Game Plan
Hosting the World Cup requires more than just building some stadiums.
And right now, South Africa is playing defense on charges that many of its mega-projects are running behind schedule and over budget.
by Simon Kent
Every four years, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) kicks off its World Cup tournament–when 32 teams from around the globe descend on one country to vie for the glory of walking off the pitch as the undisputed world champions.
To prepare for the tournament, the host country covers a lot of project ground in many fields, from IT efforts that protect against ticket counterfeiting to construction of train systems that cart around the estimated flood of three million fans. And if that's not enough pressure, there are the 30 billion or so TV viewers tuning in at some point during the tournament.
Whether you call it football or soccer, the “beautiful game” brings with it one of the most rabid base of fans–just one of the many stakeholder groups in the World Cup project. To those who may see it as just a game, consider this quote from Bill Shankly, former player and manager of the U.K.’s Liverpool team: “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death. I’m very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.”
There's no doubt the World Cup ranks as one of, if not, the biggest sporting events in the world. However, reports of schedule delays and budget overruns have raised some serious concerns about the state of the 2010 tournament slated for South Africa.
FIFA president Joseph “Sepp” Blatter, who fought hard to bring the tournament to the country, called it the association's “project number one.” And he has roundly quashed any rumors he might move it. “Plan A is South Africa, Plan B is South Africa and Plan C is South Africa,” he says.
Danny Jordaan, the 2010 Bid Company's CEO, remains upbeat: “Over the last two years, we've seen this World Cup really become a project of the nation, building national unity and patriotism,” he says. “It's been a project of generating hope and recasting and repositioning South Africa as a country.”
In the run-up to 2010, the South African government is expected to invest more than R400 billion on infrastructure projects, often developed through private-public partnerships.
South Africa also plans to spend between R2 billion to R5 billion on information and communication technology infrastructure projects, according to allafrica.com. Those could include everything from developing hightech e-tickets to making the host cities wireless.
One such city, Durban, is already making clear progress on that latter goal, according to Jacquie Subban, eThekwini metropolitan municipality head of geographic information and policy. “We are expecting broadband and the likes of hotspots to be the norm in the city by 2010,” she told the audience at the “Connect IT: Joburg 2010” conference.
The expenditures are seen as a way to provide some much-needed upgrades that last far beyond the tournament. Johannesburg Mayor Amos Masondo calls for “meaningful legacy projects,” and certainly one of the most important is a more efficient public transport system.
“For the first time in the history of South Africa, we will have massive investments across all transport systems– passenger rail, taxis, buses and road networks that will form an efficient, affordable and reliable integrated public transport network,” Transport Minister Jeff Radebe told The Associated Press (AP).
Much is riding on the Gautrain Rapid Rail Link. Running at a maximum speed of 160 to 180 kilometers per hour, it will provide services throughout the Gauteng province, linking the metropolitan municipalities of Tshwane, Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni with its international airport and the business and tourist hub of Sandton. Implemented as a public-private partnership, it will include 10 stations, including three underground, and a dedicated bus-feeder service. Originally designed to serve the area for the next 50 to 100 years, the project has now been split into two phases to allow the completion of the first one before the tournament.
“The World Cup has added certain dimensions to this project,” says Johan Venter, Gautrain's project administration manager working for the Gauteng Provincial Government Team. “There is a more prominent sense of urgency among those involved. There have been some complications added because of more stakeholders involved due to the World Cup, but these did not particularly add complexity to the project overall.”
The AP reports the project is “way above budget and behind schedule,” but Mr. Venter is still optimistic. He notes the concession agreement allows for a fixed price and fixed contract period, and is being managed by a dedicated team of qualified professionals.
“Time management is of course the most important of the risks involved, particularly for the phase linked to the World Cup,” he says. “The complexity of the project resulted in a development program that may have more than 65,000 interlinked activities with multiple critical paths. At this early stage, there are already more than 30,000 activities.”
Each step forward requires communication and cooperation among the parties tackling a wide variety of issues, from procuring the required land to assessing the train's environmental impact–particularly noise and vibration.
To ensure the project stays on track, the Gautrain project team has established a comprehensive document-management system that provides for workflows and automatic real-time reports on the status of design submissions and reviews.
Project managers will certainly be at the heart of the train's success on a number of fronts, but their involvement may not be immediately apparent.
“No specific project managers have been appointed in the management structure, and no one is called ‘project manager’ on this project,” Mr. Venter says.
It's one of the game's most sacred objects. So one can only imagine the pressure facing the team at Adidas charged with making a better ball for the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
A core team of six designers, engineers and manufacturers first began work on the project at the end of the previous tournament.
“We started with a SWOT [strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats] analysis on the ball, considering it from a player's point of view, from the point of view of the person watching the game and even the manufacturer,” says Hans-Peter Nürnberg, project manager at Adidas in Herzogenaurach, Germany.
The group knew it had multiple stakeholders to satisfy.
“We wanted a ball that was better balanced and would perform in a variety of situations,” he says. “The ball is used for marketing and merchandise as well as for the games, so it needs to be good enough to work in all those situations.”
Close networking facilitated work between the multinational team–with designers working in the United States, raw materials coming from Germany and manufacturing facilities operating in Japan. Team members were kept in the loop through a combination of face-to-face meetings, “try-outs” with the developing ball and electronic communications.
Despite a strict deadline, the team finished the project on time–and even broke some new ground by creating a ball comprised of 14 propeller and turbine panels rather than the usual 16 or 32 hexagonal ones. It was also assembled by machine rather than sewn by hand.
Just as the tournament is intended to showcase the perfect performance of individual players as a team, so too did the Adidas project. “You could feel how motivated everyone was about working on this project,” Mr. Nürnberg says. “There was an incredible sense of team spirit and cooperation.”
It’s almost like being handed a secret play book. One huge advantage for the host of the World Cup is that the country–and indeed any project practitioner–can draw on lessons learned in past tournaments. Here, a couple of World Cup veterans offer their advice.
“The greatest challenge was to manage so many different projects,” says Heinz Palme, director of Heinz Palme Management in Vienna, Austria, and general coordinator for overall project management of the organizing committee for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. “There are so many different human beings, different characters to manage in a limited time window, but at the same time, you have to keep up tension for the tournament after more than five years of preparation.”
“From my point of view, an early start to planning, a clear strict organization structure and good communication are the keys for success.”
It’s up to the project organizers to devise ways to maintain the momentum once the tournament begins, and part of that comes down to creating and facilitating exceptional team interactions.
“We started to link all our communication with the venues with an extranet solution in 2001-2002,” Mr. Palme explains. “We had regular and efficient meetings with all our heads of departments bimonthly and sometimes even weekly. Our executive board met monthly, so that meant we had a very direct and fast decision-making and communication process.”
Germany also marked the tournament’s first use of digital radio communication technology, allowing clear and reliable communication between local event managers and their staff at all times.
“From my point of view, an early start to planning, a clear strict organization structure and good communication are the keys for success,” Mr. Palme says.
During the 2002 World Cup in Japan and Korea, project organizers had different priorities. Because the country wasn’t as soccer-obsessed as others that had hosted the match, the focus was on selling stakeholders on the project.
“I needed to make sure everyone understood what the World Cup meant,” says Koji Taniguchi, project manager at marketing company Big Shot Inc., Tokyo, Japan, and former producer of promotional projects for the 2002 World Cup.
That meant working to gain the government’s cooperation in facilitating the event. “What I did was to have promotion events together with local governments and local administrative organizations,” he says. “That worked very well.”
“Many people do not fully understand the details of project management as a specific entity–such as detailed work breakdown structures and critical path programming. Notwithstanding, most senior management personnel do see themselves as project managers, and qualified project managers are clearly essential in the team even at lower levels of management.”
At O.R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, a number of expansion and improvement projects are under way. The long list includes:
- Increasing the capacity of the central terminal building
- Expanding the international arrivals and departures areas
- Building a new multistory car park.
The existing roadway system will also need relocating to accommodate departure gate upgrades.
The original master plan for the airport was driven by expected passenger growth–regardless of the World Cup, says David Schoultz, manager of the projects department at Airports Company South Africa in Johannesburg.
With the tournament fast approaching, though, the airport's project schedules have been reassessed. “We have brought forward the completion date of our central terminal building from mid-2010 to the end of 2009,” he says. “We did this to ensure a construction-free airport for 2010–to give visitors to the World Cup an experience of readiness without the perception of last-minute rush to complete.”
In creating the revised schedule, however, Mr. Schoultz and his team have been careful not to disregard potential problems that may occur along the way. “We have still allowed sufficient time to deal with minor adjustments should they be required,” he says. “We have also structured interim completion milestones to ensure a gradual completion rather than a ‘sudden death’ commissioning. This will eliminate the risk of untested systems during the World Cup period.”
Oftentimes, teams must deal with unexpected external factors affecting their projects. In the case of the airport, it was the grand debut of the Airbus A380. The airliner carries up to 50 percent more passengers, which means more World Cup fans pouring into the city at once. And that also means more airport upgrades.
“The increased number of passengers per aircraft poses quite a challenge on existing airport infrastructure,” Mr. Schoultz says. “Airport parking, departing and arriving terminal accommodation has had to be resized to cater for the aircraft.”
The A380 stands are now complete with contact bridges, and new baggage claim facilities are not far behind.
The project also had an aesthetic dimension requiring special attention at the design stage. “One of the other unique challenges that we had to deal with was to create an African theme throughout all of these developments,” Mr. Schoultz adds.
The approach can already be seen in the completed duty-free mall, where the Africa Lounge is decorated with an eclectic mix of colonial, rustic and contemporary African furniture and designs.
Of course, any World Cup needs a place for the players to play. The South African government has earmarked $1.1 billion for stadiums, but here again, rumors run rampant that they won't be completed in time. However, contractors working on the revamp of Johannesburg's 95,000-seat Soccer City, the venue of the opening match and final, maintain it will be complete ahead of the October 2009 deadline.
This project, too, will play up its African heritage, with huge sheets of brown aluminum forming the outer skin, designed to give the impression of an earthenware pot lit from within. “We were looking for an icon, and a food pot is symbolic in Africa,” Danny Jordaan, chief organizer of the World Cup, told the Guardian Unlimited. “It's about sharing, everybody eating together out of the same pot.”
Along with Soccer City, four other arenas will undergo renovations:
- Ellis Park in Johannesburg
- Loftus Versfeld in Tshwane
- Royal Bafokeng in Rustenburg
- Free State Stadium in Bloemfontein.
New stadiums will be constructed in Port Elizabeth and Cape Town, and those in Polokwane and Durban will be rebuilt.
Once the stadiums are done and the first whistle is blown, it's the big-name players, not the project managers, who will get the glory. But project managers are clearly providing that crucial assist to help South Africa score the goal. PM
Simon Kent is a U.K.-based writer who specializes in IT and training.