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Final Project Red Bull Stratos
Project Management (MGT 3920)
University of Lethbridge
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Running head: RED BULL STRATOS 1
Red Bull Stratos Project: Project Management Techniques and the Benefits They Serve Team 2 University of Lethbridge
Project Management Techniques and the Benefits of Using Them The Red Bull Stratos Project was a successful space diving project that took place on October 14, 2012 with the help of the Red Bull team and other well-known sponsors (Red Bull Stratos, 2012). It consisted of a 65 year-old Austrian skydiver, Felix Baumgartner, who chose to free fall 36 000m over New Mexico, United States, with the purpose of transcending human limits, delivering valuable data for future space exploration, and marketing for Red Bull projects (Red Bull Stratos, 2012). This project broke the speed of sound by free fall and brought together knowledge from individuals involved in aerospace, medicine, engineering, and pressure suit development, which included capsule creations and balloon fabrication and the design to improve the scientific understanding of how the body copes with the extreme conditions near space. The process of coming up with the project involved a lot of organization and communication between the intellectual organizations and members and sponsors. This project took approximately five years of training and preparation (Red Bull Stratos, 2012). After the rigorous preparation, the mission was achieved. A number of project managing tools and techniques where crucial and needed for this big and volatile project. The initiating process, involved the search of possible stakeholders that would take part of the project and provide the necessary help to make this mission happen. Coming up with the idea of a free fall activity had several pros and cons and a lot of questions regarding how it would be done. They looked for all solutions possible in order to succeed. Risk, time, and stakeholders management definitely took up a lot of coordination in order to fulfill not only the stakeholder’s expectations, but to be able to transmit the whole point of the project to the public in an achievable manner.
Project Time Management Time management is an extremely important part for a project that has a small window to close. The Red Bull Stratos Mission had to consider seasonal changes and weather, meaning that the presenter, Baumgartner, had be ready, trained, and in top physical form when that window arose. This was achieved by the development of a project schedule from the results of the Project Time Management Planning Tasks. These tasks included the following: Defining activities. In order to create a schedule, the first step is to define all of the activities that are needed to get to the finished product. By incorporating the scope statement, which defines a baseline for performance measurement and project control and aids in communicating clear work responsibilities, and the work breakdown structure (WBS), which is the grouping of the work involved in a project, a set of defined in-scope activities can be created. Defining activities consists of creating an activity list and providing the appropriate activity attributes. The activity list is a tabulation of all the activities that are to be included in the project schedule and the attributes provide schedule-related information about each activity (Schwalbe, 2010). Defining the activities benefits the overall project as it ensures that the project team members have a complete understanding of all the work they must do as part of the project scope so that the work can begin to be scheduled (Schwalbe, 2010). To ensure that all of these defined activities are accounted for, a milestone list was created (Schwalbe, 2010). A milestone is a significant event on a project that will display the completion of a work package or phase. Including milestones in the project schedule benefited the Red Bull
Project in that it allowed the company to take corrective actions if a problem were to arise, ensuring that the final deliverable date was not scrutinized in any way. Sequencing activities. Once the defining activities are complete, the activities can be reviewed to determine the relationships between each activity. A relationship relates to the sequencing of project activities and has a significant impact on developing and managing the project schedule (Schwalbe, 2010). The main output of sequencing activities is a network diagram. A network diagram is a visual display of the coherent relationships midst the project activities (Schwalbe, 2010). The Red Bull Project Team created a precedence diagramming method (PDM) network diagram, in that it is useful for picturing the different time dependencies that include finish-to-start: a relationship in which a successor cannot start until the predecessor is complete, start-to-start: a relationship in which the successor activity cannot start until the predecessor activity begins, finish-to-finish: a relationship in which the successor activity cannot finish before the predecessor activity finishes, and start-to-finish: a relationship in which the successor activity cannot finish before the predecessor activity starts (Schwalbe, 2010). By use of sequencing, the Project Team can benefit by understanding which activities have to be finished before another can start, which activities must be done in parallel, and which activities can overlap (Schwalbe, 2010). By knowing this, the activities start and end time can be correlated to its relationship with its predecessors and successors. This allowed the project team to ensure that the activities were being complete in the most efficient time possible to meet the deliverable.
Project Quality Management Due to it’s high-risk, the project must ensure that what is created during execution, is fit for use during closing (Schwalbe, 2010). Since there is a large customer requirement, the quality of the products will be defined based on fitness for use. The product must do what it is intended; take a man into space and free fall at top speeds for scientific research and product marketing. It is the quality management plan that will define how the management team will apply quality policies (Schwalbe, 2010). The quality management plan will include standards for the suppliers of the equipment as well as metrics for internal and external stakeholders that will allow for supplier quality and control. It will also ensure that the project is creating an overall buzz of the umbrella corporation’s product, Red Bull Energy Drink. Red Bull Stratos will display a basic overall project dashboard on their internal SharePoint site for all project members to see and a more descriptive departmental dashboard for project managers (see Appendix B). Red Bull Stratos will use a dashboard as it has a visual appeal and combines the status of multiple projects, giving insight into the multiple projects that are happening. The Red Bull Stratos team has to ensure that the high risk tasks of the project are completed exactly how they are intended to be. Among others, this includes ensuring that Baumgartner is ready for his descent. This was accomplished through the use of a 39-step safety checklist (see Appendix C) that was completed before depressurizing the capsule, sliding open the round door, and stepping of the external platform (Red Bull Stratos, 2012). A checklist is a list of items to be noted or consulted (Schwalbe, 2010). They assist project teams in verifying that a set of required steps
have been completed (Schwalbe, 2010). This checklist was an important piece that consisted of careful consideration that ensured Baumgartner made it back to Earth in one piece. Risk Management Project risk management is key to project success and crucial in keeping all stakeholders satisfied before, during, and after project completion. Good risk management can give the team the confidence they need to support the project. The Project Management Institute (PMI) characterizes a project risk as an uncertainty that can have negative or positive effects on meeting project deliverables (Schwalbe, 2010). The Red Bull Stratos Team managed the various risks associated with the project by implementing a risk management plan. This outlined how risks would be managed would be performed throughout the project lifecycle (Schwalbe, 2010). The Red Bull Stratos team’s risk management plan considers the methodology for risk management, roles and responsibilities, budget and schedule estimates for risk-related activities, and probability and impact matrices. The risk management plan sections are described below. Methodology. A methodology describes the steps that will be taken to manage risk. The project managers reviewed data related to other projects with similar associated risks. These projects included shuttle launches by NASA, which integrated high safety and reputational risks as both projects were displayed on a global scale. Based on this research, the project team used various project management tools and techniques, which included brainstorming, surveys, and risk-related checklists to support in the risk management process (Schwalbe, 2010).
Point, 2014). It is important to allocate the appropriate budget with project time segments. Risk probability and impact. Every project has inherent risks, though they can differ in magnitude and likelihood. Fortunately, a risk matrix can be employed to identify and assess each individual risk identified in a risk register (see Appendix D and E). The matrix itself functions by correlating the probability of the occurrence and the overall impact on the project in the case of an occurrence, resulting in potential risks being assigned an overall risk level. The Red Bull Stratos project manager implemented a risk matrix to create visibility, promote discussion, provide consistency in prioritizing risk, and focus decision makers’ attention on the highest priority risks (Talbot, 2014). Project Stakeholder Management Because of the risks associated with this project, the need for effective stakeholder management was paramount. The number of individual stakeholders in this particular project was huge, with over 5 million viewers on YouTube as the end customers. Having broken three world records; this particular project drew a massive amount of attention. This was the intention of the corporate project sponsor, Red Bull, and it took careful management of the different groups of stakeholders in order to move the dream into reality. Relationships with suppliers of high-tech balloon and space suit firms were necessary, and a team of hundreds of specialists was on staff to fuel this project into a success. Government approval and cooperation also had to be acquired, and the team ended up working hand in hand with the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to monitor the mission (Red Bull Stratos, 2012). Stakeholder management was key in the success of this project.
The project team was made up of 300 people, many of them scientists and engineers (Tierney, 2012). These highly specialized men and women worked for five years to complete this project (Tierney, 2012). One of the most important roles of the stakeholder management plan would have been to ensure proper communications among, and to, the myriad stakeholders. These many staff would have been privy to different levels of knowledge about the project, but their communication and knowledge of project activities would have been essential to their perspective roles. Email, face to face meetings and teleconferencing were methods of communication that were primarily used. It would have been important to keep in mind that for the most part these tech minded individuals would lean towards more advanced, and efficient, means of communication. One of the stakeholders who were most important to keep on their side would be the FAA. The FAA’s involvement was integral in ensuring the balloon used to transport Baumgartner was not in danger of being hit by other aircrafts (Red Bull Stratos, 2012). This administration is a regulatory government body, so they would have had to of been consulted for many months, if not years before the actual jump in order to have their cooperation. The FAA would be an example of a high-power, stakeholder. With the expected exposure of this publicity stunt, the FAA would have also been very interested in ensuring that their bases were covered in terms of regulating the operation. Therefore, it was essential to maintain a strong relationship in order to have their support in this endeavor. This project involved the use of technology intensive gear. The suit that Baumgartner wore on the trip was designed by the David Clark Company, and was a
in actually viewing the jump on YouTube, or other social media, was key for the project sponsor, Red Bull, to deem this project a success. For the viewership that this jump actually ended up receiving, the vast majority of it was through word of mouth. There were many individuals who did not actually hear about the jump until it had already happened. Red Bull relied on the buzz created by the jump to actually advertise the jump, and while this project was considered a success in the eyes or Red Bull, in that it caused great commotion, involving the large number of external stakeholders earlier in the project would have increased their Twitter and YouTube views twofold. If Red Bull were to ever take on a massive project such as Stratos again, we would recommend advertising the jump beforehand, using the revenue made from advertisements to help fuel the project. Organizations such as Virgin have done this with Virgin Galactic which has been advertising space flight for the everyday human being for years, bringing in revenues without actually carrying any passengers into space. By implementing better use of a stakeholder register and stakeholder management strategy, the management team could have been reminded to focus on each stakeholder, based on a priority inclined by their level of interest and level of influence, and their impact to the project. Improve Equipment Quality The use of the 39-step checklist insured a safe and secure procedure to be completed prior to the initial launch of the project. The checklist included things such as equipment, quality, pressure changes, and things to be monitored as the jump would begin. The checklist provided the foundation and set the standard for future projects over the next five years by giving the project management team the tools and
knowledge of how to make the equipment better and provide higher standards of safety. For example, at approximately halfway through the jump, Baumgartner lost control and began spinning uncontrollably. Luckily, he managed to regain control after spinning for a few thousand feet. A quality assurance aspect to this would be to include a suit that automatically stabilizes the individual and a small hard drive or computer device to monitor altitude and control as the decent begins. In addition, a computer-controlled and altitude guided parachute would be crucial in order to increase safety. Increasing security and safety for future projects will develop a strong reputation for Red Bull and it’s for projects as it helps identify them as a company that is willing to go to the extremes, as well as providing top-quality and safety measurements for its members that are willing to partake in such projects. As much as the project was considered a success, the end result could have been catastrophic. The suit was not made to mitigate all risks – and perhaps should have been a must before sending a man into space to freefall. Take Advantage of Previous Success In order to achieve a successful and reputable project, there has to be a sufficient amount of resources, collaboration between sponsors, and risk management. As previously stated, the risks regarding the economics of the project are high; this leads to a challenge against the development of the project because the economic resources will not allow the project to move forward. Thankfully, the Stratos jump became a huge success and opened the doors for future opportunities for bigger potential projects, which will soon become widely available and likely to be accepted due to the interest in atmospheric exploration, along with the scientific data it may bring.
Conclusion Red Bull Stratos was so successful in part by its efficacious use of project management tools. The planning phase was crucial to provide safe execution and in doing so ensured that Baumgartner was in his top physical form at the same time that the project team was ready to safely allow him to jump from space. Planning involved timing activities to meet a deliverable date by considering the risks and needs of all stakeholders; a tremendous thing to accomplish. By implementing our recommendations, Red Bull will continue to have success in their projects to come.
References Associiated Press. (2013, October 27). Google executive skydives from edge of space, sets record. Retrieved from people/article/google-executive- sets-skydiving-records Caffeineinformer (2013). Top selling energy drink brands. Retrieved from caffeineinformer/the-15-top-energy-drink-brands Haughney, D. (2014). RACI matrix. Retrieved from projectsmart.co/raci- matrix King, M. (2013). Global energy drinks industry. Retrieved from uk.finance.yahoo/news/global-energy-drinks-industry- 000000042 Nachrichten. (2012). Red Bull Stratos: High billion advertising value. Retrieved from nachrichten/sport/mehr_sport/Red-Bull-Stratos-Milliardenhoher- Werbewert;art109, Project Smart. (2014). Lessons learned: A cost-effective project management tool. Retrieved from projectsmart.co/lessons-learned.php Red Bull Stratos. (2012). High altitude balloon. Retrieved from redbullstratos/technology/high-altitude-balloon/ Red Bull Stratos. (2012). Meteorology. Retrieved from redbullstratos/science/meteorology/ Red Bull Stratos. (2012). Pilot training. Retrieved from redbullstratos/about-felix/pilot-training/
Appendix A Red Bull Stratos Project Triple Constraints
Appendix B Red Bull Stratos Project Dashboard (Marketing) Target Actual Status Twitter Followers 780000 82000 Drink Sales (MM) 3250 3500 Stratos Cost (MM) 25 50
1 - Oct
12 3 - Oct
12 5 - Oct
12 7 - Oct
12 9 - Oct
12 11 - O ct- 12 13 - O ct- 12 15 - O ct- 12 17 - O ct- 12 19 - O ct- 12 21 - O ct- 12 23 - O ct- 12 25 - O ct- 12
720000
740000
760000
780000
800000
820000
840000
Twitter Followers (October 2012)
Followers Linear (Followers)
17501905201120122013
2000
2250
2500
2750
3000
3250
3500
3750
Energy Drink Sales (MM)
Sales (MM) Linear (Sales (MM))
Final Project Red Bull Stratos
Course: Project Management (MGT 3920)
University: University of Lethbridge
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