Take no small slips

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner program has just announced that the plane is going to be 6 months late. This flagship program, with 710 confirmed orders, is the future of Boeing. No other program can touch the 787 for numbers of aircraft and dollars. These things go for $200 mil or so, which makes 710 of 'em worth about $150 billion dollars. Many of them are exported, which does good things for the US balance of payments. The schedule slip means all that cash flow doesn't start for another 6 months, which has gotta hurt. New airplane programs are incredible money sinks. Years of R&D work, zillions of dollars for parts, huge project team all drawing salaries, and no money coming in until they deliver the product. This slip means Boeing's money is going out for six months longer, which is a whole potful of money.
If the Boeing program managers are good, the slip will be only six months. If you are going to slip a program, better to take one big slip than a lot of small ones. The amount of ill will generated among senior management, customers and other stake holders is about the same for a big slip as a small one. It's tempting to make the program slip as small as you can, thinking you look better that way. "We are only a few weeks late, that's not so bad". But, if a few weeks later you have to admit to another small slip, and then another, and another, your credibility goes down the drain, and all the stakeholders have multiple chances to get mad at you. Better to do a realistic reschedule and take enough time so your team can in fact meet the new schedule even if it means a long slip.