2.1 Olympic Games
Olympic Games are the most important multi-sport event in the world, which are divided primarily in summer and winter editions, where adults and youth Games are performed. Summer and Winter Games happen every four years, which means that every 2 years an Olympic event is carried out.
The International Olympic Committee is Olympic Games rightsholder, meaning that for being able to host one edition of The Olympics, cities have to participate in the bidding process. The host city election takes place seven years before the Games, but the actual candidature process is launched 10 years before and lasts for a period of approximately three years (International Olympic Committee, 2016). Olympic and Paralympic Games happen in the same city, one after another, with an interval of few weeks between then. For example, in summer Games, Olympic Games happen in August and Paralympics in September. Olympic Games, in general, must demand a huge investment from the host city to build venues according to the Olympics standards (The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, 2013).
The Olympic Games as a megaproject is complex and demands an extensive usage of project management since bid process (Gargalianos, Toohey, & Stotlar, 2015) to give confidence to stakeholders about the feasibility to deliver it.
Minimally, time, cost, scope, and quality must be managed in Olympic Games project environment in utmost professional manner (Eager, 1997).
The Olympic Games have been increasing every edition in cost, size, and complexity (Chappelet, 2014), which rises the demand for professional management including project management, human resources management, facilities management, decision making, and transparency.
Promptly after the selection of the host city an Organizing Committee for Olympic Games, named OCOG, entity is established to manage the event from the end-to-end perspective. In the course of its function, OCOG develops many different functional areas to oversee specific subjects and externally states thousands of contractual relationships at local, state, national, and international levels, which intensify a lot the organizational complexity of the event (Gargalianos, Toohey, & Stotlar, 2015).
Olympics staging is a project that must be managed professionally by the Organizing Committee for Olympic Games, which is a specific purpose organization that has to be managed with high level of transparency and professionalism to deliver the most important and seeing multi-sport event in the world. Deliver the Olympics in the high-level standard, as required by stakeholders, entails a huge effort, engagement, and commitment from the entire OCOG.