Cracking the Code of Megaproject Innovation

Abstract

Boeing Corporation launched its 787 Dreamliner development program in the early 2000s, anticipating quick benefits from a growing demand for next-generation, advanced, and highly efficient aircraft. Budgeted at US$20 billion and designed by a global network of more than 700 subcontractors around the world, the Dreamliner had all the characteristics of a megaproject. Boeing expected that a collection of strategic innovations would add substantial business benefits, but that dream led to years of painful delays, cost overruns, and service introduction problems. Boeing’s previous extensive experience in commercial aircraft building was insufficient to deal with new challenges of a highly innovative program, and the Dreamliner’s difficulties typify many modern megaprojects. With accelerated technological growth, increased complexity of systems, and intensified demand for shorter time cycles, the challenge of strategic innovation in megaprojects becomes a universal struggle. This chapter presents a retrospective analysis of Boeing’s experience and offers a collection of global lessons for future megaprojects and programs.

Innovation in Megaprojects and the Role of Project Complexity

“…Pace refers to attributes such as urgency and time criticality. Lastly, socio-political complexity refers to factors related to the political, emotional, and human aspects (Shenhar et al 2016;Holzmann et al 2017). Bosch-Rekveldt et al (2011) developed the TOE (Technical, Organizational, and Environmental) complexity framework.…”

“…Besides risk and uncertainty, other inherent features of megaprojects impede their ability to be innovative, including their temporary nature (Davies et al 2015), size, complexity, the separation of design and construction, and risk attitudes (Brockman et al 2016;Barlow and Köberle-Gaiser 2008). Recently, there seems to be a drive towards increasing levels of innovation in megaprojects (Holzmann et al 2017) with project complexity (Ozorhon and Oral 2017) being one of the reasons for these innovations.…”