Could you narrow your question down a bit? At the moment, you're asking for a post covering German naval grand strategy, tactics and ship design theory, information that usually requires books.

Depending on the definition of challenging it did no such thing. Tirpitz (the main figure behind the german fleetprogramm) plan was not to surpass the british fleet, but to force them to keep such a large part of their forces in the north sea (if they wanted to fight Germany) that they wouldn't be able to uphold their global commitments (so called Risiko-Strategy).

This is an impossibly broad question to answer properly. I'd recommend you read The Great War at Sea: A Naval History of the First World War by Lawrence Sondhaus.