Project managers can learn as much, if not more, from failed projects as they can from successful ones. An infamous failed project is the Stretch project initiated in 1956 by a group of computer scientists at IBM who wanted to build the world's fastest supercomputer. The result of this five-year project was the IBM 7030, also known as Stretch. It was the company's first transistorized supercomputer.

Though Stretch could handle a half-million instructions per second and was the fastest computer in the world up to 1964, the project was deemed a failure. Why? The project's goal was to make a computer 100 times faster than what it was built to replace. Stretch was only about 30-40 times faster.

The planned cost was $13.5 million, but the price dropped to $7.8 million; so, the computer was at least completed below cost. Only nine supercomputers were built.

Research the Stretch project and the lessons learned.

How would you have managed the Scope, Quality, and Time constraints as a project manager on the project to maintain the balance?