The Titanic of Assumptions: Lessons in Risk, Design, and Decision-Making

A Story From 116 Years Ago

Let’s travel back more than a century, to the shipyards of Harland and Wolff in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

The year was 1909, and the company was building what would become the most ambitious passenger liner of its time: the Titanic.

The atmosphere in the design room was one of pride and confidence. Every stakeholder brought their expertise—the designer, the engineers, the procurement team. Each believed they were creating something extraordinary. This led to the spreading of the now notorious marketing pitch: the Titanic is unsinkable.

With the benefit of hindsight, let’s dive a little deeper to find out what happened, framed by a business analysis point of view.
 

So, What Went Wrong?

1. Short-sighted priority

At some point, there may have been a management discussion to remove the lifeboats from the ship’s deck—what we now call a “key design decision” in today’s corporate environment. This was a conscious decision to enhance the overall appearance of the ship (i.e., the product), one that compromised the fallback plan and bypassed a thorough risk assessment.

Additionally, there were no specific legal regulations linking lifeboat requirements to the number of passengers. Relying on this outdated law and satisfied with simply meeting the legal standard, they removed most of the lifeboats.

Lastly, I strongly suspect that escalating costs also played a role in this decision.

Ultimately, appearance, legal requirement, and cost were prioritized over safety, likely driven by the marketing pitch that the Titanic was “unsinkable.”

2. Uninformed plan change

The captain, pleased with the ship’s progress over the first three days, decided to increase the speed to reach New York a day earlier. It’s unclear why this decision was made, but the aforementioned marketing slogan may have played a part.

This was very well captured in the Hollywood movie of the same name. The captain was surprised to learn from the designer that the ship could (and would) sink.

In short, acceleration of a plan based on unverified information is a recipe for failure.

3. Incomplete risk analysis

During the design phase, the proposals were not thoroughly examined before finalization. The Titanic was built with 16 watertight chambers at its base. The intent was simple: if one section was breached, water seepage could be contained within that compartment, making it easier to localize the damage and pump out water.

However, the flaw lies in that very design. When the iceberg struck, the front-most chamber began filling with water. Within just 30 minutes, it was full, tilting the ship’s nose downward, causing water to spill over the top of the wall and into the next chamber.

It seems the designers hadn’t fully considered the risk of sequential overflooding, or perhaps they assumed such catastrophic damage was improbable given the supposed sturdiness of the ship’s steel exterior.

Regardless, it’s a powerful reminder that all decisions should consider the worst-case scenario and its repercussions.

4. Compromised quality standards

It’s now a well-documented fact that the steel used in the Titanic contained unusually high levels of sulphur—higher than that found in other ships of the era. This chemical composition made the steel brittle, causing it to crack under stress rather than bend.

The reasons for procuring such material remain unclear. It’s possible that procurement engineers were unaware of its reduced strength, or that quality checks were insufficient at the time, or that cost (once again) steered the decision to compromise on materials.

This inherent brittleness, combined with the freezing Atlantic waters, further weakened the ship’s resistance to adversities. To make matters worse, the force of the collision with the iceberg was amplified by the ship’s increased speed.

The lesson? Never compromise on quality without doing your homework first.

The Layered Nature of Assumptions

A common pattern in all these decisions is that one person’s assumption was built on another’s (and so on), resulting in a fragile chain of assumptions.

Assumptions are unavoidable, and they help us move forward. The danger lies in forgetting that one assumption can easily be stacked on top of another, creating a weak link between two executions.

The higher the stack, the higher the probability of failure. And when these links are left untested, they can quietly bring down even the strongest structures.

Here’s the chain of assumptions in the case of the Titanic:

• The decision to reduce lifeboats stemmed from the erroneous belief that the Titanic was unsinkable. Instead of addressing the exposed risk, the focus shifted to user experience.
• The captain’s choice to increase the ship’s speed was rooted in this same belief. Rather than adapting to the changing landscape and the risks posed by icebergs, he prioritized arriving early and modified the plan without a thorough assessment.
• The very notion of an “unsinkable ship” was dependent on the design of watertight compartments and the strength of the steel. In reality, both elements were flawed.

Proper simulation and testing could have revealed these weaknesses and potentially averted the catastrophe. Unfortunately, none of the stakeholders recognized how deeply interconnected and untested these assumptions were.

As a result, the assumption “infection” spread across the design, procurement, and construction phases.

Loose Assumptions Sink Projects

We all live with assumptions—both in life and at work. The moment we sign a long-term financial contract, we assume our income will be stable. The moment we plan a project, we assume resources, timelines, and stakeholders will remain aligned.

While we can’t trace or eliminate every assumption, we can manage them wisely through the following steps:

1. Sharpen awareness: Train yourself to spot assumptions early. Each one is a potential weak link.
2. Assess risks beyond cost: Don’t let financial trade-offs overshadow hidden vulnerabilities.
3. Keep stakeholders engaged: Even a relatively small change of plans can have multiple repercussions in a large project.
4. Test relentlessly: Simulations, pilots, and scenario analysis reveal the reliability of our assumptions.
5. Always have a solid fallback plan: Nothing in life is certain. A fallback plan means you’re prepared to handle any outcome.

When business analysis professionals perform thorough due diligence, teams can focus their energy on effective design discussions and proactive planning meetings, rather than wasting valuable time on root cause analyses and "what went wrong" rituals.

Like the Titanic, even the most ambitious projects can sink when assumptions go unchecked—so always test the waters first.

Decision-making is an essential skill in both personal and professional life, yet many of us struggle with it. Explore the impact of fear, the importance of emotional intelligence, and how storytelling enhances decision-making in this episode of Business Analysis Live! 

About the Author

Karthiram Neelakandan is a seasoned, CBAP-certified business analyst with over 16 years of experience across the automotive and pharmaceutical industries. As a volunteer with the IIBA India Chapter, he actively supports and mentors aspiring business analysts in achieving their professional goals. Starting his career in core accounting, he gradually transitioned into business analysis within finance. He spent 15 years at the iconic Ford Motor Company, where he honed his expertise in process improvement and system implementation. Recently, Karthiram joined AstraZeneca, where he leads the integration of financial systems as part of the company’s technology transformation journey.