SPORTING EVENT

MANAGEMENT - TAILORING
PRINCE2
A case study for the PRINCE2 Foundation and Practitioner course .
Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 2
Challenges ..................................................................................................................................................... 3
Solution ......................................................................................................................................................... 3
Approach ....................................................................................................................................................... 4
Final Outcome ............................................................................................................................................... 6
Successful use of PRINCE2 .......................................................................................................................... 6

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Introduction

A local and informal sailing association had offered to organize and run a national
sailing regatta on behalf of the national body. This would involve all the
administrative and logistic arrangements, as well as the various competitions
involved. Sponsorship would need to be raised to pay for the event. A campsite
would need to be created for competitors on agricultural land, together with
temporary generators, toilets, showers, etc. Catering would be needed
throughout the 6 day residential event and, as the competitors were school age
children, there were significant issues of child protection and safety to address.

Although the regatta was an annual event, it was the first time it had been run at
this location, and the first time this association had tackled this kind of activity.

Initially the approach taken was a typical committee and sub-committee

organization, with different sub-committees taking on different aspects of work.
It was quickly found that this was ineffective, and serious concerns were being
expressed about the associations ability to deliver the event satisfactorily. The
national body requested clarity about what the association was doing, without
which they would look to relocate the regatta.

A locally based project manager with experience of sailing events was approached
and agreed to become the project manager for the event on a voluntary basis. A
qualified PRINCE21 practitioner, he undertook to get the project back on track
and to give confidence to the national body that a high quality regatta was
achievable.

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Challenges

The main challenge for the project manager was the informal nature of the
project. Every person involved was a volunteer, often with busy professional
lives, and none had any real experience of running a complex sporting event, or of
the logistical and administrative activities that would be needed.

Additionally, there was both embarrassment about the failings so far, and
resistance to accepting the real reasons for these.

Finally, by the time the project manager was brought in there was only 6 months
before the event with much work to be done that should have been started much
earlier.

Solution

The project manager recognized that there would be great resistance to using a
very structured project management approach but equally knew that only by
using a very tight structure would the event be achieved. Additionally, the
national body were demanding clarity about plans and activity.

He therefore decided to use PRINCE2 throughout, but to keep the detail of this
from those involved.

This involved a careful approach to both the design of the PRINCE2 approach,
and to communication within those doing the work. Only the project manager
would know that PRINCE2 was being used, with no specialist vocabulary, terms,
or processes being exposed to others.

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Approach

The first major issue that arose was resistance by the main committee to creating
a specific project board every member of the committee wanted to be involved,
and would not step aside from this. The project manager accepted this situation,
and treated the main committee as the project board, with the chair of the
committee as the Executive. Roles such as Senior User and Senior Supplier were
not specifically allocated, but the project manager was clear about who these
were, and what he needed to demand from them. An unusual feature of this
arrangement was that the project manager was effectively driving the project
board, rather than the other way around.

Corporate National
Management Body

Main Project
Project Board Committee Manager

Team Working Working

etc.
managers Group 1 Group 2

Figure 1: How PRINCE2 organization was aligned with the project.

The project manager created the various management products himself, asking
individuals for input as necessary, but without explaining too much about the
details of what was happening. This gave the project manager enough
information to be able to create a project plan, to create stage plans as the
project progressed, and to create work packages. He used product based

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planning to identify the specialist products, and a variation on work packages and
product descriptions to communicate requirements to the various work groups
(in PRINCE2 terms the teams) who replaced the former sub-committees.

A key aspect of this was ensuring tight monitoring and control. The project
manager treated each month as a single stage, with its own stage plan.
Monitoring and control was exercised by having a monthly main committee
meeting structured to review what had happened, what had been achieved, and
what needed to be done next in PRINCE2 terms, an end of stage assessment.

Competition
Management
Site faciltiies
(marquees, Creation of
fencing, onsite
walkways, camping
etc.)

National
regatta
Child safety Creation of
and onsite
protection catering

Publicity and Site security

Sponsorship and access

Figure 2 The key work groups

In the background, the project manager ran the Controlling a Stage process to
interact with the teams doing the work and to review progress at the work group
level.

This more structured approach was fully accepted by the national body, who were
kept informed by the project plan and by reports from the project manager.

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Final Outcome

The event was staged and drew praise from the 300 competitors and more than
200 teachers, parents and relatives who accompanied them. All aspects of the
event were successful, and every administrative and logistic aspect was delivered
on time. It emerged later that this was the largest sporting event ever held in the
area. The national body were entirely satisfied with the event.

Successful use of PRINCE2

Critical to the success of the project was the project manager rapidly putting a
clear structure in to replace the loose and informal sub-committee arrangements.
Although the underlying PRINCE2 was kept away from the volunteers doing the
work, PRINCE2 allowed a clear approach to planning the project and to delivery
of the wide range of individual tasks and activities.

Tailoring the PRINCE2 Project Board to fit the main committee ensured
continued commitment by those involved, and aligning stage boundaries to
monthly committee meetings, although not ideal in theory, did allow a very close
control to be exercised over the work being done.

The use of product based planning gave a very early view of what needed to be
done, and work packages provided a good way of communicating requirements
with those doing the work.

The decision to keep PRINCE2 in the background was a high risk approach by the
project manager, but justified by the circumstances and validated by the
outcome.

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