Titanic Lessons for IT Projects

Date: Saturday, April 19 - 8:30am – 4:30pm

Description

R.M.S. Titanic was considered by many, including its designers and builders to be an unsinkable ship. With redundant safety systems that used the latest emerging technologies of the day, the ship was considered so safe that it did not even need a full complement of lifeboats. Yet, a collision with an iceberg put an end to the ship on its maiden voyage and led to the deaths of thousands of passengers and crew. The sinking of Titanic is one of the worst maritime disasters ever.

This presentation analyzes the project that designed, built, and launched the ship, showing how compromises made during early project stages led to serious flaws in this supposedly "perfect ship." In addition, the presentation explains how major mistakes during the early days of the ship's operations led to the disaster. All of these disastrous compromises and mistakes were fully avoidable. Paying attention to how historical projects and emerging technologies of the past solved complex problems of the day provides some very valuable insights into how to solve today’s more challenging business problems.

Learning Objectives

Non-functional requirements can get overshadowed by functional requirements,

The executive sponsor can unwittingly compromise the project,

Project over confidence can invalidate some project stages.