Lessons Learned From Studying The Case Study Of Iridium

There are many lessons that can be learned from studying the case study of Iridium. The goal of project Iridium was to make a mobile phone on which the user could send and receive calls anywhere in the world. It was a project that took a decade to research, develop, and launch into the business market. However, while Iridium made many breakthroughs in technology and successfully overcame many seemingly impossible obstacles, in regards to building and launching satellites, producing the phone, and working with many different nations to standardize phone communication, many see this project today as a colossal blunder in regards to project management. This is because, even though the final product was successfully built, it was not purchased by many customers. The technology had changed since the 1980s and therefore had a different market climate. In addition, the resulting lack of subscribers caused Iridium to be unable to pay off loans and therefore file for bankruptcy. While, Iridium was pulled from the ashes and is in use today, it is not considered a success story. However, even though the project did not turn out as an overall success, there are many lessons from the project that project managers can learn from today.

In researching the case study of Iridium, the three main lessons for project managers to learn from are to (1) break large projects into smaller phases, (2) monitor and re-evaluate internal and external conditions regarding the project, and (3) the project must work holistically within the company.

Lesson 1

The first lesson that can be learned from project Iridium is that when a project is so large to the point that it takes years to complete, it is best to break the project down into smaller phases. After the initial phase is complete, the project manager needs to have the project re-evaluated to ensure it is still viable. If the project is not viable in terms of being profitable and technologically up-to-date, then it should not move on to the next phase. In project management, these management reviews are known as phase exits/kill points. This is very important for making sure the project is on track and determining if it should be continued, changed, or canceled. It is always better to take a loss in the planning and the research and development stages than to lose even more money in the execution and close-out stages of the project. Even though the planning phase takes the most time for a project team, the execution phase takes the most resources to accomplish this process.

The main issue with Iridium was the fact that they did not re-evaluate the project. In the decade that it took to plan, research and develop, build the project, make it operational, and launch it to their customers, they never checked to see how technology and the economic environment had changed over time. Technology in the cell phone industry had improved and thus Iridium had more competitors in the market. This took away potential customers that were needed for the project to be a success. It is from this lesson of Iridium not splitting the project into smaller phases that leads us to the next lesson of the project.

Lesson 2

The second lesson learned from project Iridium is to monitor and re-evaluate internal and external conditions regarding the project. The managers within Iridium never monitored the environment and re-evaluated to see as to whether the project was still a viable option. The top personnel were too invested in the project figuratively and even literally to look at it with a critical eye to see issues with the project, preventing it from being a success. Many in project iridium had a mentality of where it was too big to fail and thus created a collective belief in the group. This group collectivism with Iridium was evident throughout the company, where everyone must adhere to the group belief. In addition, it also makes people blind to problems within the group since there is no criticism. This is evident in project Iridium, because when the market changed they stood fast to the belief that Iridium was going to succeed over its competitors. Project managers and those working within a project should always be vigilant by being willing to change to the situation and voice potential problems. As a result of the lack of re-evaluation in regards to changes, the company did not perform what project managers call an integrated change control. The purpose of this control is to identify, evaluate, and manage changes throughout the product life cycle. When the market changed, the project manager should have seen these changes in the market and accommodated these changes accordingly. The lack of customers the Iridium company faced brings us to the final lesson learned from this project.

Lesson 3

The final lesson learned from project Iridium was for the company to work holistically. One of the biggest problems that caused Iridium to go bankrupt was the fact the company did not have customers. While, the changes in the market did have a significant impact on the number of possible customers Iridium would have in purchasing their product, another factor that was detrimental to the company’s success was that it did not have a trained marketing department. The company was so focused on the technical side of the project where they were overcoming the obstacles of building the product, the company missed the fact that they completely forgot about the business side. There were many calls and inquiries about the Iridium phone, but without personnel to answer these calls, they soon turned into cold calls. Without sales and marketing personnel, Iridium could not sell its product to their customers. As a result, the company Iridium went bankrupt. Had the Iridium project managers also put focus into marketing and trained salesmen for their product, it would have not been the blunder that it is known as today. In project management, projects cannot work as a stand-alone silo. The three spheres of systems management of business, organization, and technology must be utilized in order for a project to be an overall success.

Overall, these are the lessons learned from the case study of Iridium.