Jennifer DiTomasso Jacobsen
U63594427
January 31, 2005

Case Study: South American Adventures Unlimited

1. To what extent does project management apply to Adventures Unlimited?

Each one of their tours is an individual project, since each has a beginning, middle, and end, which have classic project phases, including a definition or selection phase, a planning phase, and an execution phase. Project management involves budgeting of resources, and their resources include their administrative staff and tour guides. In addition, project management includes project selection: the Rodriguezes need to be able to accurately anticipate the costs of each tour that they consider undertaking, so that they may make wise decisions about which tours to operate. Project management includes financial analysis, for instance calculating the net present value of each tour that they are considering offering. In addition, since their tours involve many details, the project planning methods taught in project management would be helpful for them as well. Using gantt charts to plan out the details of each tour would help them to avoid problems that they have had in the past, for instance, having missed a train connection in Blanco Puente. Project planning with Gantt charts would also help them to clearly delineate the details involved for each tour, and to be able to not only plan the logistics of each detail, but anticipate the cost of it as well.

2. What kind of training in project management should the Rodriguezes, the administrative staff, and tour guides receive to improve the operation of Adventures Unlimited? Try to identify major topics or skill sets that should be addressesd.

▪ Project planning training would allow them to effectively manage the many details of each of their tours. Training in developing work breakdown structures and gannt charts would help