Analyzing Lean Project Management for FIFA World Cup 2018 Success

This case study analyzes the application of lean project management principles to the FIFA World Cup 2018, focusing on improving performance and effectiveness. It explores the 'voice of the customer,' critical customer requirements, and critical-to-quality parameters. The study examines various ways to implement lean project management, including waste reduction, continuous improvement, and streamlined sales and customer services. Furthermore, it discusses project management methodologies such as PMBOK and PRINCE2, along with organizational project management, Agile practices, and Six Sigma, to optimize project implementation. The case study provides a comprehensive overview of strategies for minimizing waste, enhancing quality, and ensuring customer satisfaction within the context of a large-scale event like the FIFA World Cup.

CASE STUDY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
a. Voice of the Customers......................................................................................................1
b. Critical to customer requirements......................................................................................2
c. Critical to quality parameters..............................................................................................3
ii) Ways to implement the lean project management for this event.......................................3
iii) Processes that could use for lean project implementation................................................5
PMBOK..................................................................................................................................6
PRINCE2................................................................................................................................7
Organisational Project Management....................................................................................11
Agile practices......................................................................................................................11
Six Sigma..............................................................................................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Project management is the systematic procedure of initiating, planning, organising,
evaluating and controlling specific activities and tasks of a team to achieve special goals and
meet precise criteria within definite time period. There are various kinds of applications,
methods and strategies to initiate the project for accomplishing all requirements. Lean project
management is a technique of lean concepts that the main objective is delivering more value with
less wastage in a project implementation. The term lean refers to a method for elimination of
wastage from manufacturing system.
The present report discusses several approaches of lean management to improve
performance and effectiveness of FIFA 2018 World Cup Football Tournament. It was 21st FIFA
World Cup Football Tournament contested by Men's National teams. In addition to this, several
applications such as PMBOK, PRINCE2, Organisational Project Management, Agile practice
and lean six sigma that could be implemented in the project to overcome wastage from operation
and manufacturing system, continuous improvement, streamlined sales and customer service.
MAIN BODY
In the present scenario, FIFA 2018 World Cup Football Tournament match has been
organised in Russia (Brioso, 2015). In order to improve performance and effectiveness of this
event, task manager have several responsibilities and roles regarding functions and activities.
The tasks of project manager to implement lean project management for overcoming wastage
and improve value of project.
The manager can focus and understand the following terms regarding FIFA 2018 World
Cup Football Tournament-
a. Voice of the Customers
Voice of customer encompasses the process of gathering and understanding a consumer
feedback so they can response directly to improve the product and purchasing experience. Voice
of the customer is a term used in information technology and business to describe in-depth
process of capturing customer's expectations, requirements, choices and preferences.
In FIFA tournament, there are various kinds of customers such as sponsors, audiences,
football team, football committees, media, public, government etc. It is a market research
technique that provides information regarding customer’s needs and wants. At the time of
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organising FIFA 2018 World Cup Football Tournament, the project manager can effectively
focus on the voice of customers by which he/she can identify as what customers actually expect
from event and what they desire from this program.
In the context of FIFA 2018, customers require a well-structured team structure, proper
schedule of program, proper arrangements like accommodation, transportation and infrastructure
so as they can effectively enjoy the tournament program. Consideration on voice of customer is
important to increase revenue, reduce costs and promote culture change.
b. Critical to customer requirements
Critical customer requirement is a customer expectation regarding an aspect of product
and service. It is a measurable standard of performance for a product and service that are
essential in order for it to meet the needs of customers. As there were various divisions to look
out for this event such as sponsors, audiences, football team, football committees, media, public,
government.
Sponsors are those investors who invest their money for getting effective returns.
Customer requires effective safety and security regarding place and field. They also need safe
and athletic fields and the project manager must follow all health, safety and liability
requirements. For tournament, customers require proper availability of water and toilet at field
sites. It should be communicated to guests about basic facilities like wash room, water,
refreshment etc.
Furthermore, there should be proper facilities of accommodation and transportation so as
customers can easily stay. They also require fair and affordable prices for tickets of tournament.
Another customer for this event is football team who requires well and systematic structure of
team, effective infrastructure, detail information regarding rounds and activities, operational
working environment and facilities etc. Football committee requires proper registration of
football membership.
At the time of organising FIFA event, the project manager can focus on the registration
and rostering process under which all participants can complete the Russia ultimate waiver form
and purchase a valid Russia ultimate membership (Sohi & et.al., 2016). Another customer is
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media which requires exact info and facts regarding FIFA world cup event time, schedule, tickets
availability, location, venue, team members name, size of team etc.
c. Critical to quality parameters
Critical to quality are the key measurable characteristics of a product and process whose
performance standards or specification limits must be met in order to satisfy customers. This
technique is often used as part of six sigma methodology to aid prioritizing such requirements. It
reflects the expressed requirement of customers regarding quality of products and services
Project manager can effectively consider various aspects of quality parameters for
improving all elements and features related to FIFA World Cup 2018. Quality is another
significant term that must have focus at the time of initiating project management plan. In this
event, manager can consider several parameters such as good planning, appropriate
communication, managing stakeholders, constant review, high quality of outcomes, proper
scheduling etc. This event has been organised with help of proper plan. Cycle of planning, doing,
checking and acting upon is fundamental to achieve desired quality of project. In the entire task,
manager and team has maintained this standard throughout the complete cycle (Cooper, 2017).
Another quality parameter in this lean project is appropriate communication. In this aspect,
task manager needs excellent communication skills to provide all relevant information to
stakeholders of project. Furthermore, another quality parameter for organising event is managing
stakeholders.
Effective customer satisfaction is another quality parameter in this project. It is very
important to gratify all participants of FIFA World Cup. In addition to this, revenue and
profitability is another quality parameter through which the event manager can measure the
performance.
ii) Ways to implement the lean project management for this event
In present scenario, project manager is required to use and implement several approaches
and techniques of lean project management for minimising wastage and increasing quality of
event. Manager could use several approaches, applications and techniques for improving quality
and decreasing wastage from the event.
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The following are some ways and areas to implement lean project management in context
to organise FIFA 2018 World Cup Football Tournament.
 Reducing waste caused by excess inventory and minimise labour
expenditures related to unnecessary motion- Lean project management
aim is to eliminate wastage within manufacturing system that can cause by
excess inventory and minimise labour expenditure related to unnecessary
motion. The main aim of lean project is to overcome littering of wastage
and improve quality of project. By focusing on the waste reduction from
operation and manufacturing procedure, the project manager can
implement lean project management for enhancing quality of event
program that is FIFA world cup match. In this technique, project manager
can compare existing inventory with sales data before production to
decrease the volume of excess inventory. By overcoming excess
inventory, project manager can able to decrease cost of operation and
improve quality of customer service of event. In addition to this, manager
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Illustration 1: Process to implement lean project
Source: Process to implement lean project,2017

can eliminate unnecessary movement of goods by reducing labour cost.
This can help manager in saving their expenditure and enhance profit by
this event. In order to implement this strategy within event, manager can
use the ERP system.
 Continuous improvement and decrease transportation related waste-
This is another way for implementing lean project management in order to
overcome waste from project. Lean is not a one-time project and it is not
ever finished. Continuous improvement is a methodology within lean
manufacturing that advocates following a formal practice or an informal
set of rules and guidelines. In order to implement this, project manager can
focus on the continuous improvement. This way can help the manager to
reduce wastage from operations and enhance the quality of activities and
functions. Project manager can decrease waste by route deliveries via the
most direct, the most time efficient route. Project manager can choose the
modality that is the most cost effective and reliable. This will aid in
destruct the need to rush order to compensate for poor planning and also
carry out entire procedure in smooth manner to meet customers’
expectations.
 Streamlined sales and customer services- This is another criteria and can
implement lean project management under which manager delivers
excellent customer services and satisfaction. When waste is removed from
customer services process then mistakes and cost can automatically get
declined. In this aspect, project manager can also emphasis on the
customer relationship management approach as internal operations.
Project manager can centre on the actual demands of customers and
deliver services them accordingly. This implements the lean project
management for event by which effectiveness of program and customer
satisfaction can be improved.
iii) Processes that could use for lean project implementation
As per the above discussion, it has been analysed that there are various areas and ways to
implement lean project management for improving effectiveness, quality of FIFA tournament.
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Following are some other strategies to implement this lean project management-
PMBOK
PMBOK stands for project management body of knowledge and it is a collection of
processes and knowledge areas that is accepted as the best practice in the project management
profession. This application recognises the five basic process groups that is initiating, planning,
executing, monitoring and controlling and closing (Process of PMBOK, 2017). There are various
unique project management tools that includes critical path, work break down structure etc.
There are various stages that could be used by manager for improving quality of event
and eliminating wastage- Initiating- In this phase, manager can develop the objective of FIFA tournament (Stark,
2015). The main objective is to attract large numbers of audience and earn maximum
profitability. He/she defines a new project to all members and design its objective. Planning- Project manager focus on the course of action that is required to achieve
objective. In this phase, executor considers several requirements for events such as risk
identification, stakeholder participation, resource allocation, development of strategies,
communication etc. Executing- In this stage, manager finally execute the entire plan and organise the event
of FIFA world cup in Russia. The Tournament has organised on Thursday when host
Russia takes on Saudi Arabia at 11.00 am. In order to promote this plan, manager can use
social media and print media. Monitoring and controlling- Once the event organises then manager can monitor and
evaluate the performance of this event in this phase. Manager can assess whether
objective is achieved or not (Brioso, 2015).
 Closing- In this stage, the manager could perform to finalise all activities regarding
event.
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PRINCE2
It is a structured project management method and practitioner certification programme. It
divides projects into manageable and controllable stage. This technique was developed as a UK
government standard for information system projects.
It is based on seven principles such as continued business justification, manage by
stages, manage by exception, focus on products, tailor to suit the project environment, learn from
experience, define roles and responsibilities etc. (Basu, 2017) In addition to this, it includes
seven themes such as business case, organisation, quality, plan, risk, change and progress. By use
of several processes in this technique such starting, initiating, directing, controlling, managing
and closing, lean project manager can easily implement project and improve quality and
overcome wastage. This technique can help to manager in defining roles and responsibility
among team and manage all activities along with effective stages.
Following are various stages of PRINCE2 implementation-
 Starting- This is one of the most significant stage in the project management in
which project manager have to set objective and goal (Sunder, 2016). Its main
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Illustration 2: PMBOK
(Source: Process of PMBOK, 2017)

objective is to enhance awareness among audience about football tournament,
entertain participants in large manner, recognise country’s image in the world,
generation of national income and revenue, developing social qualities such as
tolerance, sympathy, cooperation, group cohesion, processing national integration as
well as international unity and brotherhood etc. (Process to implement lean project,
2017). In order to accomplish project objective, use of various principles and
approaches of lean project management can be done. In this phase, manager can also
consider various stakeholders such as government, employees, guest, customer,
investors etc. that are very important for organising event.
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 Initiating- Once the objective set then the project manager focuses on requirements
and voice of customers for FIFA tournament. As participants require proper
information about all activities and functions of event, thus they need effective
arrangement and facilities such as seating, water, accommodation, health and safety,
food and catering, availability of tickets etc. (Badiru & Osisanya, 2016). In this phase
of lean project implementation, project manager will fulfil all requirements of
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Illustration 3: Prince 2
Source: Prince 2, 2017

customers regarding this tournament. In this phase, he/she used varieties of sources in
order to implement FIFA world cup match. Executor can use several sources such as
financial, technical, human resources etc. for lean project management
implementation.
 Directing- In this stage, manager can focus on the ways by which activities and
functions of the project can easily initiate. Various kinds of risk can easily identify in
this stage so as event can effectively organise. Risks such as financial, human,
technical, scoping, scheduling, designing and legal risk. All these may impact on
overall success of project of FIFA tournament (Kerzner, 2017). Risk register and
mitigation strategy could be used by project manager for overcoming them. In this
stage, he/she provides all information regarding event to all team members. It is
important to deliver data related to project such as objective, strategy, venue, time,
schedule, plan to all team members so as they can effectively implement this lean
project.
 Controlling- In this stage, project manager finally considers on the quality of lean
project and eliminate wastage from operations and manufacturing. Project managing
director can also use several techniques of lean task management. These techniques
main aim is to improve quality of project and overcome additional cost and wastage
from operation and manufacturing.
 Managing product delivery- In this stage, the project manager finally looks toward
the monitoring and controlling. It is great responsibility of project manager to analyse
the effectiveness of event (Anholon & Sano, 2016).
 Managing stage boundaries- In order to implement lean project management,
manager should properly communicate to all participants about schedule and time of
event. In this phase, project manager communicates the information about event to all
stakeholders that it begins on Thursday when host Russia takes on Saudi Arabia at
11.00 am. In this tournament, 32 team included and total 64 matches has played in 12
venues across the 11 cities.
 Closing- After measuring the performance of project, manager finally wind up the
procedure of event. In last phase, all necessary requirements are effectively fulfilled
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