Reach for a Dream Charity’s Basketball Tournament

Project Background

Reach for a Dream Charity approached an outsource project manager to assist in the creation and execution of a fundraiser basketball tournament event. The process has involved different Reach for a Dream’s top and functional management team and stakeholders whom together invested their time to collect accurate project information from different sources through face to face interactions and iterations of budgeting documents (Lewicki et al., 1996).

On that note, marketing research was conducted in the sport industry and into potential donors, which gave an indication that there is a great opportunity for a tournament of any sort to be used as a tool to raise funds and yet to spread messages of encouragement, for instance to children living with life-threatening diseases, that they can also be given a chance to pursue their dreams (Geer, 2007).

Marketing strategy is used to link two activities, directly related to targeting, positioning as factors to grab audience’s attention the overall project goal of generating a talking point online and offline by word of mouth (Silk, 2006).

To fulfil the overall goal, the project manager confirmed that the project committee have been granted a free location to host the event on 15th September 2018 at the University of Kwa Zulu Natal which also lower the total costs of executing the project.

Further, the project understands the need to reduce the dominance of the process in all phases, unnecessary documentation and to maintain smooth communication in order to allow staff, expert volunteer’s efficiencies resulting in delivering what the client has required.

Project Objectives

As Philips (2008) states, that a project should have objectives to represent a goal that it intends to achieve in terms of quality. Also the settlement of the quality strategic project objective is vitally important because it provides the transformation of its vision into practice.

Therefore, the 3 on 3 basketball project plans to complete tournament planning, and be able to meet legal and contractual requirements by 1st September 2018 so that effectively, the competition coordination of hosting the event on 15th September can be successful.

Moreover, project committee approves all deliverables and strategies to deliver the competition without exceeding R19000 budget so that all the cash left can go to charity. As Seltzer (2001) suggests that not only success project events can raise money but create publicity, can attract dedicated team members and volunteers to educate and enhance relationships. Therefore, the project pursues to use expert outsource staffs whom wish to volunteer to manage the event in order to satisfy the client needs.

Further, in order to meet the projected 200 attendee turnouts, the project plans to market the event creatively through advertising all the necessary inputs online, and for this reason it can result in being an entertaining and educational event scheduled.

In addition, the project also covers the following aspects; to provide Reach for a Dream event management team with a comprehensive understanding of the total effort required to set up and run an effective 3 on 3 basketball tournament. To obtain commitment from appropriate management in supporting, participating in the effort and to create a business plan to follow in order to efficiently manage the project.

Also all resources and responsibilities should be defined as well as to analyze cost and budget necessary to run the project.

Finally, the project chases to meet a 30% profit margin through wide support participation from local restaurants and businesses as well as attendance levels.

Project deliverables

The project lists the event participants including, sponsors which are local businesses and restaurants, referees, students from 16 participating high schools, commemorative T-shirts that will be sold for R50 each, and in fact snacks and beverages.

Project planning includes organizing a project team which aims to support idea generation, pinpointing the right one for the event. According to Krugman et al (2007) it is crucial to choose a location which appeals to the attendees therefore the project team has confirmed that the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal as the event location.

Project manager has employed a disc jockey for music entertainment, local media and also prepare promotional materials for publicity. Additional funds will be provided by sponsors to help pay all non-volunteers and all other expenses. Further the event execution is approved by both local municipality and the university management as well as the client.

Moreover, project manager has to prepare and display work breakdown structure so as to achieve the project’s goal and objectives, risk assessment and its mitigation.

By creating a master plan, the project team knows what and by when things should be done. For instance, contracts, permits insurance if needed for a venue, catering (snacks and beverages) management. Further, expert volunteers and other project team participants will be taken to an orientation program before the kick off the competition.

In addition, tournament financials are intended to cover all the costs by charging R50 for an entry fee in exchange for a commemorative t-shirt and from some money donated by sponsors.

The initial approval that allows the project to move forward is marked by the completion of a contract and scope of different works to be done and inputting of all requirements and elements of the project in the chosen to project management tool.

Another milestone will be to gather all defined requirements and interprets and consolidate them so as to present the client with a detailed description of the requirements as the project team understands.

In addition, the design of solutions that will meet the requirements and fulfil the terms of the scope of work, the client has to review the proposed solution and confirm that it satisfies the project objectives. Further, once the project team begins to implement the proposed solution, the project managers will define project specific milestones related to the components of the work being done.

Also, the final review session for a project is when all stakeholders agree that the work is sufficient and meets the project requirements. Further, funds are typically identified in the cost baseline and are therefore split up between the multiple phases of the project, since according to Shone and Perry (2013) there is a need for a project management team to control and plan the project’s finance. Consequently, this helps to assure that expenditure and income are monitored which may result in possible profit generation.

As a result the next paragraph shows the creation of a budget for this project event (Van der Wagen and White, 2010).

Last, by 19th August all project team members and expert volunteers will be assigned to key roles, therefore the project manager is well aware of the need to identify staffing needs and setting milestones for each of these roles so that to monitor the progress of the project.

Technical requirements

Material availability and shortages have been blamed for the delay of many projects therefore project manager makes the point of the importance of including all technical requirements in the project plan and schedule.

Planning consists of the systematic predetermination of the ends and the means necessary for the accomplishment of a project in the most economical manner. It implies the most efficient expenditure, in combination of time, human energy and material resources. In addition, to have the approval from the client to move from one phase to the next phase of a project, to have enough staff and volunteers to run the event, obtain permits and approval from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal.

Further, in the planning phase, basic programs are prepared to give an indication of the overall duration of a project in terms of design, procurement of all resources. Moreover, the implementation phase will undergo detailed cost budget and monitor all aspects of the work and progress.

The project’s requirement also includes professional referees, equipment such as two regulation rubber basketball for male and another two for female players which cannot depreciate quickly with the outdoor use since the competition will be performed on outdoor ground. Other requirements will include a flip card scoring unit, 3 on 3 scoresheets, working pens and clipboard, copies of official tournament rules, stocked medical or first aid kit, ice on hand stored in instant ice packs, tournament schedule and competition result board.

In recent past researches have proven that, meeting stakeholder needs and satisfaction have been a major success factor for project success. Researchers have identified effective stakeholder management as contributing towards meeting their needs and project success (Newcombe, 2003).

Following this definition researchers have identified several stakeholders including the client, customer, sponsor, local community member, the media, and other groups whom together play different roles in achieving project overall goal. Jepsen and Eskerod (2008), suggest that in order to achieve this, there is a need to identify key stakeholders’ required contributions, power in relation to the project, expectations and decision on strategy so as to influence and motivate better performance which may result into project success.

As a stakeholder, the client (Reach for a Dream charity) top management team will have to strategies the project and provide decisions on time so that other functional management level can deliver the required resources on time and at the right quantity. Also, other stakeholders such as (suppliers) will provide technical requirements for the project.

Moreover, there are other intervening groups who will play their role in making this project reality. For example, the community in terms of all other attendees whom their contribution from buying the commemorative t-shirts will help to cover up all the necessary costs.

Last, project team members coming from the charity and expert volunteers will provide multiple skills and work together to make the project success.

Project manager understands the reason to define project scope using input from all stakeholders sufficiently at the early stage of the project. Accurate information is used to identify all work to be performed so that major changes can be avoided, resulting in protecting the project performance (Gibson et al., 2006).

Further, failure to consider and clarify a stakeholder expectations and concerns at an early stage in this project scope can result in risks being ignored and may lead to difficulties in executing the project, hence poor performance therefore the project manager needs to define the project scope properly to satisfy both stakeholders and the project execution (Atkinson et al., 2006).

Limits and exclusions

The project lists all requirements that are not included within it, for instance items that are currently unavailable but are required for the successful completion of the project. Further, resources that are available but not needed and items that are unavailable, but can be replaced with a substitute.

Due to budget the project understands the need to limit labor, so administrating the event’s activities, maintenance of grounds, security and the preparation and selling of snacks and beverages will be performed by assigned dedicated project team members.

The project will not include transportation service to and from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, therefore all attendees should plan their own means of transport.

In addition, there will not be any extra charges rather than a payment for a t-shirt which all registered attendees agreed to buy before 31st August.

Further, bad weather cannot be avoided therefore it may limit the number of attendees on the day. Budget for additional services, family oriented event and the fact that the event will only be executed in one day result into limitations as well.

Therefore to sum up, this document argument is that generally project management team needs to obtain accurate information that can help in concentration of getting a complete picture of the event since it may need further refining as the project progresses.

Also, forecasting and identification of cost escalation are of paramount important, as of equal importance is the planning of a project so that the planned completion dates can be achieved.

Further by enhancing engagement from critical stakeholders the project may achieve effective planning, implementation, procedure for managing scope and targeted costs.

In addition project manager should understands how to solve the problem of scheduling and selecting project portfolios since it is useful because it can allow the uncertainty associated with some of the constraints and limitations to be addressed.