Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
Piloting Your Project
There are significant parallels between flying a plane and managing a project. Here, an experienced pilot and project manager shares 16 guiding principles from the cockpit that just might help you make the shift from passenger to pilot on your next project. Ready for takeoff?
Surveys have shown that fewer than half of all projects meet their goals, and only one-third is completed on time and on budget. If pilots flew aircraft like we run projects, no one would ever leave the earth! Instead, millions of people take to the sky every day to fly for work or pleasure. The most recent federal data shows that almost 80 percent of all flights arrive on schedule, and those that are late are delayed by weather 70 percent of the time. Airlines accomplish with an accident rate of only 0.124 per 100,000 hours flown. (If you flew every day of your life you’d have less than a 1 percent chance of being in an accident.) Can we learn something about managing projects from life in the cockpit?
Humans have been flying for just over 100 years. As pilots gathered to share their experiences in the early days, and later the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board began investigating accidents, the aviation community learned invaluable lessons. Project management has been around since the building of the Pyramids and The Great Wall, but as a defined practice it is only about 60…
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That's the true spirit of Christmas; people being helped by people other than me. - Jerry Seinfeld |