Project Scapegoats: Lessons from the Titanic Project

We ve all heard about them projects where things go so wrong that they make the newspapers. Sometimetimes the project fails during its design stage, sometimes during its build stage, or sometimes during its post-launch operational stage. Whatever the case, these projects fail, and fail BIG. But do any come close to the track- record of the cruise ship Titanic: four years in development (1909-1912) and only 4 days in operation? Facing a financial loss that could bankrupt the company, plus thousands of potential lawsuits, the company that owned the ship was eager to participate in two official government inquiries that sought out who to blame for the disaster. Learn from this historical project so that YOU don t get caught as the Project Scapegoat if one of your projects fails.