Following entry is a record in the “Catalogue of Catastrophe” - a list of failed and troubled projects from around the world.
London Stock Exchange – UK
Project : TradElect
Date : Sep 2009 Cost :$68M
Synopsis :
After four years of development, but just two years of use the London Stock Exchange's flagship trading platform (TradElect) is to be decommissioned and replaced. Lending credence to allegations that recent outages at the exchange were caused by the TradElect, the announcemen...
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Why projects fail
Marine One
The following entry is a record in the “Catalogue of Catastrophe” - a list of failed and troubled projects from around the world.
US Navy
Project name : Marine One
Date : Jun 2009 Cost :$13B
Synopsis :
To allow for rapid and safe transport of the President and other VIP's, the US Government maintains a fleet of VIP transport helicopters. The current fleet of Sea King and Blackhawk helicopters was first deployed in the 1970's. Following the 9/11 attacks, the US Government decided tha...
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Air Canada
Following entry is a record in the “Catalogue of Catastrophe” - a list of failed and troubled projects from around the world.
Air Canada
Date : Aug 2009 Cost :$67M
Synopsis :
Following more than 3 years of development effort, Air Canada suspends its efforts to implement a next-generation air reservation and departure control system. Citing capital cost issues the airline announces a $67M write down related to the development. Originally planned to start deployment in 2007, the implem...
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Foundation for Student life (Oslo) – Laundry system
Following entry is a record in the “Catalogue of Catastrophe” - a list of failed and troubled projects from around the world.
The foundation for student life (Oslo) – Norway
Date : May 2009 Cost :$14M + some dirty laundry
Synopsis :
As part of a move to SAP the Oslo based Foundation for Student Life elected to tie the laundry facilities in the student village into their accounting systems. Integrating the laundry machines into the accounting systems meant that students had to pay fo...
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City of Vancouver – Olympic Village
Following entry is a record in the “Catalogue of Catastrophe” - a list of failed and troubled projects from around the world.
City of Vancouver – Canada
Date : Jan 2009 Cost :$250M cost overrun
Synopsis :
While we don't often touch on construction projects in this database, a construction project is still a form of technology project. The following example nicely illustrates what happens when financial risks are ignored.
Having won the right to host the 2010 Winter Olympics in 20...
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Veterans Affiars – USA
Following entry is a record in the “Catalogue of Catastrophe” - a list of failed and troubled projects from around the world.
Veterans Affairs - USA
Project : Replacement Scheduling Application (RSA)
Date : Aug 2009 Cost :$41M
Synopsis :
After seven years of development the Veterans Affairs (VA) Replacement Scheduling Application (RSA) is scrapped. As a component of the larger HealtheVet system, the Replacement Scheduling Application was to allow veterans to request and view medical...
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Strucutural and Strategic Planning
In theory projects are initiated by the creation and formal approval of a Project Charter. The Charter details the projects objectives, outlines the scope of the project and establishes the authority for the Project Manager to proceed. In practice few of the organizations I visit use a formal Project Charter and instead a hotchpotch of different methods is used.
Theses informal methods of initiating a project often turn into a long drawn out activity. From the sea of ideas, options and p...
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The Incentives Infrastructure
One of the pillars of successful Project Management is the need for a project to have a clearly defined goal. Establishing a goal provides a basis for the project’s scope to be established, provides a way to measure success and provides a reference point for use when making project related decisions.
There’s no doubt that establishing clear, measurable objectives is an important step in setting a project on the road to success, but a clear goal is sometimes insufficient to ensure that everyon...
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Fear of Commitment
One of the fundamentals taught in Project Management class is the need to define what the success of the project will look like. Only by establishing a picture of the desired end state are we able to establish project scope properly and make effective decisions about how to manage the project. In Project Management class we’re taught to express project success as specific measures that define the project’s goals. These measures are often captured using SMART objectives (Specific, Measurable, Ach...
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An Essential Question
When directly asked, most Project Managers recognise that the level of success their project teams are likely to achieve is directly correlated to the team’s ability to make effective decisions. If the team can consistently make good decisions, the chances of success are high. If they make a bunch of bad decisions, the chances of success are greatly reduced. Despite the obvious correlation, the role of decision making in the project environment is generally poorly understood.
If we can agree ...
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