Project Management Lessons from the Olympics Games
Project Management Lessons from the Olympics Games
By Glenn Remoreras
I have always been fascinated about how developed countries excel in the Olympics. In the recently concluded summer games in London, 6 countries from G8 were in the top ten of the medal standings. Do countries’ economies have anything to do with how their athletes fair in games? Absolutely! How?
Allow me to use some project management concepts to explain.
Portfolio Management – Strategy in Sports and Funding
Obviously, developed countries have more resources, i.e. money, to invest in sports development and therefore, more and better sports programs translate to more chances of success. The U.S. Olympic Committee shelled out close to $250 million in 2008 to help American athletes win 110 medals in Beijing. That is a huge investment in a national sports program (and this excludes funding coming from corporate sponsorship for more popular teams). The portfolio managers — or I should say Olympic committee leaders — determine goals, value indicators and programs that can help fulfill its overall sports goal. The sports’ governing body is responsible for allocating the investment into programs that has the potential for more success. They monitor aggregate performance, track spending and measure value of results.
These are the types of decisions that sports leaders have to make as part of portfolio management.
- How much is allocated for sports programs we already excel in so as to maintain success?
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How much is allocated for developing sports with the best potential for future success?
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How much is allocated for improving equipment and facilities?
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How much is allocated for the athletes’ rewards program and development program in general?
Program Management – Managing Sports Programs
A program, according to PMI, is a group of related projects managed in a coordinated way so as to obtain benefits and control not available from managing them individually. Let’s use the USA basketball program as an example. The objective of the program is to return USA to dominance in basketball. Previously, the USA team failed to win the 2002 FIBA World Championship and finished with bronze at the Athens Olympics. Jerry Colangelo was appointed as the director of the USA basketball program in 2005. He redefined the entire basketball program with the intention of coping with the increasing competition from other countries like Russia, Spain and Argentina. This current USA basketball program was projected to take 6-8 years with the objective of qualifying for the Olympics and winning Beijing and London. The USA basketball program has an even large scope and that is, to promote basketball globally.
The program manager, in this example, Jerry Colangelo is responsible for developing the overall program plan and creating high level plans for a detailed execution at the component level. The component level items are the projects.
Project management – Preparation and Games Participation
Now let’s break down the USA basketball program into projects.
- Assemble the team and train (no longer ad-hoc collection of NBA stars)
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Participate in qualifying tournaments (players projected to participate in main events for continuity)
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Participate in the basketball tournament (with the objective of winning the gold medal)
As you can see, we dissected the basketball program into three main projects. A project, according to PMI, is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. It has a defined beginning and end and therefore a defined scope and resources. Colangelo appointed Mike Krzyzewski (Coach K) as the USA basketball coach. Essentially making him the project leader of the components of the basketball program we listed above.
This example illustrates how portfolio management helps manage a collection of programs and projects to achieve a strategic objective. The main goal of portfolio management is to maximize the value of the portfolio by the careful management of its components—the constituent programs and projects. Countries with resources to invest in sports programs and with the leadership to guide the program through have the advantage over others.
Glenn Remoreras brings over 12 years of IT business process and management experience as an IT director, business processes manager, project leader, and consultant. He has focused on converging processes, business and IT capabilities and the implementation of post merger integration initiatives. Glenn can be contacted through his blog, the Simple Processes.