Case Study 1

Manchester United Soccer Club

Nicolette Larson was loading the dishwasher with her husband, Kevin, and telling him
about the first meeting of the Manchester United Tournament Organizing Committee.
Nicolette, a self-confessed “soccer mom,” had been elected tournament director and
was responsible for organizing the club’s first summer tournament. Manchester United Soccer Club (MUSC),
located in Manchester, New Hampshire, was formed in 1992 as a way of bringing recreational players to a higher
level of competition and preparing them for the State Olympic Development Program and/or high school teams. The
club currently has 24 boys and girls (ranging in age from under 9 to 16) on teams affiliated with the New Hampshire
Soccer Association and the Granite State Girls Soccer League. The club’s board of directors decided in the fall to
sponsor a summer invitational soccer tournament to generate revenue. Given the boom in youth soccer, hosting
summer tournaments has become a popular method for raising funds. MUSC teams regularly compete in three to
four tournaments each summer at different locales in New England. These tournaments have been reported to
generate between $50,000 and $70,000 for the host club. MUSC needs additional revenue to refurbish and expand
the number of soccer fields at the Rock Rimmon soccer complex. Funds would also be used to augment the club’s
scholarship program, which provides financial aid to players who cannot afford the $450 annual club dues. Nicolette
gave her husband a blow-by-blow account of what transpired during the first tournament committee meeting that
night. She started the meeting by having everyone introduce themselves and by proclaiming how excited she was
that the club was going to sponsor its own tournament. She then suggested that the committee brainstorm what
needed to be done to pull off the event; she would record their ideas on a flipchart. What emerged was a free-for-all
of ideas and suggestions. One member immediately stressed the importance of having qualified referees and spent
several minutes describing in detail how his son’s team was robbed in a poorly officiated championship game. This
was followed by other stories of injustice on the soccer field. Another member suggested that they needed to quickly
contact the local colleges to see if they could use their fields. The committee spent more than 30 minutes talking
about how they should screen teams and how much they should charge as an entry fee. An argument broke out over
whether they should reward the winning teams in each age bracket with medals or trophies. Many members felt that
medals were too cheap, while others thought the trophies would be too expensive. Someone suggested that they seek
local corporate sponsors to help fund the tournament. The proposed sale of tournament T-shirts and sweatshirts was
followed by a general critique of the different shirt’s parents had acquired at different tournaments. One member
advocated that they recruit an artist he knew to develop a unique silk-screen design for the tournament. The meeting
adjourned 30 minutes late with only half of the members remaining until the end. Nicolette droves home with seven
sheets of ideas and a headache. As Kevin poured a glass of water for the two aspirin Nicolette was about to take, he
tried to comfort her by saying that organizing this tournament would be a big project not unlike the projects he
worked on at his engineering and design firm. He offered to sit down with her the next night and help her plan the
project. He suggested that the first thing they needed to do was to develop a WBS for the project.
1. Make a list of the major deliverables for the project and use them to develop a draft of the work breakdown
structure for the tournament that contains at least three levels of detail. What are the major deliverables associated
with hosting an event such as a soccer tournament?
2. How would developing a WBS alleviate some of the problems that occurred during the first meeting and help
Nicolette organize and plan the project?

3. Where can Nicolette find additional information to help her develop a WBS for the tournament?

4. How could Nicolette and her task force use the WBS to generate cost estimates for the tournament? Why would
this be useful information?
Case Study 2

The Home Improvement Project

Lukas Nelson and his wife, Anne, and their three daughters had been living in their house for over five years when
they decided it was time to make some modest improvements. One area they both agreed needed an upgrade was the
bathtub. Their current house had one standard shower bathtub combination. Lukas was 6 feet four, and could barely

squeeze into it. In fact, he had taken only one bath since they moved in. He and Anne both missed soaking in the
older, deep bathtubs they enjoyed when they lived back East. Fortunately, the previous owners that built the house
had plumbed the corner of a large exercise room in the basement for a hot tub. They contacted a trusted remodeling

contractor who assured them it would be relatively easy to install a new bathtub and it shouldn’t cost more than
$1,500. They decided to go ahead with the project. First the Nelsons went to the local plumbing retailer to pick out a
tub. They soon realized that for a few hundred dollars more they could buy a big tub with water jets (a Jacuzzi).
With old age on the horizon a Jacuzzi seemed like a luxury that was worth the extra money. Originally the plan was
to install the tub using the simple plastic frame the bath came with and install a splash guard around the tub. Once
Anne saw the tub, frame, and splashguard in the room she balked. She did not like how it looked with the cedar
paneling in the exercise room. After significant debate, Ann won out, and the Nelsons agreed to pay extra to have a
cedar frame built for the tub and use attractive tile instead of the plastic splashguard. Lukas rationalized the changes
would pay for themselves when they tried to sell the house The next hiccup occurred when it came time to address
the flooring issue. The exercise room was carpeted, which wasn’t ideal when getting out of a bathtub. The original
idea was to install relatively cheap laminated flooring in the drying and undressing area adjacent to the tub.
However, the Nelsons couldn’t agree on the pattern to use. One of Anne’s friends said it would be a shame to put
such cheap flooring in such a nice room. She felt they should consider using tile. The contractor agreed and said he
knew a tile installer who needed work and would give them a good deal. Lukas reluctantly agreed that the laminated
options just didn’t fit the style or quality of the exercise room. Unlike the laminated floor debate both Anne and
Lukas immediately liked a tile pattern that matched the tile used around the tub. Anxious not to delay the project,
they agreed to pay for the tile flooring. Once the tub was installed and the framing was almost completed, Anne
realized that something had to be done about the lighting. One of her favorite things to do was to read while soaking
in the tub. The existing lights didn’t provide sufficient illumination for doing so. Lukas knew this was “non-
negotiable” and they hired an electrician to install additional lighting over the bathtub. While the lighting was being
installed and the tile was being laid, another issue came up. The original plan was to tile only the exercise room and
use remnant rugs to cover the area away from the tub where the Nelsons did their exercises. The Nelsons were very
happy with how the tile looked and fit with the overall room. However, it clashed with the laminated flooring in the
adjacent bathroom. Lukas agreed with Ann, that it really made the adjacent bathroom look cheap and ugly. He also
felt the bathroom was so small it wouldn’t cost much more. After a week the work was completed. Both Lukas and
Anne were quite pleased with how everything turned out. It cost much more than they had planned, but they planned
to live in the house until the girls graduated from college so they felt it was a good long-term investment. Anne had
the first turn using the bathtub followed by their three girls. Everyone enjoyed the Jacuzzi. It was 10:00 p.m. when
Lukas began running water for his first bath. At first the water was steaming hot, but by the time he was about to get
in, it was lukewarm at best. Lukas groaned, “After paying all of that money I still can’t enjoy a bath.” The Nelsons
rationed bathing for a couple weeks, until they decided to find out what if anything could be done about the hot
water problem. They asked a reputable heating contractor to assess the situation. The contractor reported that the hot
water tank was insufficient to service a family of five. This had not been discovered before because baths were
rarely taken in the past. The contractor said it would cost $2,200 to replace the existing water heater with a larger
one that would meet their needs. The heating contractor also said if they wanted to do it right, they should replace
the existing furnace with a more energy efficient one. A new furnace would not only heat the house but also
indirectly heat the water tank. Such a furnace would cost $7,500, but with the improved efficiency and savings in the
gas bill, the furnace would pay for itself in 10 years. Besides, the Nelsons would likely receive tax credits for the
more fuel-efficient furnace. Three weeks later, after the new furnace was installed, Lukas settled into the new
bathtub. He looked around the room at all the changes that had been made and muttered to himself, “And to think
that all I wanted was to soak in a nice, hot bath.”

1. What factors and forces contributed to scope creep in this case?

2. Is this an example of good or bad scope creep? Explain.

3. How could scope creep have been better managed by the Nelsons?