QSO 645: Project Mgmt for PMP Certification
Professor Arrington
Southern New Hampshire University
May 17, 2026
NFL Next Gen Stats: Planning, Budget, and Risk Analysis
, Planning Measures
Schedule
The NFL Next Gen Stats (NGS) platform followed a phased life cycle model where minimum
viable capabilities were delivered incrementally before gradual layers of complexity were added
across following seasons. The NFL felt it was best to use this incremental delivery strategy.
Planning began in 2013 with feasibility and design work, then later transitioned to a preseason pilot
across select stadiums in 2014, and reached full league-wide deployment in time for the 2015
regular season. Two parallel workstreams governed the schedule: a hardware installation track
managed through Zebra Technologies and a software development track managed in collaboration
with Amazon Web Services. Stadium installations were clustered geographically rather than
attempted in parallel nationwide, allowing specialized teams to fully complete and validate one
cluster before mobilizing to the next, reducing the risk of quality degradation from overstretched
personnel (Frackman, 2017). On the software side, iteration cycles were aligned to the NFL's
annual calendar, with new analytics features released each offseason to give franchise staff enough
time to acclimate before the following season. Effective schedule management requires activity
sequencing that accounts for both resource constraints and technical interdependencies (Larson
and Gray, 2018).
Discrepancies
The most significant schedule discrepancy occurred during hardware installation, where antenna
array calibration at certain stadiums proved to be a lot more technically complex than originally
estimated. Unique architectural characteristics also created signal propagation challenges that pre-
deployment modeling had not fully anticipated, extending installation timelines and forcing repeat
site visits (Frackman, 2017). A second source of discrepancy was stakeholder-driven scope
Professor Arrington
Southern New Hampshire University
May 17, 2026
NFL Next Gen Stats: Planning, Budget, and Risk Analysis
, Planning Measures
Schedule
The NFL Next Gen Stats (NGS) platform followed a phased life cycle model where minimum
viable capabilities were delivered incrementally before gradual layers of complexity were added
across following seasons. The NFL felt it was best to use this incremental delivery strategy.
Planning began in 2013 with feasibility and design work, then later transitioned to a preseason pilot
across select stadiums in 2014, and reached full league-wide deployment in time for the 2015
regular season. Two parallel workstreams governed the schedule: a hardware installation track
managed through Zebra Technologies and a software development track managed in collaboration
with Amazon Web Services. Stadium installations were clustered geographically rather than
attempted in parallel nationwide, allowing specialized teams to fully complete and validate one
cluster before mobilizing to the next, reducing the risk of quality degradation from overstretched
personnel (Frackman, 2017). On the software side, iteration cycles were aligned to the NFL's
annual calendar, with new analytics features released each offseason to give franchise staff enough
time to acclimate before the following season. Effective schedule management requires activity
sequencing that accounts for both resource constraints and technical interdependencies (Larson
and Gray, 2018).
Discrepancies
The most significant schedule discrepancy occurred during hardware installation, where antenna
array calibration at certain stadiums proved to be a lot more technically complex than originally
estimated. Unique architectural characteristics also created signal propagation challenges that pre-
deployment modeling had not fully anticipated, extending installation timelines and forcing repeat
site visits (Frackman, 2017). A second source of discrepancy was stakeholder-driven scope
