An interesting article on BA and its T5 woes. (Source: The People Bulletin).

If employees had been raising concerns for 'some time' why did BA go ahead anyway? Two possibilities spring to mind.

1. Senior management did know and went ahead anyway hoping for the best.

2. Senior management did not know because somehow issues were filtered and kept from them

I have no way of really knowing what went wrong. No doubt an MBA case study or examination will come out one day. I just hope it was number 2 as that is fixable. Number 1 does not bear serious consideration.

If it was number 2 and internally the upward communication process is broken I wonder if web 2.0 tools such as blogs and forums would have helped. Certainly they can help downward communication but 'wisdom of the crowds' can often give senior managers an objective view of what is happening far from the board room.