Why A Project Fails?

[sandy]

Hello Everyone

As the size and complexity of ones business grows, so does their need to effectively manage projects. I have been thinking about the major reasons why a project can go wrong and my limited experience comes up with the following.

1 Leadership: A project manager with leadership skills and not just management skills.
2 Failure to (Foresee and) Plan
3 Failure to Manage: Ineffective change management control methods. Unclear decision making guidelines.
4 Talent: Finding, allocating and developing people
5 Scope: Setting an overly ambitious or amibigious project scope
6 Alignment: When projects are not prioritized in alignment with the business strategy, or project members personal objectives are not in tandem with that of the project / company
7 Lack of Candor: Communication Breakdowns

I would be interested in knowing everyone's thoughts on this, especially on ways to overcome the above mentioned obstacles.

Cheers!

[litekepr]

Hi Sandy -

Good to meet you Your post reminded me of numerous conversations I've had with my brother. We're partners in a business and I have far more management experience than he does. It makes for an interesting partnership

I've found in a number of different businesses that the challenges of owning and running a business do increase as the business grows. I totally agree that just managing is not enough. I've worked with managers who manage, but cannot lead. Leadership is very important and helps a manager to earn the respect and cooperation of their co-workers. (I'm a firm believer that respect has to be earned

Planning for potential problems is a great way to resolve many issues before they can impact the business. Its kind of like preventative maintenance on a vehicle -- keep your eyes and ears open and handle things before they cause problems. Running a business and waiting to handle problems until AFTER they happen will mean a manager has to continually "put out fires".

Its very beneficial and saves wasted time when you have definite decision making plans in place. It also helps to make co-workers and employees know the procedure to make business decisions and find out who can be allowed to make business decisions.

Talent is important. Finding people to work with who compliment your talents and who can fill the gaps in your weaknesses or the things you just don't want to do, can be invaluable and save redundant work.

I like to set goals and build plans that are ambitious, but also possible. Pushing myself to accomplish more is never a problem, but we need to reach our goals for our own peace of mind and encouragement. Its also encouraging to our "team" to see that the business reaches goals.

Communication is one of the "big three" topics for managers as far as I'm concerned. I believe my list is communication, delegation and motivation. If manager fail to do any of these things in the right way, there will be problems. As an example, delegating is a wonderful way to get work done and to lessen the pressure on the manager, but if a project is delegated to someone who isn't qualified, it will fall apart and the manager ends up with more work to do and a mess to clean up. Effective and open communication is critical for a business to run smoothly.

I wrote a book about Foolish Mistakes that Smart Managers Make and it covered all these things. The title is kind of humorous, but the content is serious. Being a manager or business owner is tough under the best circumstances and its great when we find ways to make it run smoother.

Shri

[LeoOliveros]

The top 10 factors that have driven failed projects are:

1. Project sponsors are often not committed to the objective. They have a lack of understanding of the project and are not actively involved in the project strategy and direction.

2. Some projects do not meet the strategic vision of the company. If business needs are not clearly defined, it will result in a project that does not add value to the bottom line or enhance business processes.

3. Projects are started for the wrong reasons. Some are initiated purely to implement new technology without regard for whether the technology is supportive of the business needs. The converse of this is a project that does not support existing technology, resulting in major scope creep and resultant expenditure.

4. Staffing is a reason for failure, eg not enough dedicated staff (project managers and project team members) allocated to projects. Project team members lack experience and do not have the required qualifications. Line-staff believe that they will be able to manage projects but are only 40% available to do so. Focus in this regard is not on the delivery of the project, but on the comfort zone of the project manager and his own time management.

5. Incomplete project scope. No clear definition of the project's benefits and the deliverables that will produce them.

6. A project plan that is non-existent, out of date, incomplete or poorly constructed and just not enough time and effort spent on project planning.

7. Project value management is not put into practice to evaluate baseline cost agreed during baseline transfer against actual costs spent at any given time. Project costs and financial do not form an integral part the project during execution.

8. Insufficient funding, and incorrect budgeting is still a major reason for projects not delivering their goals and objectives within the quality framework that was required, because projects always need to deliver yesterday within X budget.

9. No formal project management methodologies and best practices aligned to the company's specific needs are used to assist project performance. Companies do not want to invest in best of breed methodologies that will benefit the bottom line over a period, with projects delivered within budget. Companies do not recognise the value of using a methodology to support and enable them to record their own best practice project results for future reference, and to build a knowledge base within the company.

10. Not all project are going through a formal signed off process using a proper post mortem process to determine lessons learned and to build their own reference model for future use. A certificate signed off between sponsors and other third-parties will demonstrate project success but even that is quite seldom.

[ChrisH]

I've found that I personally have projects that fall apart from insufficient planning and insufficient oversight. Over the years I've found that planning and oversight are critical - even when working with others. I've also heard a speech about delegating to qualified people and what a difference it makes

Chris

[Nana]

This article may be of interest to everyone

http://www.expresspharmaonline.com/2002 ... mon4.shtml

[Nana]

I just posted this on franchises but I feel that is also relevant to this particular topic.

A project may fail to succeed if the owner does not put 110% of their effort into it. As the saying goes, "You reap what you sow."

Another reason why a project may fail is due to imitation rather than innovation. By imitating a product or service they do not add an extra appeal to their target market that may have otherwise motivated them to switch to their product or service. Even if they do manage to switch consumers over to their business (perhaps due to lower prices), they will lose a large number of them due to the increasing amount competition who do innovate and improve upon their business ideas.

This is probably common sense but I thought it was worth sharing.

[pmhut]

Hi,

I run a Project Management website and I do have a lot of Why Projects Fail articles, and I have to tell you that the reasons why projects fail is fairly subjective.

Here's an article on why projects fail in which the author states that the main reason of failure is Lack of the Executive Level Support.

The other reason main reasons of failure (across the board) are poor staffing, ambiguity of project objectives (at least for team members), and of course lack of user involvement (this one is of negligible important in Agile, if correctly implemented).