Organizing Committee for the 2006 FIFA World Cup

The implementation of program and project management processes and tools to support the event's entire organizational system.

The Client

The FIFA World Cup Finals tournament is the pre-eminent football event in the world, next only to the Olympic Games in its scale, complexity and global profile. The tournament was held in Germany in 2006, featuring 32 teams playing in 10 venues across the country over a 4-week period.

The Organizing Committee was responsible for planning and preparing the infrastructure (including stadium, accreditation and ticketing systems, event management, and cultural programs) and then delivering the event. It worked in close association with FIFA, the world governing body of the sport.

The Challenge

The Organizing Committee had to prepare a tournament in which 64 matches were played over just 30 days across 12 different sites. This is the equivalent of preparing two F.A. Cup Finals per day across 12 venues. The opening events had to take place on June 8, 2006 and the final had to take place on July 9, 2006. Adherence to strict timelines was imperative. The profile and the logistics of the tournament are enormous. A television audience in the billions watched the matches and over 3.3 million spectators attended, whose transport to and from venues, their comfort and security were all planned meticulously.

Other key challenges included:

The total Program was made up of 21 separate work streams, with significant interaction and dependences between them. This presented the Organizing Committee with a set of business challenges it had to address as it prepared its delivery:

• Stakeholder Management:How to manage complex interactions between stakeholders both internal and external
• Planning:An understanding was needed on how to plan effectively at all levels
• Control:How to help the Executive Board control all aspects of the activities with a simple and direct reporting format
• Visibility:Key issues needed to be escalated visibly and quickly to the Executive Board for resolution

The Pcubed Solution

Because of their success with the Athens Olympic team, Pcubed was chosen by the Organizing Committee planning team to help them deliver the overall Program by introducing an effective, customized project management approach. This was accomplished in an innovative collaborative way through the deployment of the following components:

• The establishment of specific project and work breakdown structure, dependencies and plans
• The strict alignment of all the workstream projects inherent to the operation
• The overall support of the planning team to implement an effective management structure for the whole organization that focused on delivery of objectives
• The implementation of the project management processes and tools to support overall governance of the organization
• The ability to provide the LOC Executive Board with visibility of how the Program is progressing and supporting the decisions through a simple and focused reporting format
• To initiate project management coaching and mentoring to project managers as required
• To assist in developing project management capability across the Program through structured training along with the tools that support the process

Key elements of the solution also included:

• Transparency to Program stakeholders of progress across all projects based on real-time facts and information
• Acceleration of decision making through increased understanding and collaboration of remote managers and stakeholders
• The enablement of early identification and escalation of any problems that impact Program delivery
• The linkage of all data through Microsoft Enterprise Project to increase understanding and awareness of all issues and risks impacting the programs
• The linkage of all data through Microsoft Enterprise Project to increase understanding and awareness of all issues and risks impacting the programs
• The creation of a single repository to capture and monitor information that allows the management team to initiate the right decisions and improve chances of success