Planning in the Dark: Why Major Engineering Projects Fail to Achieve Key Goals

The arguments, analysis and observations in this paper are based on 10 years of research with partners in the European and US aerospace and defence industries. During this period, the authors were part of a team of researchers who were seeking to develop a new methodology and tool set for project management, particularly aimed at large aerospace projects. The research was motivated by the seemingly ubiquitous reality of project failure, with large engineering projects apparently always late and over budget. Here the authors focus on aerospace and defence, but the problems are generic across all branches of engineering. In their view, aerospace and defence have more excuses than most, because not only are the projects huge, but also they are globally distributed and highly complex. As work progressed, a fundamental conundrum emerged. Through discussions with project managers and assessment of the teams that were undertaking the projects, it became obvious that they were well educated, intelligent, highly motivated and very capable people. So why were so many projects going wrong? And it was not just aerospace and defence, as projects were failing in many different sectors and in numerous geographic locations. Obviously the problems were not to do with incompetence, as they were clearly so generic. As a result, the authors focused their analysis on factors inherent in the way all major projects are undertaken. The ultimate finding has been that the very technology available for managing projects today is inadequate. As argued within the paper, modern, complex projects cannot be planned and executed using 50-year-old project management tools. The paper tells the story of what is wrong with the current technology and how and why it needs to change. The authors are well aware that there are also cultural problems in project management, but many of these are exacerbated by the use of inadequate tools.