Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games, Athens 2004 (ATHOC)

The design and implementation of a successful management communication system.

The Client

ATHOC was the organization responsible for delivering the 2004 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in Athens. The event, which was preceded by 4 years of intensive preparation, spanned 17 days and involved 11,000 athletes from 202 countries competing in 301 events in 28 Olympic sports across 35 venues.

The Challenge

In Athens, there were 38 inter-related programs, 1,200 projects and 5,500 key milestones. There was a vital need to achieve visibility of progress across such a complex set of disciplines. To create an operating framework that allowed management to facilitate and coordinate communication and control over a myriad of programs and projects allowing the team to make informed decisions.

Other key challenges included:

• To achieve visible progress across such a complex set of disciplines for such an international large-scale event
• The need to foster confidence in executive management that there were checks and balances in place at all levels
• To provide understanding and insight of key issues and/or blockers, which were inhibiting individual and crossprogram success

The Pcubed Solution

Pcubed designed an appropriate program management process enabling communication of status and the escalation of issues across the entire organization in a simple and structured manner. In addition, Pcubed designed and implemented an enterprisewide Digital Dashboard for sharing project data. This solution, based on established Microsoft products, employed real-time update cycles and provided targeted reporting, accessible across the whole ATHOC organization, from the President and executive directors to the individual project managers. In support of the planning tools and process, Pcubed also implemented:

• An issue management system that allowed the tracking of critical problems within each program
• The ability to report on the actions being taken to resolve them
• A systems to provide prior warning of any issues which required escalation to achieve completion
• Standard Microsoft tools and Dashboard technology that satisfied the client requirements for a low cost of ownership and for simple-to-use applications that would scale up across the enterprise

Key elements of the solution included:

• Accelerated start-up:Facilitated the planning processes across all programs and projects helping to develop the communication and sharing of plans across the delivery teams
• Shared goal:Created a shared view and understanding for all parties involved in the program, including the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Greek Government
• Common standards:Coordinated planning with all project managers, directly via a series of training courses
• Improved focus:Enabled the top executives to target their time on resolving the most critical issues
• Managed change:Allowed key changes to be managed in a more visible way and improved the response to unplanned and unforeseen events
• Enhanced delivery:Showed significant improvements in program delivery, e.g., 95% monthly milestone completion rate against forecast compared with previous rate of 65%
• Better visibility:Provided real-time and simple-to-use reports with The Dashboard and status updates of all programs to every Program and Project Manager