29115113

M. Ray Akbar Mutalibov

YP53 B

GLOBAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT

1. The Concorde project can be regarded as a technical and engineering triumph but a
commercial disaster. What is the criterion for judging the success of a project?
Answer
: Project success criteria basically are the standards by which the project
will be judged at the end to decide whether or not it is successful in the eyes of the
stakeholders. It means that the success of a project depends on the nature of the project
itself, and need to be defined so the project members know when they have achieved it.
For instance, budget may be the most important thing to the stakeholders, while the
quality of the project may be get some slack. Or perhaps customer satisfaction is the
projects core focus, and the stakeholders do not care less about the budget and timeline
as long as the customer satisfaction target is reached. In other words, the criterion need to
be define as clear as possible by the project members and take the stakeholders opinion
into consideration if they are to be judged as the success parameters of a project.

In this Concorde Project case, STAC was established to make a civil aircraft that would fly
at a supersonic speed. However, the criterion is poorly defined as the criterion only
focused on technical and engineering purpose. They indeed successfully made the aircraft,
but did not consider other aspects that might heavily aect the sustainability of the project.
Their original objective, which is to carry passengers safely at supersonic speed, is
accomplished when building Concorde aircraft series. Unfortunately, the cost-escalation
and schedule delays were huge and attracted heavy criticism. Moreover, the fuel cost for
the aircraft is unexpectedly high and it is dicult to obtain authorization to fly
supersonically over land. Even at that time, economy and price became critical parameters
for airlines industry instead of speed. It makes that the Concorde project is a success
technically, but not commercially. This is why defining the project success criterion as clear
and as holistic as possible along with involved stakeholders opinions are important to
make the project more sustainable.

2. The case attributes the failure of the Concorde project to non-adherence to the most
basic rules of project management. Comment?
Answer
: One of the reasons why Concorde project is considered as a failure is
indeed because the involved parties did not comply with the basic rules of project
management. This is a fatal mistake since it could compromise the whole project itself. No
identified owner organization and no person-in-charge in the Concorde project obviously
will make the project execution became harder since no one is leading the project as well
as monitoring the progress of the project. It will stir the chaos inside the project team and
will make the team executed the project beyond the proper constrain since no person is
responsible for guiding them. It was proven when the projects financial estimate in
November 1962 (which is 135,2 million pounds) was grown more than eightfold in 1979
(which is 1129 million pounds). According to the case, it seems that the project team also
did not consider the risk of external factors that may be heavily aect the airlines industry,
such as changes in fuel prices, high travel cost, and environmentalist opposition. These all
are the proofs that the project team that was established by British and France
cooperation was still not mature since they did not comply with the basic rules of project
management and resulting in ineciency and ineectiveness when executing the project.

29115113

M. Ray Akbar Mutalibov

YP53 B

3. What approach should the two governments have followed to make a project success?
Answer
: Since the reasons of failure in Concorde project is because they did not fulfill
the basic rules of project management and did not considering the risk of external factor that
might aecting the project, it is obvious that the solution is revolving around those two core
problems. First, the two government (British and France) should established a committee/
project team with strong and centralized PMO (Project Management Oce). A strong PMO will
allow for the utilization of knowledge sharing and post-project lessons learned sessions. The
two governments need to sta it with a good PMO Director as leader and focus on
experienced project management to ensure that the basic rules of project management is
executed properly. Second, the project team need to practice ecient communication and
engage with all stakeholders frequently. Ecient communication will increase the project
members understanding of whats expected of them, while engaging the stakeholders
frequently will help them to define the clear criterion of project success. Third, the project team
need to manage the scheduling and budgeting strictly. The cost-escalation and schedule
delays happened in Concorde project are most likely the result of imprecise planning, which
need to be corrected in order to deliver as expected. Fourth, the project team need to do risk
management to analyze which internal/external factors that may be aecting the project, and
create mitigation plan accordingly.

These four solution is basically the good practices of project management, which the British
and the France government need to be implemented into their committee if they want a
project to be succeed. In technical and engineering terms, they successfully fulfill the objective
(which made the civil supersonic aircraft), but need to implement the good project
management practice in order to success commercially as well.