the organization is working for a common goal starting from lower to top management. Therefore, athletics inculcates individual with teamwork skills that are helpful in developing right organization behavior. Thirdly, athletics enables student overcome adversity where teams do not focus more on how they started the game but how they will finish. The determination can be transferred both to students’ academics and career related activities. Fourthly, students develop a work ethic. Ethics in our case is the student ability to discern between right and wrong. The members of a team showing commitment by attending training are one way that students realize this goal. The failure to do according to the rules set by the coach or head of the team might lead to the whole team losing is core. It translates directly to students’ career field since failure by one member of an organization leads to failure of the whole organization (Wiggins, 2005). 2.0 Event Location, requirements and specific objectives The competition will be held in Olympic Stadium, one of our sponsors for the 2016 competition. The choice of the Olympic Stadium was arrived at after receiving an acceptance letter, prior which we had written to the management of the stadium to consider hosting our competition and providing sponsorship. Olympic Stadium is located in Sydney. The stadium is located in a strategic location which will ease the mobility of the participating teams and fans attending the events (Baines, 2007). The stadium is 40 minutes walk from ANZ Stadium. The stadium has an excellent network of transport which includes buses, trains, airport, taxi and safe parking for personal cars. The event will start from 1st to 2nd June 2016. The team adopts waterfall life cycle to ensure that they finish each stage before advancing to the next stage (Boly, Morel, & Camargo, 2012). The event schedule is elaborated in appendices (Table 1). The correspondence letter from Olympic Stadium confirmed that the stadium will be available for the three-day event. Also, management responded to sponsorship request by providing 50% waiver and full support from stadium management from inception to completion stage of the program. The resulting estimated cost comes to $60million which entails $5million paid to the stadium, and $55million to meet other expenses such as accommodation, transportation, payment of professionals and miscellaneous expenses. The participants will comprise of over 15 universities converging to the Olympic stadium where the main athletic event will be held. The members are required to pay a participation fee of $5,000 which will aid in organizing the events and awards. The accommodation of the participating team will be booked by organizers of the event, Lateral Event Management Company. The universities and colleges that have confirmed attendance to the event are 15, and two have confirmed that they will not attend out of 50. There is a provision of 10 institutions in case of any last minute decision to participate in all the tertiary institutions across Australia were invited to attend the event. The tickets will be categorized into four that is Adults, Student, VIP, and Kids. The prices for every category as follows; Adults: The ticket will cost $150 in advance and $200 at the gate. Student: The ticket will cost $70 in advance and $90 at the gate. VIP: The ticket will cost $400 in advance and $450 at the gate. Kids: The ticket will cost $20 in advance and $50 at the gate. The tickets will be available at participating institutions and Olympic Stadium. The specific objectives; Finish the event within the required 30 days starting 5th May- 3rd June 2016 Achieve attendance of more than 15 Australian universities. Achieve sponsors expectation of holding 100,000 people attending the event as participants or fans. Receive 98% satisfaction from individual that will attend the event. Achieve 0% biases in match fixtures and during the match. Respond to questions from public through social media within 15 minutes at any given time Achieve 96% ticket in overall sales of tickets. Host more than ten media press i.e. television, radio, and newspaper. 3.0 Program Management The development of an organisation structure is crucial in project management. The organisation structure ensures efficient flow of information, the division of work, distribution of responsibilities and eases problem-solving procedures since a member of management are aware of who to report to in case of any problem (Claxton, 2003). The organisation structure of the event is as shown in appendices (Organizational Structure). The breakdown of the progress under each management section is detailed below; 3.1 Field and Transportation The section dealt with organising transport and communicating with Olympic stadium management. The section has reached an advanced stage in their preparation where only once the activity has not been completed (refer appendices; table 2). The group project will take approximate of 10days to finish its work compared to the overall period of 20 days from the start up to the end of the event. The group requires five human resource personnel who have engaged in preparation and holding meetings with relevant bodies. The group is allocated with $600,000 to help in movement and holding meetings with stakeholders. The critical path follows the sitting arrangement directive which will take place for three days of the activity (Conforto & Amaral, 2010). 3.2 Accommodation, Catering, and Entertainment The section was allocated 15days to finish its activities. The section has completed four activities out of ten since most of the events will be during the time of the competition i.e. the last four days of the event. The critical path of the project will follow supervision since it has the highest number of days compared to other activities (Conforto & Amaral, 2010). The section is allocated $3,000,000 which will be used for transportation, booking of accommodation, paying the artists and other miscellaneous expenses. The activities are supervised by three members who will ensure that the programs in the section run smoothly. 3.3 Security and safety The section targets at minimizing casualties and rampage during the event (Deblaere et al. 2007). The activities in the whole event will be carried out in approximately 12 days earlier than the period of the whole event that is 25days. The group has not finalized on three activities as shown in Table 4 (Appendices). The section requires five representatives who will engage the experts on various functions such as audit, drill, and inspection. The section is allocated $1, 000,000 that will be used in mobility of members, hiring experts and other miscellaneous expenses. 3.4 Game preparation and management The activities in this stage involve engaging relevant stakeholders to work out the program on how the match will be conducted (Kealey et al. 2006). According to the table 5 (Appendices), we note that the section has not finished three activities due to slack. The section will take approximately 20 days to complete their work out of the 25 days available to finish the whole project. The section will be allocated $3,000,000 since it appears to be the major part of the event. The section will be allocated six members from the event organizers company who will assist in ensuring that the activities run smoothly by holding meetings and coordinating activities with the experts. 4.0 Effectiveness assessment 4.1 Field and Transportation The section has taken 8days to accomplish 65% of entire activities that the section was allocated. The total period is 20days within which the section program needs to have completed 100% of the whole program allocated. The critical activity in the section involves sitting arrangement directives with 0% work completed. The activity has not been performed since it is done two days prior and during the event. Therefore, it cannot be accomplished before the match. The activity is expected to take three days without slack period thus team is expected to plan well for the activity to avoid technical hitches that might ruin the event. The section has fairly performed well since it only has one activity that has not been completed. The critical path shows the shortest or minimum time required to accomplish certain event (Maharaj, Heil, & Van Rensburg, 2012). On the other hand, the slack period is the time that an activity can be delayed without affecting the overall time required to finish the project since 65% of work has been completed within 8days. The section has slack period that would have been used if activities were incomplete. The human resource was shared during technical activities such as attendance approximation and field inspection. The amount of money allocated might not be enough, therefore, need to increase the allocation prior the major event that will run for the three days. 4.2 Accommodation, Catering, and Entertainment The accommodation, catering and entertainment spend approximately 15 days out of the available 25 days of the overall project. The activities will have approximately 5days slack period within which the first eight activities can be delayed without affecting the time to finish the project. The remaining two activities do not have a slack period since it will be carried concurrently with the sporting activities i.e. supervision that the participants do not have any complaints on the relating the section during the sporting period (Maylor, 2010). The attendance records have not been harmonized (0%) due to response delays from some of the institutions. Therefore, other activities which depend on the record has not been concluded these activities include planning (95%), estimation of participants (90%), Accommodation and catering arrangement (70%) and allocation of accommodation space (95). The supervision activity forms the critical path in which other activities can be carried out within the same period given that there are enough resources. The human resource was shared within other section due to underutilization of the staff in the section. 4.3 Security and safety The security and safety section is crucial since any casualty can bring the event to a halt. The section would use 22 days without a slack period to finish its activities out of the available time of 25 days. Therefore, with a slack period the activities can be delayed for three days which the event will be going on. The supervision of the security and safety during the match forms the critical path since it comprises of 3 days which other activities can be carried out concurrently given that there are enough resources i.e. finance and human resource (Müller, Spang, & Ozcan, 2009). 4.4 Game preparation and management The game preparation and management section is very important for the event. The sporting to be successful, there is a need to ensure that there are working and well-coordinated structures. The section can finish the project in approximately 20 days without slacks (Rose, 2010). The only activities that have not been completed are a game structure (90%), logistics (50%) and game supervision (0%). The critical path of the overall activities is game supervision as shown in the Gant chart. The activity is expected to take approximately three days of the total 25 days expected to finish section program. 5.0 Recommendation 1) Event Ticketing- The team ought to ensure that they provide the potential participant a wide range of means of ticketing. The only available means of issuing ticketing points include participating institutions and Olympic Stadium. The number of location limits the number of participants attending the event. Therefore, I recommend online ticketing platform where the link will be available in institutions and Olympic website and social media. The move will ensure that individuals book for the event at their convenience. Also, act as awareness creation platform since it increases enthusiasm from individuals to enquire more about the function. The management of online ticketing is also easy since everything is digitized (Chase, 2010). 2) Conducting Security drill- The security drill entails simulation of the real event prior the event date to determine potential risk, check adequacy security and safety resources, correct errors and improve know-how of the new team i.e. student who will reinforce security and safety human resource provided by the stadium management. The days for the drill must be increased to four days since the security and safety issues are core due to a high number of participants and fans. Also, the stadium ought to provide clear and documented information on safety procedure (Chase, 2010). The information must be made available for the individual who will attend the event i.e. providing toll-free lines at the back of the ticket. 3) Publicity (Media coverage) – The sponsors of the event always aims at creating public awareness of their product or service during any sponsorship event. The sponsorship is part of CSR but secondary purpose. The team needs to approach popular media companies to provide wider coverage. The choice of media will help in ensuring that future event receive great number of sponsors since investing in the event proves viable for the sponsor to invest (Chase, 2010). Consequently, the team need to utilize power of social media to improve publicity of the event and attract more sponsors. The use of social media is cheap since it requires little resource and time since individual heading the segment can use personal phones, laptops, and tablets. 4) Increase sponsorship- The sponsors are important element in any public event. The sponsors look at the target and size of population that the event will attract both through actual participation and mainstream media coverage (Chase, 2010). The major aim of sponsor is to increase awareness and perception of public concerning its products or services. According analysis to the magnitude created by the event of wide coverage, the team ought to source for other sponsors such as Coca-cola Company, IBM and other company selling youth related services and products. The funds raised from sponsors will increase prize worth and reduce amount of money required from institutions participating by almost 50% or more. 5) Financial management- The team must improve financial allocation and sources to ensure that they meet all the expenses. The operations must have more than 10% of excess funds from budgeted amount. Therefore, I recommend increase of financial source by seeking alternative sources of finance. The inclusion of merchandise products such as printed t-shirts, caps and other visible clothing (Chase, 2010). The funds collected from products sold will supplement in meeting events expenses. Number of words: 2556 6.0 Reference A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide). (2004). Newtown Square, Pa. Baines, L. (2007). Learning from the World: Achieving More by Doing Less. Phi Delta Kappan, 89(2), 98-100. Boly, V., Morel, L., & Camargo, M. (2012). Improving performance evaluation metrics to manage innovative projects. IJTIP, 8(3), 215. Chase, D. (2010). Recreation, Event, and Tourism Businesses: Start-up and Sustainable Operations. Managing Leisure, 15(1-2), 159-160. Claxton, C. (2003). Planning major international projects. Long Range Planning, 11(2), 25-34. Conforto, E. & Amaral, D. (2010). Evaluating an agile method for planning and controlling innovative projects. Proj Mgmt Jrnl, 41(2), 73-80. Deblaere, F., Demeulemeester, E., Herroelen, W., & Van de Vonder, S. (2007). Robust Resource Allocation Decisions in Resource-Constrained Projects. Decision Sciences, 38(1), 5-37. Kealey, D., Protheroe, D., MacDonald, D., & Vulpe, T. (2006). International projects: Some lessons on avoiding failure and maximizing success. Performance Improvement, 45(3), 38-46. Maharaj, K., Heil, D., & Van Rensburg, A. (2012). A FRAMEWORK FOR GOOD GOVERNANCE IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA. The South African Journal Of Industrial Engineering, 17(2). Maylor, H. (2010). Project management. Harlow, England: Financial Times Prentice Hall. Müller, R., Spang, K., & Ozcan, S. (2009). Cultural differences in decision making in project teams. Int J Managing Projects In Bus, 2(1), 70-93. Rose, K. (2010). Understanding decision making within distributed project teams. Proj Mgmt Jrnl, 41(2), 81-81. Wiggins, D. (2005). Sport in America. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. 7.0 Appendices Table 1: Schedule Date Stage Details 15th June Group stages -The participating teams will be grouped in groups of five. -The teams will compete for position one and two in each group Knockouts stages -The number one and two teams from each group will meet in knockouts. -The number one and two from different groups will play and the winning team qualify for semi-finals i.e. number one team in group A will meet number two of group B and vice versa. 16th June Semi-final stage -Finals will compose of teams that win in the knockouts. -The teams will be pooled in two groups where they will compete for number one 18h June Finals -The teams that will qualify to number one in each group in every competition will meet for the finals. -The winning team awarded the trophy and cash Organisational Structure Table 2: Field and transportation Task Name Duration % Complete Field and Transport mgt 27 days 65% 1. Start 0 days 100% 2. Plan & Writing to stadium mgt 3 days 100% 3. Inspecting Stadium and report 3days 100% 4. Transport and report 3day 100% 5. Approximation of attendance 3 day 100% 6. Parking, Labels and sitting arrangement 3day 100% 7. Sitting arrangement directives 5 days 0% Table 3: Accommodation, catering and entertainment Task Name Duration % Work Complete Start 0 days 100% Planning & Writing to artist 2 days 95% Organizing public address 1 days 100% Catering & Accommodation Arrangement 2 days 70% Artist performance Schedule 1 day 100% Allocation of accommodation space 2 days 95% Logistics 1 days 95% Harmonization of records 1 day 0% Supervision 4 days 0% Table 4: Security and safety Task Name Duration % Work Complete Start 0 days 100% Planning 3 day 95% Writing to security and safety bodies 2 day 100% Meeting ANZ security and safety bodies 2 days 100% Meeting external security and safety bodies 2 day 100% Inspection of the stadium 2 day 100% Security and safety drill 3 days 100% Security Audit 2 days 100% Joint meeting 2 day 100% Security and safety Report 2 days 50% Supervision of security and safety 5 days 0% Table 5: Game preparation and management Task Name Duration % Work Complete Start 0 days 100% Planning 4 days 100% Writing to Sydney Athletic Association 2 day 100% Meeting Moderators 3 day 100% Meeting Coaches 1 day 100% Meeting Team captains 2 day 100% Game structure 4 day 90% Field Pre-visit 1 day 100% Game Allocation 2 day 100% Logistics 2 day 50% Game supervision 4 days 0% Read More