An Analysis of Project Failure Due to Poor Leadership and Management

This report presents an in-depth analysis of the Denver International Airport baggage handling system project, serving as a case study to illustrate how poor leadership and management can lead to project failure. The report emphasizes the critical role of the project manager in decision-making, pla...Read More

Name
Institution
Course Name
Course Code
Instructor
Date

Abstract
This paper is an in depth analysis and illustration of how poor leadership and
management by project management team can lead to project failure. The choice of
leadership and management impact on a project is informed by the huge role played
by the project manager in setting goals for staff and in decision making for the
project. Therefore the role played by the project manager in determining its success or
failure was the motivation behind choosing this subject. This assessment will use the
Denver International Airport Baggage automation system to illustrate how poor
leadership can impact on a project. The Denver Airport Baggage Automation system
was meant to become the most sophisticated airport system in the world. It was meant
to reduce the turnaround time of a plane by more than 30 minutes and hence
contributing to increased efficiency in the airport. The project was however marred
with a lot of misappropriations and mismanagement as well as poor decision making
by the project managers. The project was postponed severally but the initial plan
could not be implemented and it resulted in the loss of millions of US dollars.
Introduction
This assessment identifies a case study related to project failure in IT and discusses a
critical issue that contributed immensely to the failure of the project. The case study
that is used in this assessment is that of Denver International Airport Baggage
Handling system. The case study is used to illustrate how poor project management
and leadership from the project manager can lead to project failure. The paper begins
with an overview of the key issues relevant to this assessment. These issues are
outlined in details in the later parts of the essay to help put into perspective how the
key issues identified apply in this case. Poor project management and leadership by

project managers has resulted in the failure of many IT projects globally. The failure
in projects due to poor leadership and project management is contributed by various
issues such as poor decision making by the management of the project (Chemuturi &
Cagley, 2010). Incompetence on the part of the project managers as well as disregard
of expert advice in aspects that project managers are not specialized in are some of the
reasons why projects fail due to poor leadership and project management.
Background of the case study. The Denver International Airport Automated Baggage
Handling System was bound to be the biggest automated baggage handling system in
the world. However, this was not to be because after some few years and after the
implementation of the project had begun, the plan and the dream came down
crumbling. The project idea came from the increasing need for a bigger capacity
airport in Denver city. The city of Denver made a decision to construct a state of the
art airport that would put the city on the global map as a hub for air transport and as
the best airport in the world. The government decided that the project should cover an
area of 140 square kilometers hence making it the largest airport in the US with a
capacity to handle more than 50 million passengers each year (Cahl & Schlol 1996).
The project was also designed to minimize the time that passengers would take
queuing to get their luggage checked and reducing queuing in the airport.At the core
of this project was the baggage handling system. An automated baggage handling
system would help reduce aircraft turnaround time to approximately 30 minutes. This
would increase efficiency in the airport hence offering the airport a competitive
advantage that would make it superior to others.
The project managers made very costly mistakes in the design of the IT system. The
biggest mistake was underestimation of the project complexity by the project
managers and designers of the plan. The challenges faced in implementing the

baggage system resulted in the opening of the airport being delayed by more than 17
months (Fox & Van, 2007). The direct costs of this delay such as the interest charged
on loans taken to implement this project and the maintenance cost during the period
were approximate $1.1M a day (McCarthy, 2010).
The decision making by the management as well as their inability to solve the
problem that arose during the course of the project played a crucial role in the failure
of the project. The management also keeps holding media briefings where they
demonstrated the projected failures like how two cars moving at high-speed crashed
into each other. When the airport was reopened, it was an embarrassing moment for
everyone involved in the project and especially the project managers since the airport
was a shadow of what was planned and promised. The projected failed to integrate
and automate all concourses and hence a concourse was used by a single airline for
outbound planes only.
Importance of the key issue under review.Poor project management and leadership
from project managers is a very crucial issue in determining the success or failure of a
project. This is because, in every project, there are many people involved and there
are many different aspects of a project that needs to be organized and coordinated.
The moment a project leader fails in performing any of his/roles the whole project is
at the risk of failing. The functions of a project manager include; Leading, controlling,
organizing, staffing and planning. Therefore, it is very clear that the project manager
holds a very crucial role in determining project success. Without proper leadership in
any project, it is highly probable that the decision-making process for the project will
be very slow. Since every project is time bound, it is important to complete projects

on time hence the need for quick decision making. Poor leadership and management
also result in erroneous decisions which may have a massive effect on the project both
financially and economically (Lock, 2014).
The lack of proper leadership by the project manager leads to poor planning. The
importance of planning for any project cannot be underestimated. This is also
important in IT projects since once an IT project is planned poorly, it makes it very
difficult to redesign the project and implement it successfully. Failure to plan properly
by the project managers leads to underestimation or overestimation of project size or
complexity. If a project manager fails to plan a project well and come up with the
requirements of the project, it becomes difficult for the people implementing the
project to understand the complexities of the project and what input is required to
implement the project successfully. Due to this, therefore, the people in charge of the
project may end up allocating inadequate resources for the project. The failure to
implement enough resources for the project may lead to the project halting
momentarily or even in worst cases the project stalling altogether. The resource in this
context involves physical, financial, human and technological resources
(Kloppenborg, 2015). In the case of Denver International Airport Automated Baggage
systems the project managers under approximated the complexity of the project. This
mistake was made at the stage of project planning and was carried forward to the
implementation stage. The baggage system in for the airport was so complex that after
many years of trial on the IT system, a breakthrough could not be found. The
engineers and other experts involved in the project carried out numerous tests to try
and make the plan work but everything hit a dead end. The plan of having three
concourses integrated to have a single concourse that could reduce airplane
turnaround time to thirty minutes became a dream since it ended up as a single

concourse that could only allow takeoff of a single airline. This, therefore, explains
why lack of proper leadership and management can lead to project failure when
leaders fail to plan properly.
Another issue that manifested itself in the Denver International Airport Baggage
Handling system project is poor decision making by the project managers. Even after
working on the project for a considerable period of time and realizing the mistakes
that they had made, the decisions they made only worsened the situation(Knight,
Thomas, Angus& Case, 2012). The project manager failed to offer the way forward
that the staff under him could follow. He could not help to identify a solution for the
problem at hand. In any given project, the project manager has to manage effectively
situations that may arise during the implementation of the project. A good project
manager should be able to offer his juniors a way forward when things look to hit a
snag. One of the many errors in decision making by the management is that in 1991,
before requesting for bids for an integrated system, the management of the project
made a major strategic error. The management assumed that individual airline
companies would make baggage arrangements by themselves. One of the airlines that
had done so is the United Airline which had contracted Boeing Airport Equipment
Automated Systems Incorporated to manage its baggage. Many other airlines delayed
in taking action since the project was not near completion and there was still enough
space for leasing. Around the month of June 1991, the project management changed
this strategy and decided that in order to realize an integrated system, it was critical
that they are in control of the baggage themselves (Heldman, 2011). Due to this
reason, the project management team decided to take the responsibility from the
airlines. The timing of this decision couldn’t be worse since the project was only two
years away from the scheduled completion date. This decision put a lot of pressure

since it was difficult to accomplish so much within that short period of time and this
was one of the reasons why the project failed. The project management also entered
into an agreement with BAE and where they were supposed to complete the entire
BAE as they had already started the section leased by United Airlines. The decision
was poor since all indications indicated that the project could not be completed on
time. The capacity of the company to handle such complex work was questioned but
the project management team decided to go ahead with the idea. The project manager
also has to give reassurance by finding a quick solution to every challenge that arises
concerning the project. In the case study under review, the project manager failed to
crack and understand the very complex plan to make it work. When this happens in a
project, it becomes difficult to inspire and motivate the staff working on the project.
This is because they eventually lose faith in the person who is leading them and
therefore it becomes difficult to inspire confidence thereafter. This contributed greatly
to the failure of the project.
Another key issue that impacts on projects due to poor leadership is lack of proper
risk assessment and management. The project manager for any project should ensure
that before a project commences, a proper assessment of risk that lies ahead is done.
This helps in managing any unforeseen future occurrences that may have a negative
effect on the project (Lock, 2013). This is crucial since it helps in saving costs that
would be incurred in case the project failed or was altered due to failure to manage the
risks (Ducros & Fernet, 2010). After the risks have been identified, it is important that
the project manager puts measures in place to help mitigate risk. The project manager
should put all the necessary measures to minimize risk in a project. Continuous
monitoring to identify loopholes is also important. One of the major challenges that
faced the Denver Airport Project is the continuous crashing of the system due to

power fluctuations. If the project manager had done a proper assessment of risk, this
would have been detected and backup measures put in place (Schwalbe, 2009). The
system of the over 100 computers networked which was envisaged was also not
backed up. The failure or outrage in any one of the computers would result in the
failure of the entire system. This, therefore, illustrates the failure on project
management team to foresee these risks.
Incompetence and lack of experience by a project manager are also a major
contributor to project failure. This is because a lot of competence and understanding
of technical issues involved in a project is very important for successful
implementation of a project. The person leading the team should demonstrate a high
level of competence, experience and composure in order to be able to lead the juniors.
After the death of Walter Slinger in October 1992, the person who was appointed to
lead the team undertaking the project lacked in depth engineering knowledge and
understanding required to implement the project.(Australia & Blanton, 2015) This
further demonstrates how poor leadership can contribute to project failure.
The project manager or team of any project has the responsibility of ensuring that the
project recruits employees who are highly qualified and capable of carrying out tasks
assigned to them. This is important since every project requires people with a
particular set of skills and a particular level of knowledge without which the project
cannot become successful. Before undertaking a project, the project manager should
ensure that experts are available to implement the project and arrange for any training
if it is necessary. In the case of DIA, the technology that was to be used in the airport
was relatively new and complex. The BAE team of engineers and also the engineers
working under direct supervision of the project manager had very limited knowledge
of the automated baggage system. The scale of the project also made it even more

difficult for the people involved. As a result of the staff being short of knowledge of
the new system, the rate of project implementation was slowed down(Bruce &
Langdon, 2009). There were also many instances of tests conducted on the system
failing to perform as expected. This failure can solely be pinned on the project
management team since they should have understood the complexity of the system
and conducted training to equip staff with the necessary skills.
There is plenty of project management literature that can guide project managers and
other experts in writing a good project proposal and in the implementation of a
project. Online sources are a very rich source of literature relating to project
management. This internet sources include company websites, online magazines and
theses and dissertation posted by academicians online. The major advantage of online
sources is that they are easy to access and are easy to read since they are summarized
to include only the important information on the subject. Online sources are also very
important since they give recent case study examples from which a person can draw
the necessary knowledge on project management. Peer reviewed journals are also an
important source of literature for project management. This subject has widely been
researched in the past. The use of peer reviewed journals helps to understand experts
view on specific issues in project management. They also help in understanding the
findings of many different researchers and therefore identify gaps for research. Books
and dissertations from the university library are also a very useful source of literature
for project management.
Conclusion
Leadership is a key factor in project management. Without proper leadership and
management, it is very difficult to implement a project successfully. IT projects

particularly requires people with an understanding of the discipline as project
managers. Mistakes and incompetence by project management team can result to
project failure. This paper uses the Denver Airport Integrated Baggage System as the
case study to help I understanding how poor leadership on the part of project
managers can result to project failure. A brief background of the case study is outlined
to help in understanding how the problem came about. The paper identifies key issues
in leadership that can result to project failure and how these issues applied for Denver
Airport case study. Poor planning by the project manager resulted to the undertaking
of a project which was not feasible. The project managers underestimated the
complexity of the project both in technology and design. The management team of the
project could also not recruit qualified staff to undertake the implementation and did
not take the action of offering staff extra training given the complexity of the
technology in use. Additionally, technical mistakes and poor decisions by the
management played a huge role in the failure of the project. The project cost tax
payers billions of US dollars and did not become successful even after many years
postponing the re opening dates and changes in staff and strategies.

References
Australia, C. L., & Blanton, S. (2015). Information Technology Project Management.
Bruce, A., & Langdon, K. (2009). Project management.
Callahan, K. R., Stetz, G. S., & Brooks, L. M. (2011). Project management
accounting: Budgeting, tracking, and reporting costs and profitability. Hoboken, N.J:
Wiley.
Cahl.P,M.Schlol (1996)The Denver International Airport automated baggage
handling system
Denver International Airport website(www.flyDenver.com)

Chemuturi, M., & Cagley, T. M. (2010). Mastering software project management:
Best practices, tools and techniques. Ft. Lauderdale, FL: J. Ross Pub.
Ducros, M., & Fernet, G. (2010). Project management guide. Paris, France: Editions
Technip.
Fox, W., & Van, . W. G. (2007). A guide to project management. Cape Town: Juta.
Heldman, K. (2011). Project management jumpstart. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Kloppenborg, T. J. (2015). Contemporary project management: Organize, plan,
perform.
Knight, J., Thomas, R., Angus, B., & Case, J. (2012). Project management for profit:
A failsafe guide to keeping projects on track and on budget.
Lock, D. (2013). Project management. Burlington, VT: Gower.
Lock, D. (2014). The essentials of project management.
McCarthy, J. F. (2010). Construction project management: A managerial approach.
Westchester, Ill: Pareto -- Building Improvement.
Meredith, J. R., & Mantel, S. J. (2012). Project management: A managerial
approach. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Pitagorsky, G. (2007). The Zen approach to project management: Working from your
center to balance expectations and performance. New York: International Institute for
Learning, Inc.
Schwalbe, K. (2009). Introduction to project management. Boston, Mass: Course
Technology.