Whitbread World Sailboat Race
University of Phoenix
Terry Norris
January 20, 2008 Project Plan for Whitbread World Sailboat Race This paper analyzes the Whitbread World Sailboat Race case scenario presented in chapter 9 in the Gray and Larson text, Project Management: the Managerial Process. 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. The objectives of the project are to design, build and test a new vessel and select and train a crew capable of winning the race. The objectives must be completed within 45 weeks, the start of the race, and with a planned budget of $3.2 million. Initial projections show that the current schedule will take 50 weeks to finish with a final budget estimate of $3.152 million. Although the project estimate comes in under budget, the time frame for completion extends beyond the acceptable 45 weeks. Therefore, the following sections will take a closer look at the project’s conditions by developing a project priority matrix, project network, and a Gantt chart to help Bjorn Ericksen and his team to reduce the project duration. Managing this project successfully first requires analyzing Ericksen’s strategy, including his chief design engineer and his master helmsman’s normal and crash estimates. Ericksen then needs to find a way to reduce the project duration to meet the race start date deadline. Reducing the timeline without budget is a difficult matter as usually decreasing the timeline costs money. Finally, Ericksen needs to develop a plan to close the project smoothly. Through various analyses, this paper will create a plan to reduce project duration and create a project closure approach for Bjorn Ericksen’s team in the Whitebread World Sailboat race case study. This paper will also show how time requirements can be lowered without affecting costs, list the action item deliverables, identify the due dates for each
Terry Norris
January 20, 2008 Project Plan for Whitbread World Sailboat Race This paper analyzes the Whitbread World Sailboat Race case scenario presented in chapter 9 in the Gray and Larson text, Project Management: the Managerial Process. 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. The objectives of the project are to design, build and test a new vessel and select and train a crew capable of winning the race. The objectives must be completed within 45 weeks, the start of the race, and with a planned budget of $3.2 million. Initial projections show that the current schedule will take 50 weeks to finish with a final budget estimate of $3.152 million. Although the project estimate comes in under budget, the time frame for completion extends beyond the acceptable 45 weeks. Therefore, the following sections will take a closer look at the project’s conditions by developing a project priority matrix, project network, and a Gantt chart to help Bjorn Ericksen and his team to reduce the project duration. Managing this project successfully first requires analyzing Ericksen’s strategy, including his chief design engineer and his master helmsman’s normal and crash estimates. Ericksen then needs to find a way to reduce the project duration to meet the race start date deadline. Reducing the timeline without budget is a difficult matter as usually decreasing the timeline costs money. Finally, Ericksen needs to develop a plan to close the project smoothly. Through various analyses, this paper will create a plan to reduce project duration and create a project closure approach for Bjorn Ericksen’s team in the Whitebread World Sailboat race case study. This paper will also show how time requirements can be lowered without affecting costs, list the action item deliverables, identify the due dates for each
References: Gray, Clifford R. and Larson, Erik W. (2005): Project Management: The Managerial Process, Third Edition. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies retrieved on November 27, 2007 from www.ecampus.phoenix