The world organisation for Football, FIFA, is hosting the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand from 20 July to 20 August 2023. To date the event has been a sporting and commercial success, with ticket sales far exceeding event projections.

Leading up to the event there were some challenges with the development of the ticket sales platform, with cost blowouts and adjustments required to ensure sales for each event complied with differing Australian and New Zealand event laws. The managers at FIFA are reviewing the 2023 project process and want to learn from this experience so they won’t repeat the same issues when the Men’s World Cup occurs in 2026. This event will be held across Mexico, USA and Canada.

The ticket platform needs to be able to accommodate fans from across the world, although the preference is to allocate more tickets to international visitors. This ensures more fans travel to the event and spend money in the local economies. The platform must accommodate the different football stadiums that will host games as well as different ticket types for fans: adult, child, and amenity categories for those with physical and sensory disabilities. The platform must accommodate the different rules around ticket purchase limits and reselling tickets that are in place in each country hosting the World Cup. FIFA will also need a dedicated ticket reselling platform that aligns with the original ticket sales platform. This will help reduce private reselling of tickets.

The team at FIFA cannot agree on the best methodology for building the new platform. The Event managers want to make sure the platform is performing as expected by the ‘go live’ date. Managers from the finance team want to ensure there are no cost overruns. Managers from the marketing team want to make sure there are no limitations to accessing tickets from a geographic perspective. The Risk managers want to make sure the platforms comply with relevant laws in each country, and the mistakes from the 2023 platform build are not repeated. Some senior managers do not believe a new project design is required at all. After all, FIFA already has a platform built for the 2023 event. Why not continue with that?

You have been asked to provide advice to FIFA on the best way forward from a project methodology perspective.

Review the case study above and provide a written response to the following. 

1. Provide a short explanation to the FIFA management team on why a new project design is required. In your answer, consider the critical factors you would consider in designing this project and assess the suitability of each major project management methodology covered in this subject (traditional, iterative and incremental, and lean). Which methodology would you recommend applying and why? 

2. Evaluate the time-quality-cost triangle for this project and explore how adjusting one arm of the triangle (time, quality or cost) would impact the other arms of the triangle and the overall project. Outline how you would manage impacts to any of the arms of the time-quality-cost triangle

3. You need to justify to the FIFA management team that hiring a project manager is crucial for the project’s success. To do this, outline the benefits of having one, the critical skills they could bring to the project and how they might need to adapt their style to the recommended project management approach. Ensure your response is connected with the particular aspects of the case study

4. Many projects today bring together a combination of elements from the three core methodologies. If you were to design this project using a combination of methodologies, which aspects would you choose, and why? How would your approach address the challenges of the project?