Project management post-mortems: Apple's Lisa
What can project managers learn from Apple's biggest flop? Explore the project management mistakes behind the Apple Lisa and discover how Agile PM principles could have saved it.
Everyone I know acts like they’re surgically attached to their iPhone, which seems like a pretty big indicator that Apple are running the tech industry. Many have tried, and many have failed, to outdo Apple’s ability to innovate ahead of the curve. Whether you like it or not, they’re titans. But we all make mistakes.
In the early 1980s, Apple was riding high on the success of the Apple II, having sold over 2 million computers. But Steve Jobs, never one to sit on his hands, had even bigger ambitions. He wanted to completely turn personal computing around by creating a machine with a graphical user interface (GUI), a concept inspired by a visit to Xerox PARC. This vision became the Apple Lisa, one of the most advanced personal computers of its time. The name ‘Lisa’ stood for Local Integrated Software Architecture. It was also the name of Jobs’ daughter, so took on the double entendre of being Jobs’ baby.
The Lisa was released in 1983 and featured a GUI, a mouse and powerful multitasking capabilities that hadn’t yet been seen before. Despite the creative vision and technical excellence, the Lisa was a commercial flop, discontinued in 1986. The project suffered from a combination of less-than-perfect project management and market misalignment.
Let’s break down what went wrong from a project management perspective.
Written by
Polly is a Marketing Executive at Learning People, bringing extensive expertise in professional training and career development, including in-demand fields like data, tech, cyber security, cloud computing, project management, and business skills.
Why market research is critical in project planning
A critical part of project planning is ensuring that there’s demand for the final product. Apple marketed the Lisa as a high-end business computer, assigning an RRP of $9,995 (equivalent to over $30,000 today). Great idea in theory, but the project management life cycle lacked a crucial step. The market research process failed to establish if businesses were actually ready to invest in such expensive tech, especially when IBM had a heavy hand in the corporate world and were selling much cheaper PCs.
Over-supply without demand
While the Lisa introduced state-of-the-art features, a lot of them weren’t relevant for most business users, so would never have been appreciated. The cost was largely due to excessive hardware specs like a complex memory management system and dual floppy disk drives (memory unlocked). Although this sort of technology was quite advanced for its time and a huge achievement for Apple, their customers didn’t need it enough to justify paying that much money.
In agile project management, the emphasis is on iterative development and responding to user feedback. Had Apple taken an agile approach, they could have adjusted the product based on business needs before jumping in with both feet.
Change management and leadership failures
During the development of the project, there was political tension at Apple. In 1981, Steve Jobs was removed from Lisa due to conflicts with the team. He moved over to working on the iconic Macintosh we know and love, which was a rival internal project with a similar GUI but a lower price point. The lack of consistent project management principles and leadership continuity inevitably led to delays and competing priorities within Apple.
Poor communication with consumers
Apple fell short on properly educating potential customers on the benefits of the GUI, which meant businesses weren’t jumping at the chance to switch from traditional text-based systems. Apple’s marketing efforts did little to ease those concerns. Instead of positioning the Lisa as an accessible productivity tool, the messaging focused on its futuristic capabilities, which failed to connect with business needs. The ultimate goal of marketing is to solve the problem presented to you by the target market, and this strategy did not execute that.
Failure to consider market competition
While Apple was focused on project Lisa, IBM was expanding its market share at a rate of knots with more affordable and practical business computers. Additionally, the Apple Macintosh team were developing a competing product that would end up, as we know, overshadowing the Lisa. By the time Lisa went to market, it was already outdated in terms of pricing and market positioning.
The biggest blow to Lisa came from within Apple itself. In 1984, the Macintosh launched at a fraction of Lisa’s price ($2,495) while offering a similar GUI experience. Apple’s own advertising and leadership focus shifted towards the Macintosh, sealing Lisa’s fate.
Lack of project adaptability
When sales failed to meet initial expectations, Apple was slow to react. You’d think they’d immediately jump on the pricing model, but Apple initially stuck to its premium pricing. In 1985, a massive two years after the launch, they tried to relaunch a stripped-down version, the Lisa 2, at a lower price. Too late. By 1986, unsold units were buried in a landfill in Utah to clear inventory.
In agile project management, rapid iteration and feedback loops help teams adapt quickly. If Apple had embraced a scaled agile framework, they might have caught the pricing misalignment sooner.
The Lisa serves as a classic case study in how even the most forward-thinking projects can fail if they lack proper market research, clear objectives and adaptive strategies. For professionals looking to avoid these mistakes, check out our project management courses today.
Header image credit: Photology1971 / Shutterstock.com
