Project Management Blunders: Lessons from the Project That Built, Launched, and Sank Titanic - Softcover

Kozak-Holland, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1554891221 ISBN 13: 9781554891221

Publisher: Multi-Media Publications Inc, 2012

Synopsis

The sinking of the RMS Titanic ranks as one of the most memorable and significant events of the 20th century and for one hundred years has fascinated countless generations.  The events of that fateful voyage have been told and retold over the years; however, few have examined the actual building of the ship and how decisions made during that process directly contributed to the disaster.  This  book examines the Titanic story from a project management perspective and conclusively shows how the decisions made during design, construction, and sea trials (testing) compromised the ship's integrity and left it vulnerable to disaster.
 
Titanic's disaster has been put down to bad luck, an accident, and caused by the unforeseen forces of nature. The ship was sunk after glancing a blow with an iceberg. As a result, conventional wisdom is the situation was outside of the control of the captain and officers who were depicted as mere bystanders incapable of changing the course of events.  The truth is very different. The seeds of disaster were sown as Titanic was designed, and there was a long chain of mistakes. This book puts forward a very different version of the disaster.

About this title

From the Author

An author's perspective on the journey to complete the book 

This project started in 2010 as a follow up to Titanic Lessons for IT Projects which was published in 2007. There was a requirement to update the book for several reasons. The first was to incorporate the latest research on the Titanic case study, discoveries made, and evolving theories. The second was to broaden the book audience from an IT centric to a business centric audience, in line with the direction of the series.
 

Research Completed 

• This consisted of the following:
• Examining new literature and books
• Trawling through Titanic forums and blogs (Titanic Societies)
• Examining original documents from enquiries as found in the National Archives at Kew
• Site visits to Belfast, Southampton, Liverpool, and New York
• Interviewing naval experts

The research would take over 2 years. I visited the UK in 2010 and 2011 to complete the research for the book, gather further information, and collect photos and images. On the itenary were visits to Belfast, Southampton, and Liverpool.

From the Back Cover

White Star's initiative to build its new Olympic-class ships can be described as a text book project. It started off very well in the initiation and planning phases: the project team had a very good understanding of the business and customer needs, a solid vision, a superlative business case, the right supplier partnerships, good stakeholder relationships, and a healthy balance of proven and emerging technologies.

By the end of the design phase, however, decisions were made that compromised safety features. The architects assumed that the aggregated effect of the reduced safety features and advanced technologies would still protect the ships. By the end of the fitting-out phase, all key stakeholders believed that the ships could never founder.

The belief in Titanic's invincibility grew through the sea trials and into the maiden voyage. Everyone-from the captain and crew to the 53 millionaires on board-believed this. Why else would the wealthy and powerful have filled the hold and safes with cars and riches, and come aboard on a potentially treacherous route? Fundamentally, they believed that man had conquered nature and there was little risk.

This book reveals the project management blunders that doomed Titanic while it was still being built-mistakes that you can avoid repeating in your own projects. Filled with photos and copies of actual documents from the project, this book walks you through a case study in project management failure.

Edition details

• Publisher: Multi-Media Publications Inc
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1554891221
• ISBN 13: 9781554891221
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 392