Why Projects Fail: A Case Study of Boeing 737 Max 8 Project Management

This report analyzes the failure of the Boeing 737 Max 8 project and its project management process. It discusses the different process groups and knowledge areas involved, and provides recommendations to avoid similar accidents in the future. The report includes a case study of the two consecutive crashes that led to the grounding of the aircraft and the loss of 346 lives.

Project Management
Why projects Fail

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................3
Project overview: Why Boeing 737 Max 8 project failed?.........................................................3
Process groups.............................................................................................................................4
Knowledge areas..........................................................................................................................5
Recommendations............................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................6
References........................................................................................................................................7

Introduction
Project management is described as to planning and managing the project successfully by
completing its objectives. It includes smart budgeting, clear communication, resource
management, analysing risks through different teams as well as stakeholders(Aanbari & Kwak,
2018). The chosen project here is failure of Boeing 737 max, Boeing 737 max is the family of
the commercial aircraft that includes four different models. The Boeing 737 Max 8 is the most
popular model which made its first passenger services in 22 May, 2017 with seating capacity was
between 162 to 210 passengers. Later on, the Boeing 737 max 8 was grounded due the first crash
on Oct. 29, 2018. This Lion Air flight 610 dove into the Java sea after take off from Jakarta and
took 189 lives. And the second Max 8 crash was in Ethiopia on March 10, 2019 that took 157
lives. This report will include the project overview that why the project of Boeing 737 Max 8
failed and project management process. It will also include the different knowledge areas and the
recommendations. At the end, overall conclusion and references included.
Main Body
Project overview: Why Boeing 737 Max 8 project failed?
The Boeing 737 Max aircraft was grounded on 13 March, 2019 across worldwide. It due to the to
the two consecutive crashes. The first crash was occurred in Indonesia in the year of 2018 and
later on second crash occurred in the year of 2019 in Ethiopia which took 346 lives
combined(Cusumano, 2020). It was the major blow to the business of the Boeing company due
to having thousands of 737 Max orders. The crash investigations were complexed which took
months in order to find out evidence and actual cause of crash. According to the report published
by the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee on Lion Air Crash on Oct. 25,
2019. The report mentioned nine factors which was responsible for the crash that majorly blamed
the MCAS. Before the crash, the pilots of Lion Air were not able determining the altitude and
actual airspeed so as they were unable take full control on the aircraft. MCAS has pushed the
nose down of aircraft whenever they pulled it from the dive(Smith, 2020). This report identified
that MCAS function was not well designed and was unable to include redundancy. Investigators
further disclosed that MCAS was only relied on one sensor that had fault. Crew member had not

trained properly to use that system. It is mentioned that improper maintenance and unavailability
of warning light in cockpit were responsible for the crash as well. Another report published by
the Ethiopia’s Aircraft Accident investigation Bureau on March 9, 2020. It identified the design
flaws in MCAS due to having dependency on single sensor and also blamed Boeing for
providing improper training to flight crew about the unique system of aircraft. Ethiopian
investigators did not mention the maintenance issues unlike Indonesian report.
Process groups
Project management includes identifying objectives and various strategies to achieve them. In
this project manager is the head of planning and executing of projects in which he makes sure
that everything is following the client’s requirements and standards. Effective project
management helps to decrease the complexity of collaborations, increases transparency and to
ensure to responsibility. In the project management, it defines the series of process group which
includes initiating, planning, executing, monitoring & controlling and closing in the context to
the Boeing 737 Max project(Divine & Zachry, 2018).
 Initiating: According project management institute(PMI), initiating used to set up the
vision towards the objectives of the company like Boeing. The project of Boeing 737
Max was announced in the year of 2011. It was formally authorised by the stakeholders
as well as sponsors. Here project manager is chosen and initial scope is defined.
 Planning: In this the Boeing company established the overall scope of the project of
Max. Here project manager developed the project documents of every detail in the project
without properly following the PMI methodology. They did not focus more on the design
of aircraft specially where MCAS system is incorporated.
 Executing: In this process group, actual work started by the project members to create
deliverables as per the project manager guidance. In this process most of the budget spent
by the Boeing to add new features on the 737 Max project instead on design and safety.
 Monitoring & Controlling: In this the company track status of the project. Here
company regulated the performance and progress of the project. The Boeing did not focus
on continuously monitoring and controlling the parameters like design, safety and
training of crew members.

 Closing: It is the last stage in which overall work on project is done and it is ready to
operate. The project manager on Boeing 737 Max formally closed the project after
deliverables and archiving records as well. It is entered into the service in May 22, 2017.
Knowledge areas
The project management institute updates the guidelines of the project management which
defined ten different knowledge areas to better understand the project like Boeing 737 Max as
following:
 Project integration management: In this overall roadmap of project of 737 Max is
defined by the project manager to reach at successful end(Hwang, and et. al., 2020). It is
a document that set up the project and define the project manager. This area also involves
management and direction of project work. But there was poor communication among
the various department involved in manufacturing of the Boeing 737 Max.
 Project scope management: It included when the final products or services details are
required. Effective scope management make sure that deliverables need to be approved
on regular basis by stakeholder and sponsors. But in case of Boeing 737 Max project, it
was less effective.
 Project time management: It includes the plan schedule management which helped to
determine the overall schedule and to define the accountability of Boeing 737 Max
project work. This project was announced in 2011. After six year it is entered into the
service. A CNBC article mentioned that Boeing is producing average 31 737 Max in a
month.
 Project cost management: This knowledge area described the budget of the 737 Max
project which included the cost of labour, raw materials, equipment and other resources
needs to complete the project. In this project the budget was not spent properly.
According to the Indonesian report MCAS was relied on one sensor only. The Boeing did
not much spend on the training of the flight crew in order to manage MCAS more
effectively. There was also less spend on installing warning light in cockpit.
 Project quality management: Planning quality management is overall part of the plan of
project management. It helped to ensure the quality of Boeing 737 Max. The project

manager did not test the proper quality of MCAS system of 737 Max. They were not
properly tested the quality of airspeed and altitude sensors.
 Project human resource management: Each individual involved in the project is
important to deliver best results. Hence, this knowledge area helped in the project of
Boeing 737 Max in order the track the performance of the team members to ensure the
project progress.
 Project communication management: Communication management played an
important role in the Boeing project to inform stakeholders and teams as well(Hayajneh,
Hamada & Aljawarneh, 2020). It is required to manage the communication when project
is executed to make sure its effectiveness. Unfortunately, there was ineffective
communication among the employees worked on Boeing 737 Max project.
 Project risk management: This knowledge area helped to identify the risk and then
prioritized them accordingly. The project manager of Boeing 737 Max did not perform
qualitative & quantitative risk management techniques.
 Project procurement management: It helped to identify the outside requirements of the
Boeing 737 Max and then hired the subcontractors accordingly. It included work
statement, reference terms and requests for the proposal.
 Project stakeholder management: It includes finding out the concern of the
stakeholders towards the project using stakeholder analysis. The chosen project analysed
the stakeholder’s requirements.
Recommendations
After this analysis I think that there were certain things which could be improved. There were
proper project cost management in which budget should be further increased in order to properly
train the crew members towards the new system. The company should have more spent on the
training of flight crew towards the new MCAS system. There should be more research done on
the design parameter of the aircraft. MCAS system should be relied on more than one sensor so
that crash would be avoided. There should be more warning light installed in the cockpit which
would help the pilots to better understand the situation. There should be proper risk management
strategies adopted in knowledge areas. By considering these recommendations the accident could
be avoided.

Conclusion
From the above mentioned report, it is concluded that how effective project management helps to
decrease the complexity of collaborations, to increase transparency and to ensure to
responsibility of the project work. It described that how Boeing 737 Max project failed. It
defined the series of process group which included initiating, planning, executing, monitoring &
controlling and closing of project management in the context to the Boeing 737 Max project. It
further described the different knowledge areas and the recommendations.

References
Aanbari, F. T., & Kwak, Y. H. (2018). Impact on project management of allied disciplines.
Project Management Institute.
Cusumano, M. A. (2020). Boeing's 737 MAX: A failure of management, not just
technology. Communications of the ACM, 64(1), 22-25.
Divine, D., & Zachry, M. (2018). Project management, contradictions, and textualized activity:
Supporting reflection in project based organizations. Technical Communication, 65(2),
194-209.
Hayajneh, S., Hamada, M., & Aljawarneh, S. (2020). Project management knowledge areas and
skills for managing software and cloud projects: Overcoming challenges. Recent
Advances in Computer Science and Communications (Formerly: Recent Patents on
Computer Science), 13(3), 454-469.
Hwang, B. G. and et. al. (2020). Cost control in megaprojects: efficacy, tools and techniques, key
knowledge areas and project comparisons. International Journal of Construction
Management, 20(5), 437-449.
Smith, J. B. (2020). Failure time analysis applied to boeing 737 max. In 2020 Annual Reliability
and Maintainability Symposium (RAMS) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.