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Project Plan for Whitbread World Sailboat Race Essay

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Project Plan for Whitbread World Sailboat Race The following paper analyzes the Whitbread World Sailboat Race case scenario presented at the end of chapter 9 in the Gray and Larson text, Project Management: the Managerial Process. The project encompasses two main objectives; one, design, build and test a new vessel, and two, select and train a crew capable of winning the race. Both 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 …show more content…

The team leaders' projections show that the cost of starting the race under normal circumstances would be $3,152,000 (see table 2), however, normal conditions also dictate that the project will require 50 weeks to finish. As with any solid plan, the team leaders have also calculated crash times and costs as backup options in case the project experiences delays, or in this circumstance an imposed deadline; the start of the race 45 weeks from now. Analyzing crash times and costs we see that if each activity were crashed the project could be finished in 42 weeks, however, the budget would skyrocket to $4.952 million (see table 5). Therefore, the team will need to analyze the project network and its critical path to determine which individual activities can be crashed while maintaining the integrity of the budget. Plan to Reduce Project Duration Before deciding which activities should be crashed, Bjorn and his team first need to have a clear understanding of the project's priorities. To do this the team has first defined the project's scope and decided to develop a project priority matrix. Defining the project scope sets the stage for developing a plan and its primary purpose is to define as clearly as possible the deliverables and to focus project plans (Gray & Larson, 2006). The team has

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