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Project Management in Sports

Name

Institution

Background

Sports similar to the kind of reforms that are known today is was formed in the Britain during the 18th century. Sports have evolved in a big way since their formation in the 18th century necessitating needs for project management. In the early sporting community, there were less teams involved and the timelines were not as they are today. Sport was regarded as a leisure activity then, but now it has evolved to being a serious and high paying profession that is guided by tough rules. There were lose forms of associativity for sports. During this time there two models of sports existed which are the Anglo-Saxon world which the clubs and were free and independent where there was freedom of the speech and association. As time went by Europe came up with a sport model which was based on close cooperation and subordination to the state and its demand for military preparedness. Many of the states adopted the ideology. Towards the end of the 19th century the two models with some advocating of the England developed model and others for the continental model. In today’s world all the modern sports are organized in the hierarchical structure within clubs and at the top with governing federations or respectively associations. Currently the modern sports is commercialized and run professionally.

Project management refers to set of skills that one uses to the complete a project. The project management skills ensures that the goals of the project are successfully met and begins with the planning phase and ends with the project closure phase. It ensures that errors are minimized during the project and the project timelines are met in time. Like all other disciplines, project management skills are required in today’s world. For one to succeed in sports and particularly the high performing sports, there is need to the work in a particular manner. It is particularly important to complete specific deliverables in a certain time. For this is to be achieved there is a step by step work that needs to be executed in the right manner or format. It is important to point out the fact one could be lucky by working or instinctively training correctly. While doing this the structured and systematic approach is always encouraged. The lack of systematic approach in the area increases chances for failure. For the high level sports, the major focus in normally on better performance or being successful in other means. The success of every level is often essential and for one to achieve this, they are required to adopt unique approaches for a defined period of time, targeting specific areas as means to improve their strengths. It is for this reason that project management skills are of great essence in the sporting field (Mallen, & Adams, 2017). With major sporting events such as Olympics, world cup, premier league among other leagues, there is need to adopt strategic planning to ensure that these events are a success (Cucui &Cucui, 2016). With the significance of the sporting events in the world, it is important to have project management to ensure that things operate in a smooth way.

Aims and Objectives of the study

The major aim of this research proposal is to determine the effective of project management in the sporting industry. The study will evaluate the significance of planning, scheduling, cost control and leadership present in sports filed.

Research Objectives

The research objectives of the study will be as follows:

· Identify the effectiveness of the project management in cost allocation in the sporting programs

· Identify the relationship between project management and planning of sporting events

· Identify the success rates of project management in monitoring of project management

Research Question

1. Do project management helps to reduce the cost associated with sports

2. Do project management help to ensure proper planning and execution of the sporting events

3. Does the project management help to ensure sporting events are well on schedule

4. Does project management help in project performance optimization

Research Gap

Plenty of the research on impact of project management has been conducted in various fields. There is little research that has been done on the impact of the project management on the sporting industry. Plenty of the research touches on the project management in business, arts and science, but fail to touch on sports. The notion for this could be attributed to the fact that most of the individuals or researchers do not regarded sporting industry as a business or project. They do not take into consideration the various sporting events being held each year as projects and that their success is majorly attributed to the well planned calendar. Success is not by default, but rather as a results of the well planned projects to ensure that they all run smoothly to the point they are completed (Kirby, Duignan & McGillivray, 2018).

Project management in sports varies with other professions in a great way. It is important to point out running projects in other fields requires one to have common methods and bases of complex knowledge, especially if the project is complex and requires huge use of finance or could have a great impact. There exists some difference in sport project management and other project management. The major difference is brought about by the fact the project event for example do not allow flexibility to respect to time and scope. In most of sports project, there are more costs associated with the project than planned something that majorly happens during the major events. The aspect of project performance optimization allows for flexibility of scope to certain extent and time, but for most of the time, costs are normally a limiting factor. This is majorly because the sports projects are always dependent on other interdependent projects and also runs on a limited budget. There is the unfortunate practice of the quality for the project event and thus events are not rated to be totally successful. Individual human beings form the core of the project with most parts of the project depending on it. The huge risk are found on human being on areas such as the health, motivation and environment. There is need for sports project to balance both the athletes and the general public. Since the human being is at the center of the sports project, most of the cost and expenses are directed to them.

Significance of research

In the modern sports the projects exists in various dimensions. In the traditional lens the a sporting event was considered to be one big project that has stages or phases to secure, together with a project team, a successful production of specific events such as the World Championships. There are always plenty of challenges both in terms of logistics with the main focus being the human resources, budgets, cost and the marketing. The performance in these events are measured in the quality of the event which include fair competition, performance friendly environment for athletes and the no schedule variance. The public feedback is the key type of measure. The assessors which are majorly the public and the audience and the international sporting bodies together with the sponsors. In the current environment the TV plays a huge role in influencing the sporting events. In the high level sporting events, there exist complex international rating system. The performance on the highest level, spectator friendly atmosphere and TV coverage are import together with plenty of other factors. The economic effects of these sporting events are enormous and requires the project to be well laid out from the beginning to the end (Greenwell, Danzey-Bussell, & Shonk, 2019).

All the sporting events comprise of smaller events which ultimately translate to larger events. For championships, the games could begin with the league matches where teams earn points and finally truncate to the huge championship towards the end which could depend on who earns the highest points or go into the knock out stages depending on how the matches are laid out. Different sports have different approaches or ways in which to plan their events (Emery, 2017). It also means that they differ in their objectives. For the events to be achieved, there is need for effective planning on how the resources are going to be used and how long the tournament is also going to take. The planning process is the most complex process in the sporting events. Apart from the scope planning, there is the cost estimation, identification of risk and the budgeting. Risk identification is very essential in this process and begins with activity definition and the activity sequencing. In the highly performing fronts optimization projects rely on the right activity to be carried out by both the athletes and the staff with expertise. The planning phase is critical and there is need for the presence of the human resource and the involved specialist in every step of the project. The sporting industry is still limited in high level specialists. A proper risk identification and use of the reliable cost estimation are necessary in order to avoid unexpected changes of scope or early project termination. Underestimation could ruin the projects quality while overestimation would negatively impact on the budget. Communication is key to the planning phase and of great importance for the team, even if they are globally dispersed (Greenwell, Danzey-Bussell, & Shonk, 2019).

The success of the sports begins acquiring the project, team develop the team and managing the team. If in any instance the best possible project team is acquired, developed and the motivated, there is a higher chances of the obtaining better results. In the executing phase of the project, the difference can be made and the entire project can be controlled. It is important to point out the fact that the actual performance on the day is majorly depended on the external factors and the human beings themselves. It is important to have a qualified project leader in the executing phase (Emery, 2017). In the sports sector the execution phase majorly involves plenty of field work with the people that are involved with the project directly which include the athletes and staff. The time consuming things includes the communication and distribution of information to the actual project team. The project sponsor do not have any information and provided with the specific know how, which needs to be regularly updated. The media could play a huge role and could also play an interest on the project progress. It is important, however, to keep the confidential information within the project team, while at the same time fulfilling the public interests such as transparency (Greenwell, Danzey-Bussell, & Shonk, 2019).

Project management involves monitoring and the controlling. The proper scheduled and controlled methods can be measured using professional selection of test san the controlling techniques. In every project, there is need for performance reporting (Greenwell, Danzey-Bussell, & Shonk, 2019). Reporting majorly aims to verify information, provide recommendations and conduct corrective actions. For effective monitoring and the controlling of the sports project work and management of the project team, needs have to be regularly identified. When it comes to sports milestones are normally presented in the form of completion, setting of the controlling progress, but also in order for one to control projects, one should have effective controlling in place, also outside competitions. For one to have controlling methods, respecting the age of involved athletes is necessary and not typical for project management. The closing process is normally neglected in sport. This allows for systematic reviews and the collection of the lessons learnt in order to improve future projects and increase the quality process (Emery, 2017)

References

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