Why did TAURUS fail and CREST succeed?

The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has seen many changes in the past few decades, none more so than the transition into computerisation. Despite having gone through numerous Chief Executives, one fact has remained the same; the LSE are dependent on technology for growth and international competition. Pre-TAURUS, the LSE thought itself as the “foremost among the world’s bourses in international dealings, and first in Europe on any measure.” Laughably, TAURUS was intended to maintain this position however it had a very different outcome. CREST on the other hand was a highly successful project for a variety of reasons which will now be looked at in greater detail.

TAURUS was a large computerisation project introduced after the ‘big bang’ to tackle the problem of settlement. One main difference between TAURUS and CREST was that the former was compulsory for all member firms, whereas the latter was optional. This meant that the TAURUS team carried out significant consultation and negotiation with the majority of member firms over the design and business approach. Naturally, this meant that each firm wanted TAURUS to incorporate their unique approach to business, making it a complex and difficult program to design. The opposite happened with CREST. Being optional, their team used the Pareto effect and interviewed all interested parties which resulted in it delivering a blue print in only three months. Further to this, the TAURUS software catered for a possible 21 events which could occur during the course of business, resulting in the design team struggling to understand and cope with the complex system. This was obviously a downfall, and so CREST was designed with only 2 events making it simple and easy to implement and test. Probably the most obvious reason why CREST succeeded over TAURUS with regards to the design was that TAURUS was built with the intention of being “all things to all men” whereas CREST’s purpose was “to follow the recipe”. This highlights the main design problem in that TAURUS was aiming too high. Nothing can be ‘all things to all men’ and so in a way they had failed before they even began. CREST on the other hand took a simple approach which was able to cater for all members and was a relatively simple design.

Aside from the design aspect, TAURUS failed for a number of other reasons. Firstly they had a destructively bad relationship with the press. There was no real communication between the two parties and so the press would report on anything they could find, and it was rarely ever in a positive way. In fact when TAURUS was terminated, the press ran multiple reports claiming different reasons for the failure. This would not have happened if the TAURUS team had simply kept them informed. This is the area in which the CREST team were highly successful. They fully briefed the press on their progress throughout the project building a strong relationship and mutual respect between the two.

Another downfall of TAURUS was the huge number of people involved in its design and creation. This resulted in low morale amongst the workers as there were hundreds of people working on this project with no clear strategy or outline. On top of this, they kept missing deadlines while two senior directors and managers left in 1992 causing major unrest among the workforce. CREST combated this problem by initially only having ten men on the taskforce to design the system, followed by approximately 60 people for the programming and creation. This meant that the team all knew their specific tasks and had a clear target to meet, resulting in high team morale and growing confidence among them.

To an outsider, it seems as though TAURUS was destined to fail from the word go. From design problems to numerous legal constraints and heavy pressure from various Government bodies, there were few positive aspects of the project. CREST on the other hand, was a success from start to finish. The approach to the project and attitude of the workforce meant that CREST went live on time and within its budget with only a few hiccups along the way.