Project Plan for Whitboard Sailboat Race
By: Jessica • Research Paper • 1,789 Words • November 20, 2009 • 1,687 Views
Essay title: Project Plan for Whitboard Sailboat Race
Project Plan for Whitbread World Sailboat Race
This paper describes the project plan for Bjorn Erickson to design and equip his country’s sailboat entry into the Whitbread Sailboat race. It was found that the project plan had met the budget requirements but had not met the timeline requirements. Reducing the timeline without budget is a difficult matter as usually decreasing the timeline costs money. We will show in this paper how time requirements can be lowered without affecting costs. We will additionally explain the risks associated with these changes. The last portion of this paper will explain how projects are audited and closed and how the audit can help future projects with lessons learned. To begin, we will discuss the strategy for this project.
Bjorn Ericksen Project Strategy Analysis
Bjorn Erickson is tasked with designing and outfitting his country’s entry into the Whitbread World Sailboat Race. His entry will be racing against 14 other countries that will be trying to out-design and race each other in a race that goes around the world and competes from September to May of the next year (Dalton, 1998). In this paper we will be discussing ways to reduce the length of this project without compromising the quality. The original project plan of the project was too lengthy and did not have money to spare so reductions were made to ensure the project was completed on time. The next section describes how these reductions were analyzed and what the results were.
Plan to Reduce Project Duration
Table 1
Optimal Solution Implementation Plan
Action Item Deliverable Duration Start Date End Date Who is Responsible
Design of Hull, Deck, Mast, and accessories 3weeks 1-Sep-07 22-Sep-07 Karin
Select Crew 6 weeks 1-Sep-07 13-Oct-07 Trygve
Secure Housing 3 weeks 1-Sep-07 22-Sep-07 Trygve
Hull construction 12 weeks 22-Sep-07 16-Dec-07 Karin
Mast order 8 weeks 13-Oct-07 8-Dec-07 Karin
Seven sails order 6 weeks 13-Oct-07 24-Nov-07 Karin
Accessories order 15 weeks 13-Oct-07 26-Jan-08 Karin
Select Crew Equipment 2 weeks 13-Oct-07 27-Oct-07 Trygve
Routine Sail and Maintenance 15 weeks 13-Oct-07 26-Jan-08 Trygve
Order Crew Equipment 5 weeks 27-Oct-07 1-Dec-07 Trygve
Ballast tank install 2 weeks 16-Dec-07 30-Dec-07 Karin
Special sealant for hull 3 weeks 5-Jan-08 26-Jan-08 Karin
Build deck 5 weeks 30-Dec-07 2-Feb-08 Karin
Mast and sails installation 2 weeks, 23-Feb-08 9-Mar-08 Karin
Accessories Installation 6 weeks 23-Feb-08 5-Apr-08 Karin
Crew maintenance Training 10 weeks 2-Feb-08 12-Apr-08 Trygve
Sea Test 5 weeks 5-Apr-08 10-May-08 Trygve
Initial Sail Training 6 weeks 12-Apr-08 24-May-08 Trygve
regular sea training 7 weeks 24-May-08 12-Jul-08 Trygve
The first thing looked at on the implementation plan was crash costs and if they could help reduce time and still remain within budget. Using times and costs on the scenario the budget is right on target with direct and indirect costs. Without crashing the length of time on the project is 50 weeks versus the mandatory 45 weeks. Within these boundaries, crashing is not an option unless costs are reduced elsewhere. While considering the crashing scenario a critical path for the project was developed to find out where time could be reduced to have an impact on the project. The critical path was a basis for all the solutions that were considered. The following tasks were considered critical tasks:
• Design of Hull, Deck, Mast, and accessories
• Hull construction
• Ballast tank install
• Build deck
• Crew maintenance Training
• Initial Sail Training
• Regular sea training
The next thing that was considered was adding additional resources. This option