World Sailboat Race Topic

Project Plan for Whitbread World Sailboat Race

The Whitbread World Sailboat Race is a nine month round the world race. Bjorn Ericksen has been chosen by his country to head up the project of getting a boat and a team ready for the race. In the following paragraphs his plan will be examined for the inner workings of each of his action items and the possible pitfalls of each one. It will also show how some of the deliverable can work hand and hand without affecting each others progress. But, it will show how one if one of the deliverables is pushed back than the whole project is going to come to a halt.

Bjorn Ericksen Project Strategy Analysis

Bjorn Ericksen has been chosen as the project manager for his country to get a new sailboat ready for the Whitbread World Sail Boat race. This race is a nine month race around the world. In the last few years, about 14 countries have entered sailboats in the race. The sailboats in the race represent the latest technologies and human skill that each country can muster.

Bjorn has been chosen as the project manager because of his past experience as a sailing master helmsman and because he has been voted "the best designer of racing sailboats in the world." What Bjorn is now up against is time and the money that it will cost to compete the project. Bjorn and others would like to have the sailboat finished as quick as possible so that their country's team and train on the boat that they would be racing with instead of last years boat that they will be training in until the new boat is finished. Bjorn had to pick two people to be team leaders for the project and he has chosen Karin Knutsen (as chief design engineer) and Trygve Wallvik (as master helmsman). Karin and Trygve will be responsible for getting the new boat ready for the parade on the Thames River in the United Kingdom, where the race will officially start.

Plan to Reduce Project Duration

The plan to reduce project duration is going to fall under the three project managers and the way that they plan the project out. There are two ways that the PM's can go about working this project of getting a new boat ready from the planning stage to the racing stage. The two ways are looking at the normal time that it will take to get this going from start to finish or they can add CRASH TIME into their project that could get the boat finished quicker than what they expected. Is there a cost for going against the normal time opposed to going the crash time way, yes there is. Some of the events that will take place if they the crash time is chosen will cost more and some will be the same, but, in the end, will the benefits be greater because the time will bring the craft to water quicker and have a team ready to go on the new boat compared to using the old boat to get the team ready. In the following paragraphs the implementation plan will be laid out for the new vessel from planning to race day.

The first item that will be deliverable will be the design of the new boat for this year's race. What this will entail will be the design of the boat, all the required items for the boat, and the building of the boat. The reasonability will be up to Bjorn Ericksen to see this from start to finish. The time line for this will be 4 weeks to get everything ready to submit to the builder to have the boat finish. We are using crash time with this to maximize the time that it will take to get this all done. The crash time is going to shave off 2 weeks from the normal time that it would take in the planning stage. This will also give us some time pending some potential pitfalls that might go with the planning of the boat. Some of the pitfalls that we might see are vendors coming back to us late with prices for the equipment that we might need, this will put added time onto the planning, so we will try for four weeks but normal time frame would have been six weeks.

The next phase of the project will be the building of the boat. This will be the most time consuming part of the whole process. This reasonability will be with Bjorn Ericksen and also the vendor that has been chosen to build the boat. Once again, the timing of the building of the boat will be on the crash time system. Some aspects of the is will cost more by using the crash time method but some will stay the same. If the boat can be built in the time that crash time is allowing, the befits of having a crew train on the new boat earlier will outweigh the total cost due to the crash time method. Since this is were the whole project is going to come together and there are many part and building variable that need to come into place, there will be some potential pitfalls, the most out of all of the other deliverable for this project.

The pitfalls for the building of the boat can cascade into making the project go longer than what we are hoping for. First, there are many parts to this vessel that need to be custom made. The sails and the mast are two major parts that will be custom made for this boat; will they be ready when we need them to be ready? You cannot sail without a sail nor without the mast, there is nothing to hold the sails up so you will go nowhere. Then there is the building of the boat, we are hoping that the vendor of choice will be building the boat in a weather proof area so it will minimize the down time of the weather from keeping the workers working. If everything goes as planned with this stage, the total time will be 60 weeks from start to finish. I see this stage having the potential from holding back the project the longest if everything doesn't go as planning because one hold up here can cascade to the whole project.

The third step for the project will be the selection of the crew. This task will be accomplished by Trygve Wallvik, he has most experience will racing and he knows what he wants in a crew. The total time that was given for this part of the process is 5 weeks. This will be going concurrently with the building of the boat. The potential problems that could arise with this would be not finding the right people or when the right people are found will they have the time to give to sail around the world. This is going to be a demanding trek and if they potential candidates are employed will they be able to leave their job to do this or will they want to leave their job. Trygve is hoping that the candidates that will apply for this trek will know what they are getting into before they sign up for the journey.

The second to last deliverable will be the finalization of everything that is going to be needed for the new crew. Some of what that will be needed will be all the equipment for the crew and