OPM Project:

Starting a CLIMBING CLUB

“Dragon Climbers”

at Drexel University

Project managed by:

Laali Al Ali

Nadezhda Todorova

Stoyan Vasilev

The goal of this project is to start an indoor climbing club at Drexel University. Since

Drexel does not have a climbing club, a group of students decided to create a club to

bring climbing lovers at Drexel together and allow them to practice their favorite sport.

The climbing club allows its members to participate in climbing activities and provides

training for beginners. It offers member students discounts and other perks. There will

also be various social events that aim to bring members and other interested students

together and promote the club to the Drexel community.

Work Breakdown Structure

The founders of the club constructed a work breakdown structure (Appendix A) that

shows the tasks that need to be done in order to establish the club and accomplish the

final task of holding an opening ceremony for the climbing club members. A work

breakdown structure divides a project into more detailed components. It is critical to

managing a project and scheduling success. The team decided to break the major

subcomponents into 4 main categories: legal, financing, marketing, and facility planning.

Legal:

To establish the club, the team has to meet the requirements of the Office of Campus

Activities. First, they research the requirements of creating a student organization through

the Drexel website. Once they know how many founding members they need initially to

start the club, they start recruiting the members who will serve in the board of the

climbing club. The board members then meet to write the constitution for the club which

has to be approved by the Athletics Department. After that, the board members will be

assigned positions within the club board. An introductory meeting is then scheduled to

discuss the responsibilities of each board member. Once the constitution is approved by

the Athletics Department, a Drexel faculty member is chosen as the advisor for the club.

Financing:

The first step to determine the budget needed for this project is budget forecasting. After

an amount is estimated for the budget, the board members meet with a Student Activity

Fee Allocation Committee (SAFAC) liaison to discuss the funding needed. After that, an

events calendar is planned to determine the events and activities that the club will host.

Then the members have to file the budget proposal and wait until it is approved by

SAFAC. Once it is approved, they will be able to obtain the SAFAC funding. When the

funds are received, they should be distributed to each division within the club. Then the

team will be able to determine how much money they have for the activities division. An

event price allocation is necessary to determine the expenses and budget needed for each

event. It is also important to contact outside sponsors and collect donations as additional

funding for the club.

Marketing:

It is important to promote the climbing club as much as possible in order to attract new

members to join. A vital step is to place ads in newspapers such as the Triangle. Other

methods of promotion are distributing flyers around campus and placing banners on

Drexel web pages. Once the club has more exposure around campus, recruitment and

information sessions are conducted to sign up new members and answer any questions

about the club. The team will also promote at major university events such as prospective

student days and orientation days.

Facility Planning:

The first step in facility planning is determining the equipment needed based on the

number of members and activities that will be held. Once the type and number of

equipment is determined, board members research the equipment prices and vendor

offers and choose the retailers they aim to purchase from. Then they select the equipment

needed from the store and negotiate discounts to get better price deals. Once a deal is

reached, an order is placed for the equipment needed and the equipment is delivered.

Also, training assistants are hired to be able to help students who are beginners to

climbing. When all is set, an opening ceremony is hosted which includes a BBQ and the

first climbing event for new student members.

Gantt Chart / Network Diagram

Gantt chart (Appendix B) and Network Diagram (Appendix C) are methods for

presenting the activities involved in the project based on the prepared Work Breakdown

Structure. They enable the team to interpret the information about the duration, the

sequence and total slack of the activities (Appendix E). They also provide details about

the total length of the project, as well as the percentage of the activities that should be

completed at a given moment. A prepared calendar (Appendix D) also shows an overall

overview of the activities and the dates in which they start and finish.

After a careful research of the requirements for creating a sports club at Drexel

University, the managers of the project needed to estimate the amount of time that was

necessary for completion of the project before its deadline. The planning was executed on

the basis of the expert opinion of our advisor and on interviews with founders of other

organizations in our university. With the help of the gathered information the

management team is confident in the efficiency with which they will be able to budget

their time and resources.

Inspection

Performing inspection is very important as it allows the team to evaluate the progress in

the project and determine any problems or delays that need to be resolved. On 07/04/08,

the team conducted inspection of the processes and realized that the project is behind

schedule (Appendix F). The reason for this delay is that an unexpected large number of

students signed up. Due to the ongoing process of new members signing up, equipment

planning, which determines the amount of equipment needed based on the number of

members, has been delayed. Thus, the team needed to recalculate the amount and cost of

equipment to be ordered once the number of current members is finalized.. Because of

the delay in this critical activity and because all the activities that followed were critical,

there was a delay of 2 days for the whole project. In this case, the team had to use

crashing as a solution.

Crashing

The board members were aware that in occasions like this the method that had to be

implemented to solve this delay was crashing (Appendix G). The principles of crashing

state that only critical activities can be crashed one at a time, based on their marginal

cost. Unfortunately, the project was already in a very advanced stage of completion and

there were very few options of activities to be crashed. “Researching equipment prices

and vendor offers” and “Delivery of equipment” were the possible choices for

downsizing. Their marginal costs were $30 and $32, which placed “Researching

equipment prices and vendor offers” on the first place to be crashed, followed by

“Equipment planning” which will be crashed second. The crashing expenses will increase

our total cost of the project by $62.

Conclusion

Methods such as the Work Breakdown Structure, Gantt Chart and Network Diagram have

helped the team organize the project and follow a specific process to form the climbing

club. They also allowed the team members to monitor their progress and determine the

duration and slack of each activity. After performing an inspection, the team realized that

they were falling behind due to a delay in equipment planning. The team decided to solve

this problem using the crashing method which allowed them to complete the project in

less time, however, increasing the final cost of the project. The team did not have a

problem funding this extra cost of crashing because they expected some set backs in the

progress of the project. The whole project plan enabled the team to keep a close eye on

the project status and have an overall look of the expected progress.

In order to improve this project, if it would be done again in the future, the team would

conduct weekly meetings to discuss the progress of the project and predict any set backs

that can be avoided. This would allow the team to be updated on the overall progress of

the project at each stage and avoid any delays that might affect activities that follow, as

well as the cost of the crashing expense.

Appendix

Appendix A: Work Breakdown Structure

Work Breakdown Structure for Creating a Drexel Climbing Club

Drexel Climbing Club

Legal Facility Planning Marketing Financing

Researching requirements Recruiting founding members Constitution write-up Assigning board member positions Introductory meeting Constitution approval Designating advisor

Equipment planning Researching equipment prices and vendor offers Equipment selection Discount negotiations Placing equipment orders Delivery of equipment Hiring climbing assistants Opening ceremony

Placing ads in newspapers Distributing flyers around campus Placing banners on Drexel web pages Conducting recruiting sessions Promoting at major university events

Budget forecasting Meeting with SAFAC liaison Planning events calendar Filing budget proposal Obtaining university SAFAC funding Distribution of funds Events price allocation Contacting outside sponsors Collecting donations

Appendix B: Gantt chart

Appendix C: Network Diagram

Appendix D: Calendar

Appendix E: Gantt chart (Total Slack)

Appendix F: Gantt chart (Inspection)

Appendix G: Crashing Schedule

Activity Normal Time Crash time Normal cost Crash Cost Crashing cost per day Total Slack Critical

Recruiting founding members 4 3 $125 $156 31 0 days Yes

Constitution write-up 2 2 $200 $225 0 2 days No

Assigning board member positions 1 1 $50 $80 0 0 days Yes

Introductory meeting 1 1 $100 $130 0 0 days Yes

Constitution approval 4 3 $210 $230 20 2 days No

Designating advisor 2 2 $175 $215 0 2 days No

Budget forecasting 6 5 $220 $240 20 0 days Yes

Meeting with SAFAC liason 1 1 $120 $145 0 0 days Yes

Planning events calendar 4 3 $100 $135 35 0 days Yes

Filing budget proposal 1 1 $75 $90 0 0 days Yes

Obtaining university SAFAC funding 5 4 $230 $255 25 0 days Yes

Distribution of funds 2 2 $167 $190 0 0 days Yes

Events price allocation 3 3 $120 $143 0 0 days Yes

Contacting outside sponsors 5 4 $200 $223 23 21 days No

Collectting donations 5 4 $173 $196 23 21 days No

Placing ads in newspapers 2 2 $230 $258 0 10 days No

Distributing flyers around campus 4 3 $145 $165 20 8 days No

Placing banners on Drexel web pages 3 3 $80 $102 0 9 days No

Conducting recruiting sessions 5 4 $113 $129 16 8 days No

Promoting at major university events 7 5 $221 $246 12,5 10 days No

Equipment planning 3 2 $231 $267 36 0 days Yes

Researching equpment prices and vendor offers 4 3 $145 $175 30 0 days Yes

Equipment selection 2 2 $110 $148 0 0 days Yes

Discount negotions 2 2 $75 $106 0 0 days Yes

Placing equipment orders 1 1 $50 $79 0 0 days Yes

Delivery of equipment 5 4 $249 $281 32 0 days Yes

Hiring climbing assistants 3 3 $184 $206 0 14 days No

Opening ceremony - BBQ and first climbing event 1 1 $245 $278 0 0 days Yes