The good ship Vasa

I have long thought that project managers should all have a framed painting of the Swedish warship Vasa to hang in their offices. It must be the most famous object lesson in history for the importance of requirements management.

The Vasa was built between 1626 and 1628, to be the flagship of Sweden's naval squadron in the Stockholm Archipelago. [This history is condensed from the article in Wikipedia.] The ship was designed by Henrik Hybertsson (shipwright at the Stockholm shipyard), relying on requirements from King Gustav II Adolf (known to history as Gustavus Adolphus the Great). Hybertsson was a master shipbuilder, and the Vasa should have been a great warship. But after the keel was laid and the fundamental architecture of the ship could no longer be changed, the King kept asking for improvements. The ship needed more sails, and taller ones. It had to carry more cannons, and heavier ones. And so on. No one had the courage to say "No," so the project drifted behind schedule. Then Hybertsson fell ill and died. A new shipwright took over the job. By this time the King was impatient, and wanted the team to finish their work so the Vasa could be launched as soon as possible.

On her maiden voyage, the Vasa left port and sailed roughly 1400 yards into Stockholm harbor. The weight of all her extra sails and cannons meant that she rested very low in the water. After a few minutes, a light breeze tipped her slightly to one side ... and even that little was too far. She began to take on water, and sank on the spot.

Gustavus Adolphus. When he asks
for more cannons, tell him "No."

Although she failed as a warship, the Vasa had a much more successful afterlife as a museum. In 1961, the ship was finally recovered from the harbor floor. It turned out that the mud had preserved her very well, and many of the artifacts on board were still in good condition. Archeologists worked for several years to restore the ship, and in 1990 the Vasa Museum opened to the public.

The Vasa is fascinating as a museum. I've been there, and I recommend it whole-heartedly. But of course it was a complete failure as a warship. And the reason it failed so utterly is precisely that the project team failed to control their requirements.

Once the keel was laid, the ship's architecture was more or less fixed. It could support sails of a certain height, and cannons of a certain weight. No more than that. And these limits derived from the laws of physics, which cannot be overruled by royal decree.

I'm pretty sure that every case of scope creep in every large project since then has the same basic elements: an initial design based on one set of assumptions, work that has progressed far enough that it is not economical to start over, and then new requirements from someone who doesn't understand their consequences and whom no one has the courage to confront. But that's why every project management office in the world should be decorated with a painting of the Vasa. It may be painful to tell your King "No," but it's better than letting your grand warship sink to the bottom of the harbor less than a mile into her maiden voyage.