Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
The Judgement Factor
Is the problem with many failed projects the project manager, or more fairly, the irrational and quite human tendencies in all of us? Behavioral economics offers insight into why, for example, we treat delays differently at the beginning and end of our projects. What else can we learn from the field?
Let’s talk about the key problem with project management — the project manager. Time and time again, we advocate the principles of project management as the way to keep projects from failing and yet our most reliable studies show that most projects do not achieve their objectives and many fail so miserably that they cost businesses billions of dollars each year. To be fair, we’re probably getting better at it each year, although it is impossible to find any research to support that premise. So what’s going on? If the practices are getting better, why do we still see so many problems with projects? Now let’s be careful here, but could it be the project manager?
Those of us in the business of managing project managers know that many times it is the project manager. We don’t want to advertise this too brazenly while we’re trying to convince our executives that project management certification and methodologies are the way to save the company, but we do need to look carefully and critically at each project manager’s project …
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"It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much -- the wheel, New York, wars and so on -- whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man -- for precisely the same reasons." - Douglas Adams |