Boeing’s 787 line has been suffering some serious setbacks and bad PR lately. Well, it’s one of the most publicized product lines for Boeing. It has a long delay and it attracts long attentions. The result of any mistake is thus amplified by the time duration of the product finally coming to the market after years of delays.

It’s not the only noticible story ever in the business world. Another big company, once neighbors to each other,  has similar “Lessons Learnt” to Boeing still fresh in mind: Microsoft’s Vista launch. After 5 long years of waiting and delays, the product was reviewed unfavorably by the customers. Microsoft quickly corrected the actions in the next better OS launch after Vista, but a quick fix for an airplane model may take some time. Still, how Boeing deals with the current challenge will be critical for the big company’s image.

There hasn’t been such a Murphy’s Law which states: A significantly delayed project will result in poorer quality and worse customer acceptance. Well, it is very much the truth though in many cases. 

So what are the true reasons behind these significant drawbacks or failures?  Too many creative ideas? Too many unpredicated innnovations? To much publicity resulted in unrealistic expectations? Too daring? Too hard to manage? Bad economy? Yet, wait please, aren’t all of these already included in the normal categories of project management tasks – especially risk anticipation and risk management? To the end, a well-planned and well-managed project should encompass all and still can lead to a successful product completed on the expectations of time, budget and quality. Sounds like the true talents of such capability are still rare in big companies. People are usually the most unpreditable cause of any major failure.