Whitbread Sailboat

Running head: PROJECT PLAN FOR WHITBREAD WORLD SAILBOAT RACE

Project Plan for Whitbread World Sailboat Race

Lillie M. McNeill

University of Phoenix

February 3, 2008

Project Plan for Whitbread World Sailboat Race

The Whitbread World Sailboat Race is an annual event. Countries from all over participate in the race, it allows them to show off their latest technological finds and it showcases the human skills required in crafting sailboats. The race is such a momentous event; it is important that each sailboat is capable of supporting a 12 man crew for nine months and it must be able to withstand the rigid battering of the rough seas. Designing the winning boat and training the winning crew requires highly skilled individuals. Completing a task of this size requires proper planning, implementing and executing.

Project management is defined as the discipline of organizing and managing resources in a way that the project is completed within defined scope, quality, time and cost constraints. A project is a temporary and one-time endeavor undertaken to create a unique product or service, which brings about beneficial change or added value. Bjorn Ericksen the Project Manager must be able to use project management processes that will allow for the success of this project.

Throughout this paper you will find that Bjorn and his team's strategy is to design, build, test and train the crew that will represent his country in next years race. You will also find a plan that will allow Bjorn and team to reduce project duration while producing the required deliverables, unfortunately it will increase the overall project cost. Once the deliverables have been met, it is important to properly close out the project. The project closure approach used in this paper by Bjorn is simply basic but it covers every area required to properly close out a project. Prior to any of the aforementioned stages Bjorn must have a strategy in place to meet his objectives. Bjorn and his team leaders must also agree upon the strategy.

Bjorn Ericksen Project Strategy Analysis

Bjorn Ericksen is a master helmsman whose recent accolade has earned him the title, "best designer of racing sailboats in the world." Because of Bjorn's notoriety and skills he has been chosen as the Project Manager for his country. Bjorn's strategy is to design, build, test and train the winning crew and sailboat that will represent his country in next's years Whitbread World Sailboat Race. The plan to achieve this strategy will require much help for Bjorn. Bjorn has acquired the help and expertise of Karin Knutsen-a chief engineer and Trygve Wallvik- a master helmsmen; they are team leaders and responsible for ensuring the sailboat and crew are ready for the big race. A key and vital part of Bjorn's success is to create a project plan that will support the desired outcome. Once the plan has been created and all steps have been completed, the actions taken to implement the plan will ultimately determine the outcome. Karin and Trygve must have a solid implementation plan designed to make the winning sailboat and winning crew possible. Without carefully creating a detailed plan of the project, the project duration cannot have an accurate forecast.

Plan to Reduce Project Duration

The five variables that Bjorn must deal with are: resources, time, quality, cost, and scope. The first challenge of Bjorn's as the project manager is to make sure that the project is delivered within defined constraints. The most critical constraint that Bjorn and his team are working with is time. The second challenge for Bjorn and team is to deliver the project within the prescribed budged. Bjorn has been given 45 weeks and $3.2 million in which to have the sailboat ready to sail. The discipline of project management is about providing the tools and techniques that enable the project team (not just the project manager) to organize their work to meet these constraints (Wikipedia, 2008).

o Scope - what is to be done; the features to be implemented;

o Quality - the requirements for correctness and other "good" things;

o Resources - the investment of personnel, equipment, and so on;

o Time - the duration of the project.

o Costs - the budgeted amount available for the project

Cost, time and scope are often competing constraints: increased scope typically means increased time and increased cost, a tight time constraint could mean increased costs and reduced scope, and a tight budget could mean increased time and reduced scope (Wikipedia).

Creating a plan to reduce project duration for Bjorn and his team required a thorough analysis of all variables and the deliverables. After a series of blends and mixes I determined the most feasible plan for Bjorn would be one that allowed the project to be reduced from the actual 51 weeks outlined in the scenario to the required 45 weeks for project completion. The unfortunate piece is that the project will come in slightly over budget therefore costing $3.201 billion.

Reducing project duration can be beneficial to any project. The true benefit only comes if it is done without affecting or diminishing the initially defined objectives of the project. To effectively reduce project duration one must consider the projects critical path. The critical path has been described as the series of activities of a project that determines the earliest completion of the project (Wikipedia, 2008). The critical path will change from time to time as activities are completed ahead of or behind schedule. The duration of the critical path determines the duration of the entire project. There is no float on the critical path. A project can have several, parallel critical paths (Wikipedia, 2008). The critical path analysis performed by Sigma Six identified the critical path tasks as: A, B, C, F, L, M, Q, R and S. The critical path method was invented by the DuPont Corporation.

After consulting with Sigma Six, Bjorn and his team will reduce project duration by using a method known as "crashing". . Crashing is a method used to shorten project duration by adding more resources (Biafore, 2003). Crashing the project usually involves increasing the cost to lower the duration. When crashing a project, the hope is to trade off