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Blog posted by: Paul Bradley - Managing Director, SPOCE, 13 October 2017.

I received the Project Mandate in October 2016.  It was clear and concise. “Run the Bournemouth Half Marathon on 8 October 2017 and raise awareness and funds for Target Ovarian Cancer”.

Starting Up A Project process was triggered and I created the Project Brief. The main features from this are:

• Objectives: To raise awareness and funds for Target Ovarian Cancer by completing the Bournemouth half-marathon 8am on Sunday 8 October 2017.
• Customer Quality Expectations:
  • Get sponsored to raise funds.
  • Finish the race in a respectable time.
  • Raise awareness about the symptoms of ovarian cancer.
• Acceptance Criteria:
  1. Raise a minimum of £400.
  2. All training activity must be completed wearing the Target Ovarian Cancer vest.
  3. As a minimum, post 6 updates on each of the Facebook and Twitter platforms to show the symptoms of ovarian cancer.
  4. Complete the 13.1 miles within 2 hours and 30 minutes.
• Outline Business Case:
  • Costs: Effort, commitment and dedication to the training.
  • Benefits: £400 funds will be raised for Target Ovarian Cancer.
  • Dis-benefits: You may suffer a small amount of social disruption due to training. In other words, the Gin and Tonic has to wait until you return from evening training.
  • Outcome: More people (both women and men) will have more awareness to the symptoms of ovarian cancer which will result in earlier diagnosis for many.
• Outline Plan
  • April-June: 5km training, twice per week.
  • July-August: 5km & 10km training, twice per week.
  • September: 15km training once per week.
  • October 2017 – 10km training on 3, then the half-marathon on 8 October.

Initiating a Project and Managing a Stage Boundary processes followed, which was essentially confirming the outputs from Starting Up a Project. The main development of information was defining the next stages in more details – i.e. the training plans. The Communication Management Approach was created to establish Facebook and Twitter updates throughout the training.  There was also to be updates posted on the Just Giving page.

Controlling A Stage: Delivery Stage – April 2017. This all started very well. A few 10km-20km bicycle rides built some fitness in my legs, and then a couple of 5 and 6km runs gave me some confidence for the running.

The Communication Management Strategy was consulted, and a post to the Just Giving page boasted how well the training was going (I was only a couple of weeks in at this point), when an over-confident wave came over me and a bold statement was posted about completing the race in less than 2 hour!  Lesson learned – do not unnecessarily change the criteria just to make yourself look like a hero!

Towards the end of April, I completed a 10km in 56 minutes, and remained confident about the 2 hours completion time, again, posting updates to Facebook (via the Runtastic App) and to Twitter. So far so good.

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