Rush to Failure

EXPERIENCE

HBR.ORG

Case Study

A complex project for the space station must

come in on time and on budget—but the push

for speed might be its undoing. by Tom Cross

The Experts

A Rush

To Failure?

Gary L. Moe

Director, McKinsey Business

Technology Office

T

ILLUSTRATION: BRETT AFFRUNTI

Tom Quinly

President, CurtissWright Controls

HBR’s case studies present fictionalized

accounts of actual dilemmas faced by

leaders, and offer solutions from experts.

here is absolutely no reason why

the contractors shouldn’t be able

to give us rapid product development and awless products—speed and

quality both,” David MacDonagle said as he

tried to light a cigarette. The warm wind,

portending rain, kept blowing out his

matches. Finally he gave up and slipped

the cigarette back in his pocket.

MacDonagle, the head of the Canadian

Aeronautics Administration, was nervous.

Everyone at CAA headquarters was nervous. Very shortly, the project that many

of them had devoted the past four years

to would have its rst real-world test, 350

kilometers above the earth. Feeling cooped

up in the executive o ces and oppressed

by the presence of the media, MacDonagle

had gone outside to breathe some air—

actually, some tobacco smoke—and had

invited the sharp young program manager

Samantha Van Sant to join him.

Van Sant, a former Canadian army

major, had a lot of skin in the project too.

Since 2006 she’d been managing the two

contractors the CAA had commissioned

to build the $1.2 billion set of giant robotic

arms known as Retractable Extended-

Arms Compatible Holder, or REACH, for

the International Space Station.

“So how do you deal with nerves?” MacDonagle asked.

“I usually go out for a run,” Van Sant said,

looking down the road that led from CAA

headquarters through the corn elds, on

which she’d logged many miles.

They turned to look back at the

agency’s buildings, which despite their

grandeur looked small in the empty Quebec...