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OPM Project:
Starting a CLIMBING CLUB
“Dragon Climbers”
at Drexel University
Project managed by:
Laali Al Ali
Nadezhda Todorova
Stoyan Vasilev
The goal of this project is to start an indoor climbing club at Drexel University. Since
Drexel does not have a climbing club, a group of students decided to create a club to
bring climbing lovers at Drexel together and allow them to practice their favorite sport.
The climbing club allows its members to participate in climbing activities and provides
training for beginners. It offers member students discounts and other perks. There will
also be various social events that aim to bring members and other interested students
together and promote the club to the Drexel community.
Work Breakdown Structure
The founders of the club constructed a work breakdown structure (Appendix A) that
shows the tasks that need to be done in order to establish the club and accomplish the
final task of holding an opening ceremony for the climbing club members. A work
breakdown structure divides a project into more detailed components. It is critical to
managing a project and scheduling success. The team decided to break the major
subcomponents into 4 main categories: legal, financing, marketing, and facility planning.
Legal:
To establish the club, the team has to meet the requirements of the Office of Campus
Activities. First, they research the requirements of creating a student organization through
the Drexel website. Once they know how many founding members they need initially to
start the club, they start recruiting the members who will serve in the board of the
climbing club. The board members then meet to write the constitution for the club which
has to be approved by the Athletics Department. After that, the board members will be
assigned positions within the club board. An introductory meeting is then scheduled to
discuss the responsibilities of each board member. Once the constitution is approved by
the Athletics Department, a Drexel faculty member is chosen as the advisor for the club.
Financing:
The first step to determine the budget needed for this project is budget forecasting. After
an amount is estimated for the budget, the board members meet with a Student Activity
Fee Allocation Committee (SAFAC) liaison to discuss the funding needed. After that, an
events calendar is planned to determine the events and activities that the club will host.
Then the members have to file the budget proposal and wait until it is approved by
SAFAC. Once it is approved, they will be able to obtain the SAFAC funding. When the
funds are received, they should be distributed to each division within the club. Then the
team will be able to determine how much money they have for the activities division. An
event price allocation is necessary to determine the expenses and budget needed for each
event. It is also important to contact outside sponsors and collect donations as additional
funding for the club.
Marketing:
It is important to promote the climbing club as much as possible in order to attract new
members to join. A vital step is to place ads in newspapers such as the Triangle. Other
methods of promotion are distributing flyers around campus and placing banners on
Drexel web pages. Once the club has more exposure around campus, recruitment and
information sessions are conducted to sign up new members and answer any questions
about the club. The team will also promote at major university events such as prospective
student days and orientation days.
Facility Planning:
The first step in facility planning is determining the equipment needed based on the
number of members and activities that will be held. Once the type and number of
equipment is determined, board members research the equipment prices and vendor
offers and choose the retailers they aim to purchase from. Then they select the equipment
needed from the store and negotiate discounts to get better price deals. Once a deal is
reached, an order is placed for the equipment needed and the equipment is delivered.
Also, training assistants are hired to be able to help students who are beginners to
climbing. When all is set, an opening ceremony is hosted which includes a BBQ and the
first climbing event for new student members.
Gantt Chart / Network Diagram
Gantt chart (Appendix B) and Network Diagram (Appendix C) are methods for
presenting the activities involved in the project based on the prepared Work Breakdown
Structure. They enable the team to interpret the information about the duration, the
sequence and total slack of the activities (Appendix E). They also provide details about
the total length of the project, as well as the percentage of the activities that should be
completed at a given moment. A prepared calendar (Appendix D) also shows an overall
overview of the activities and the dates in which they start and finish.
After a careful research of the requirements for creating a sports club at Drexel
University, the managers of the project needed to estimate the amount of time that was
necessary for completion of the project before its deadline. The planning was executed on
the basis of the expert opinion of our advisor and on interviews with founders of other
organizations in our university. With the help of the gathered information the
management team is confident in the efficiency with which they will be able to budget
their time and resources.
Inspection
Performing inspection is very important as it allows the team to evaluate the progress in
the project and determine any problems or delays that need to be resolved. On 07/04/08,
the team conducted inspection of the processes and realized that the project is behind
schedule (Appendix F). The reason for this delay is that an unexpected large number of
students signed up. Due to the ongoing process of new members signing up, equipment
planning, which determines the amount of equipment needed based on the number of
members, has been delayed. Thus, the team needed to recalculate the amount and cost of
equipment to be ordered once the number of current members is finalized.. Because of
the delay in this critical activity and because all the activities that followed were critical,
there was a delay of 2 days for the whole project. In this case, the team had to use
crashing as a solution.
Crashing
The board members were aware that in occasions like this the method that had to be
implemented to solve this delay was crashing (Appendix G). The principles of crashing
state that only critical activities can be crashed one at a time, based on their marginal
cost. Unfortunately, the project was already in a very advanced stage of completion and
there were very few options of activities to be crashed. “Researching equipment prices
and vendor offers” and “Delivery of equipment” were the possible choices for
downsizing. Their marginal costs were $30 and $32, which placed “Researching
equipment prices and vendor offers” on the first place to be crashed, followed by
“Equipment planning” which will be crashed second. The crashing expenses will increase
our total cost of the project by $62.
Conclusion
Methods such as the Work Breakdown Structure, Gantt Chart and Network Diagram have
helped the team organize the project and follow a specific process to form the climbing
club. They also allowed the team members to monitor their progress and determine the
duration and slack of each activity. After performing an inspection, the team realized that
they were falling behind due to a delay in equipment planning. The team decided to solve
this problem using the crashing method which allowed them to complete the project in
less time, however, increasing the final cost of the project. The team did not have a
problem funding this extra cost of crashing because they expected some set backs in the
progress of the project. The whole project plan enabled the team to keep a close eye on
the project status and have an overall look of the expected progress.
In order to improve this project, if it would be done again in the future, the team would
conduct weekly meetings to discuss the progress of the project and predict any set backs
that can be avoided. This would allow the team to be updated on the overall progress of
the project at each stage and avoid any delays that might affect activities that follow, as
well as the cost of the crashing expense.
Appendix
Appendix A: Work Breakdown Structure
Work Breakdown Structure for Creating a Drexel Climbing Club
Drexel Climbing Club
Legal Facility Planning Marketing Financing
Researching requirements Recruiting founding members Constitution write-up Assigning board member positions Introductory meeting Constitution approval Designating advisor
Equipment planning Researching equipment prices and vendor offers Equipment selection Discount negotiations Placing equipment orders Delivery of equipment Hiring climbing assistants Opening ceremony
Placing ads in newspapers Distributing flyers around campus Placing banners on Drexel web pages Conducting recruiting sessions Promoting at major university events
Budget forecasting Meeting with SAFAC liaison Planning events calendar Filing budget proposal Obtaining university SAFAC funding Distribution of funds Events price allocation Contacting outside sponsors Collecting donations
Appendix B: Gantt chart
Appendix C: Network Diagram
Appendix D: Calendar
Appendix E: Gantt chart (Total Slack)
Appendix F: Gantt chart (Inspection)
Appendix G: Crashing Schedule
Activity Normal Time Crash time Normal cost Crash Cost Crashing cost per day Total Slack Critical
Recruiting founding members 4 3 $125 $156 31 0 days Yes
Constitution write-up 2 2 $200 $225 0 2 days No
Assigning board member positions 1 1 $50 $80 0 0 days Yes
Introductory meeting 1 1 $100 $130 0 0 days Yes
Constitution approval 4 3 $210 $230 20 2 days No
Designating advisor 2 2 $175 $215 0 2 days No
Budget forecasting 6 5 $220 $240 20 0 days Yes
Meeting with SAFAC liason 1 1 $120 $145 0 0 days Yes
Planning events calendar 4 3 $100 $135 35 0 days Yes
Filing budget proposal 1 1 $75 $90 0 0 days Yes
Obtaining university SAFAC funding 5 4 $230 $255 25 0 days Yes
Distribution of funds 2 2 $167 $190 0 0 days Yes
Events price allocation 3 3 $120 $143 0 0 days Yes
Contacting outside sponsors 5 4 $200 $223 23 21 days No
Collectting donations 5 4 $173 $196 23 21 days No
Placing ads in newspapers 2 2 $230 $258 0 10 days No
Distributing flyers around campus 4 3 $145 $165 20 8 days No
Placing banners on Drexel web pages 3 3 $80 $102 0 9 days No
Conducting recruiting sessions 5 4 $113 $129 16 8 days No
Promoting at major university events 7 5 $221 $246 12,5 10 days No
Equipment planning 3 2 $231 $267 36 0 days Yes
Researching equpment prices and vendor offers 4 3 $145 $175 30 0 days Yes
Equipment selection 2 2 $110 $148 0 0 days Yes
Discount negotions 2 2 $75 $106 0 0 days Yes
Placing equipment orders 1 1 $50 $79 0 0 days Yes
Delivery of equipment 5 4 $249 $281 32 0 days Yes
Hiring climbing assistants 3 3 $184 $206 0 14 days No
Opening ceremony - BBQ and first climbing event 1 1 $245 $278 0 0 days Yes