PROJECT MANAGEMENT ASSIGNMENT

Case Study Questions

Submitted To-
Prof. Salma Ahmed

Submitted By-

Hina Singh - MBAA17

Shoaib Mazid Khan – MBAA26

Tanya Dang - MBAA39

Mohd. Tanveer- MBAA54

DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Faculty of Management Studies & Research
Aligarh Muslim University
 The Concorde Project: A Technical and Engineering Triumph
but a Commercial Disaster

Ans 1) The criteria for judging the success of a Project depends upon the
successful implementation of the following crucial factors in any project and the
following also answers, how many of these crucial factors were overlooked
during the implementation of the Concorde Project –

• Clearly stated and defined Project Mission – Though the objective of

Concorde was stated vividly that was to design a supersonic passenger
aircraft which could carry passengers at supersonic speeds but its
commercial viability wasn’t researched.
• Top Management Support – The political protection enjoyed by
Concorde was eventually lost with the formation of a new government in
Britain, though the agreement done earlier made sure that operations
continue but there were eventually conflicts of interest.
• Planning – Concorde was an aircraft project that was setup without
taking into consideration the basic rules of project management.
• Consultations (customers, clients, personnel) – There were no prior
proper consultations made regarding its economic and commercial
viability.
• Communication (External & Internal) –Communication is must to
have smooth operations in any project both within departments and
outside departments with suppliers, customers, prospects etc.
• Crisis management – Its development was a continual struggle to
reconcile two entirely different approaches: sustained supersonic flight,
subsonic approach & public and environmentalist’s criticism.
 • Continuous monitoring – There was no break clause to the treaty, no
performance requirements and no financial limits, also management
structures and programs (schedules) were not defined in clear precise
terms.
• Efficient feedback system – It enables the developers of any project to
have an clear understanding of the potential shortcomings of the project,
this too was not deployed in the Concorde project.
• Technical & commercial viability – The Concorde project was a fine
engineering piece but thoughts were not given towards making it
commercially viable for the final success.
• Acceptance – It was a project designed on the massive misconception
that speed was the principal criterion for an airliner’s success.

However, many of these factors were overlooked when implementing the

Concorde Project, as was very evident that it was a pure technical and
engineering marvel design of a supersonic passenger aircraft successful in
fulfilling its basic requirement of carrying passengers across borders, but the
shortcoming was the accountability of the project execution team as they
couldn’t possibly make it a commercial & economic success.
Ans 2) The Concorde project indeed was a technical & engineering marvel but
at the time a huge commercial disaster for its developers ( the two
Governments) that were involved in the execution of this project, because this
project undertaken by the French and Britain government didn’t adhere to the
most basic rules of project management that are very crucial in determining the
success or failure of any project, as in its implementation there were a number
of principals of project management that were overlooked which were -

• Ownership Ambiguity – There was no clearly defined & identified

owner organization, no person in charge, or single owner for delegating
responsibility and accountability, as both French and Britain’s
government agreed to a 50/50 share in production of the entire aircraft
and proceeds after sales, but the same didn’t happen in due course of
time of project implementation.
• Timeline – One of the most important parameter of project management
is a clearly laid out timeframe which must be adhered to in order to get
smooth operations, but as was the case with Concorde the time line was
severely compromised such as so that they planned to achieve the air
worthiness certificate by the year 1969 but achieved it by the end of the
year 1975.
• Financial Estimates – Highly misjudged financial estimate of the
project budget, because the Concorde project’s cost grew more than eight
folds from £135.2 m to £1129 m.
• Poor Viability Research – Concorde mainly was an economic disaster
not because of its huge developmental costs but because of the
unexpectedly high costs of fuel and also because they failed to consider
the difficulty in obtaining the license to fly supersonically over land, and
at last which it eventually never got.
 • Environment consideration – The Concorde was an important new
breed of Aerospace project built through International collaboration with
a simple objective to carry passengers safely at supersonic speeds, but it
failed to see that the political protection it had that moment would not
last always and they had no coping mechanism. Also, the major concern
was that they failed to recognize the increasing environmentalist’s
awareness and oppositions.
• Negligence of External Factors – Failure to address the other critical
factors but speed such as fuel usage, plummeting prices of other airlines
carriers, air traffic patterns, emergence of other wide-bodied aircrafts,
had this been considered it would have been of great importance to the
developers.
• No Feedback System – There were no prior consultations made with
personnel, clients, customers etc in order to understand that whether
there actually was the need of a supersonic passenger aircraft,
overlooking other requisite parameters.

Hence, the major reason of failure of the Concorde were its negligence to
consider the external factors (fuel prices, economy, political scenario,
environmentalist opposition etc) and it’s overlooking of the fact whether there
was actually a need of a supersonic passenger aircraft in the market which led
to a Consensus Failure, which shook the major fundamentals of Project
Management which broadly are -

• PLAN - Ambiguous plan

• TOP MANGEMENT SUPPORT – It was lost in due course of time
• PROJECT LEADER – No clearly identified owner organization.

Hence these were some major attributes that were comprised during the
implementation of the Concorde project which determined its fate.
Ans 3) Though it was a joint agreement between the government of Great
Britain and France but it was soon met with a number of issues due to improper
implementation of basic rules of project management which were further
escalated when the new Labour government in Britain tried to scrap the project
but was reprimanded by the France, so that so it planned onto taking the Britain
into the international court of justice if it tried to stop the production with
aircrafts. But there could have been a number of other approaches that would
have made project a huge success, such as –

• Defining Clear Authority - There was no clearly defined & identified

owner organization, or single owner for delegating responsibility and
accountability, as both French and Britain’s government agreed to a
50/50 share in production of the entire aircraft, BUT THERE were
obvious problems so the governments via mutual understanding and
cooperation should have made a central delegating authority with equal
representation from both the nations to ensure smooth trimline &
manufacturing implementation.
• Advanced Design & Technology Management- The most fundamental
reason of why the Concorde could not be a commercial success was due
to fact that it never got the permission to fly the supersonic aircraft over
the land due to supersonic speed , hence work could be done in reducing
the difficulty in switching to subsonic speeds, high fuel efficiency and a
more improved design that has less pollutant emissions.
• International cooperation – The rise in the price of fuel after the Yom
Kippur war in 1973, further aggravated the situation and the economics of
operating the Concorde became more unfavourable, so here the
government could have through integration should have sought the fuel
requirements from other nations such as the South American and North
American nations.
• Addressing the Environmentalists- The increased sharp criticism from
the environmentalists was one of the major reasons for the particularly in
the USA were it effectively killed the supersonic transport, here the two
governments should have stepped up to address the concerns of the
critics.