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Long-form forensic analysis for leaders who prefer to read the evidence.
All written investigations
Berlin Brandenburg Airport Failure: Berlin Brandenburg Airport: How Governance, Design Changes and Technical Problems Drove Years of Delay
Berlin Brandenburg Airport was meant to open in 2011. It finally opened in 2020, costing €7 billion against a €2 billion budget. Ghost trains ran to empty terminals…
NHS IT Programme Failure: Why £6.4 Billion of Spending Could Not Buy Digital Transformation
The UK's National Programme for IT had an estimated total cost of £12.7 billion, of which about £6.4 billion had been spent by 2011, digitising NHS patient records. The…
Crossrail Delay: How Europe's Largest Infrastructure Project Lost Control of Its Software Integration
Crossrail's tunnels were finished on time. The software was not. The August 2018 delay announcement prompted a public dispute over who knew what and when: former…
Denver Airport Baggage System Failure: When a $200 Million Automation Bet Met Physical Reality
Denver International Airport's automated baggage system — which cost roughly $200 million — promised to revolutionise air travel. Instead, as press reports described at…
JPMorgan London Whale: The Excel Error Behind a $6 Billion Loss
In 2012, JPMorgan Chase lost $6.2 billion in the 'London Whale' trades. A flawed VaR spreadsheet — a division-by-sum instead of division-by-average error — understated…
NASA Mars Climate Orbiter Failure: The $327 Million Unit Conversion Error
In 1999, NASA's $327 million Mars Climate Orbiter was lost, believed to have disintegrated in the Martian atmosphere. The cause? Lockheed Martin built it using imperial…
Sydney Opera House Cost Overrun: When a 1,450% Budget Blowout Created a National Icon
The Sydney Opera House started at A$7 million and ended at A$102 million. It opened 10 years late and 14 years after the design competition. The architect left before…
Theranos Fraud: How Elizabeth Holmes Built a $9 Billion Empire on Technology That Never Worked
Elizabeth Holmes raised $700 million, built a $9 billion valuation, and signed a partnership with Walgreens while claiming — falsely, the SEC found — that its devices…
Crossrail Software Integration Failure: Why the Tunnels Were Easy and the Code Was Impossible
Crossrail's 42km of tunnels were dug on time and on budget. The software integration — getting the central-tunnel signalling to work with ETCS on the western section…
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