Managing a Course Planning Project

In the previous chapters, we have outlined the requirements for good courses, discussed how to set good courses and how the course should be adapted to the requirements of making the event friendly to TV-viewers, media and spectators.

However, a crucial prerequisite for being successful as a course planner is the course planner’s ability to work with people fulfilling many other roles in the organisation and thus make sure high quality is preserved throughout by systematically removing any possible cause of failure.

These roles must be well defined in the organisation

· Course Planner as described in section 3

· The course controller, who acts as a coach and a challenger in the early phases of the work and an independent controller and/or monitor of the controlling work in the later phases of the work. This role may be undertaken by a National Controller, a Day controller or a third person. But for one specific race this role must be clearly allocated to one single person

· Test runner – A skilled orienteer running the course long time before the competition with the aim of giving feedback to the course planner about things that worked well and things that could be improved – and feedback as to whether the winning time is expected to be met.

· Check runner - A skilled orienteer running the course with the actual competition map in the early morning of the race day (after the e-card readers have been placed) looking for everything that might not be correct. Calls the Course Planner immediately if something is wrong.

· Event Adviser role – as a minimum (IOF Competition Rule 31.8), the EA

o approves the courses after assessing their quality, including degree of difficulty, control siting and equipment, chance factors and map correctness

o checks any course splitting method and course combinations

· The National Controller assists the Event Adviser (31.4) and the way in which the EA liaises with the planning team needs to be established at an early stage.

The Course Planner and the Course Controller work together throughout the project, whereas Test runners and Check runners are called upon at specific times.

The key element of course planning is to start early enough and allocate sufficient time for the work. The Course Planning Project Management Tool is an Excel workbook that is recommended for all course planners to use. It includes a Timing-sheet with a list of actions to be managed from the early start until the event is over. Many roles in addition to those above are found in the sheet. The Course planner should identify the owners of those roles in due time before the activity is to be done.

The Course Planning Project Management Tool has several tabs in the workbook. When using these tabs consistently, the Course Planner and the Course controller have a common framework for making sure that all issues are dealt with.

In the Timing-tab of the tool, the first column indicates before which of the SEA visits in a HLE, the task is scheduled to have been performed. Ideally, the SEA will take out the checklist during his/her visit and receive verification and proof that the tasks have been completed.