The following entry is a record in the “Catalogue of Catastrophe” - a list of failed or troubled projects from around the world.
Berlin - Germany
Project type : Airport Construction
Project name : Brandenburg airport
Date : Ongoing Cost : 5B Euro
Synopsis :
Normally known for their efficiency and engineering prowess, the new airport in Berlin is a rare example of a troubled infrastructure project from the Federal Republic of Germany. Perhaps "Brandenbug" rather than "Brandenburg" airport wo...
Read More
Why projects fail
State of Oregon
The following entry is a record in the “Catalogue of Catastrophe” - a list of failed or troubled projects from around the world.
Oregon Health Authority - USA
Project type : e-Commerce marketplace
Project name : Cover Oregon
Date : Apr 2014 Cost : $248M
Synopsis :
The problems implementing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in the USA have been well documented. Intended to expand the availability of health insurance to a larger number of people, ACA gave individual states the choice of...
Read More
State of Minnesota
The following entry is a record in the “Catalogue of Catastrophe” - a list of failed or troubled projects from around the world.
State of Minnesota - USA
Project type : e-Commerce marketplace
Project name : The Affordable Care Act - MNsure
Date : Jan 2014 Cost : In the region of $150M USD
Synopsis :
In Oct 2013, President Obama's Healthcare.gov website caused a stir by becoming the year's biggest troubled IT project story. What got less attention was the fact that some of the US ...
Read More
Connecting for Success
Everywhere we go we are bombarded with messages and someone vying for our attention. Every advertisement, politician, family member, or friend, has a message and something to say to us and many ways in which to say it; email, text message, Facebook posts, tweets, magazine articles, on and on. Our world is cluttered with words. So, how do you as a leader or more importantly your team choose, which to tune in and which to tune out?
As a project manager, you’re constantly tasked with getting you...
Read More
Corporate Culture – Part 3
In parts one and two of this series, we've looked how corporate cultures affect the outcomes a project attains and where cultures come from. In this final post in the series we'll look at the mechanisms through which cultures spread and what organizations can do to promote a healthy culture.
Pretty much every business leader understands the value of having a positive corporate culture. The state of many businesses however illustrates that not every business leader understands how to shape...
Read More
Corporate Culture – Part 2
Last week I posted thread that outlined some of the different types of corporate culture and started the process of looking into how corporate culture influences project outcomes. In this week's post we'll look at where cultures come from.
Part of the reason corporate culture is so poorly understood is because few organizations appreciate how cultures form. Cultures are invisible and they are hard to define. They develop out of ongoing interactions rather than a single moment in time and ...
Read More
Corporate Culture – Part 1
Culture is a powerful force in any human system. It establishes the norms of behavior and acts as a reference point for the expectations we have of each other and ourselves. While we are all used to the idea of culture in our public societies (cultures driven by national identity, religious affiliation, generational groups and /or fashion), culture in the workplace gets less attention. While the phase "corporate culture" is banded around, few organizations really have a grasp of what it is, how ...
Read More
Avon Products
The following entry is a record in the “Catalogue of Catastrophe” - a list of failed or troubled projects from around the world.
Avon Products - Canada
Project type : Product sales and ordering system
Project name : The "Promise" project
Date : Dec 2013 Cost : $100 to $125M
Synopsis :
Ding-dong - Avon calling. According to reports, a significant number of the Avon sales team in Canada will no longer be pressing any doorbells. One of the world's most established direct sales compan...
Read More
Strategic Misrepresentation
As a timely follow up to the excellent set of posts about cognitive biases written by guest writer Paul Gibbons, the UK's National Audit Office (NAO) has just published a report that illustrates how the “optimism bias” and other dysfunctions can distort key investment decisions.
The decision to proceed with a project and decisions about how to approach it, are some of the most challenging needing to be made. These decisions are among the first to be made and occur at a point in time at which ...
Read More
Healthcare.gov
The following entry is a record in the “Catalogue of Catastrophe” - a list of failed or troubled projects from around the world.
Department of Health and Human Services - USA
Project type : e-Commerce marketplace
Project name : The Affordable Care Act
Date : Oct 2013 Cost : Unknown
Synopsis :
When the President of the United States has to address the issue in front of the whole nation, you know you’ve created a serious mess. The Affordable Care act of 2010 is President Obama’s sig...
Read More