Question

CASE 4.1

Manchester United Soccer Club

Nicolette Larson was loading the dishwasher with her husband, Kevin, and telling him about the first meeting of the Manchester United Tournament Organizing Committee. Nicolette, a self-confessed “soccer mom,” had been elected tournament director and was responsible for organizing the club’s first summer tournament.

Manchester United Soccer Club (MUSC), located in Manchester, New Hampshire, was formed in 1992 as a way of bringing recreational players to a higher level of competition and preparing them for the State Olympic Development Program and/or high school teams. The club currently has 24 boys and girls (ranging in age from under 9 to 16) on teams affiliated with the New Hampshire Soccer Association and the Granite State Girls Soccer League. The club’s board of directors decided in the fall to sponsor a summer invitational soccer tournament to generate revenue. Given the boom in youth soccer, hosting summer tournaments has become a popular method for raising funds. MUSC teams regularly compete in three to four tournaments each summer at different locales in New England. These tournaments have been reported to generate between $50,000 and $70,000 for the host club.

MUSC needs additional revenue to refurbish and expand the number of soccer fields at the Rock Rimmon soccer complex. Funds would also be used to augment the club’s scholarship program, which provides financial aid to players who cannot afford the $450 annual club dues.

Nicolette gave her husband a blow-by-blow account of what transpired during the first tournament committee meeting that night. She started the meeting by having everyone introduce themselves and by proclaiming how excited she was that the club was going to sponsor its own tournament. She then suggested that the committee brainstorm what needed to be done to pull off the event; she would record their ideas on a flipchart.

What emerged was a free-for-all of ideas and suggestions. One member immediately stressed the importance of having qualified referees and spent several minutes describing in detail how his son’s team was robbed in a poorly officiated championship game. This was followed by other stories of injustice on the soccer field. Another member suggested that they needed to quickly contact the local colleges to see if they could use their fields. The committee spent more than 30 minutes talking about how they should screen teams and how much they should charge as an entry fee. An argument broke out over whether they should reward the winning teams in each age bracket with medals or trophies. Many members felt that medals were too cheap, while others thought the trophies would be too expensive. Someone suggested that they seek local Page 126corporate sponsors to help fund the tournament. The proposed sale of tournament T-shirts and sweatshirts was followed by a general critique of the different shirts parents had acquired at different tournaments. One member advocated that they recruit an artist he knew to develop a unique silk-screen design for the tournament. The meeting adjourned 30 minutes late with only half of the members remaining until the end. Nicolette drove home with seven sheets of ideas and a headache.

As Kevin poured a glass of water for the two aspirin Nicolette was about to take, he tried to comfort her by saying that organizing this tournament would be a big project not unlike the projects he worked on at his engineering and design firm. He offered to sit down with her the next night and help her plan the project. He suggested that the first thing they needed to do was to develop a WBS for the project.

Questions:

1. Make a list of the major deliverables for the project and use them to develop a draft of the work breakdown structure for the tournament that contains at least three levels of detail. What are the major deliverables associated with hosting an event such as a soccer tournament?

2. How would developing a WBS alleviate some of the problems that occurred during the first meeting and help Nicolette organize and plan the project?

3. Where can Nicolette find additional information to help her develop a WBS for the tournament?

4. How could Nicolette and her task force use the WBS to generate cost estimates for the tournament? Why would this be useful information?

Answer 1

Questions:

1. Make a list of the major deliverables for the project and use them to develop a draft of the work breakdown structure for the tournament that contains at least three levels of detail. What are the major deliverables associated with hosting an event such as a soccer tournament?

Major Deliverables include (based on data provided in case):

• Generate revenue
• Make sure of having qualified referees
• fix venues for tournament  
• Screening the teams       
• Rise funding for conducting the tournament
• sale of tournament T-shirts
• Finalize rewards

                                                                                                                      

LEVEL 1

Organizing the MUSC Summer Tournament                                                                              

LEVEL 2

      Major Deliverables:

• Generate revenue
• Make sure of having qualified referees
• fix venue for tournament  
• Screening the teams       
• Rise funds for conducting tournament    
• sale of tournament T-shirts
• Finalize rewards

LEVEL 3

       Generate revenue-

• Decide upon the ticket pricing
• Ticket collection
• Promotions        

Make sure of having qualified referees

• Decide upon potential referee
• Establish criteria for selection
• Interview and selection

fix venues for tournament          

• Contact local colleges and other locations

• check for feasibility in terms of date, fee, capacity etc  
• Scheduling and Finalization

         Screening the teams        

• Decide upon screening criteria  

• screening procedures and rule
• list of teams                                                                                                      
• scheduling                                                                     

      Rise funds for conducting tournament     

• seek local corporate sponsors

     Sale of tournament T-shirts

• Artist recruitment
• Design selection
• Pricing  

Finalize rewards    

• Select rewards for different level- eg winner, runner etc

    

2. How would developing a WBS alleviate some of the problems that occurred during the first meeting and help Nicolette organize and plan the project?

A WBS offers a visual picture and structured view of the goals, the plan and the task structure along with their priorities.

• There would be no Waste of time on arguments and tasks of low priorities
• Lack of clarity
• People would know the specific goal and direction about the meeting
• After knowing the tasks, Team members could see about their roles and responsibilities in the project
• Helps in informed decision making

3. Where can Nicolette find additional information to help her develop a WBS forthe tournament?

She can contact her seniors, other members in the organisation who have had prior experience in conducting such tournament

She can contact her peers in other similar clubs

She can also contact her industry associations

She can also acquire information from sponsors (yes, sponsors offer valuable information especially regarding marketing)

4. How could Nicolette and her task force use the WBS to generate cost estimates for the tournament? Why would this be useful information?

In reality, Actual costs go beyond Cost estimates because of the failure to foresee circumstances and tasks. Especially a superficial view gives a budget that deviates to high from the actual cost

A WBS helps us to go down the hierarchy of tasks in details and helps us to pinpoint every cost for every task. This helps to find us the inefficient activities and take measures to act against them. This also helps us to find a better estimate rather working on mere guessing. It offers budget targets for individual departments so that everyone knows their limits