The Top 10 Reasons Projects Fail (Part 1)

Marc Lacroix is a Managing Partner of RTM Consulting with a proven track record in achieving Professional Services organizational growth and operations improvements in a variety of companies. Marc has extensive expertise in PS organizational strategy, delivery methodology development, resource management, professional services automation (PSA) and program/project management.

  Communications Management   Estimating   Lessons Learned   Risk Management   Scheduling   Work Breakdown Structures (WBS)  

Pitfall: Here is a word that has been used metaphorically for so long that few people know or remember the actual etymology behind it. In essence, “pitfall” refers to a trap for hunting made by digging a hole, covering it with leaves and branches, and waiting for an animal to fall in.

While we all generally know what a pitfall is in the business world and understand that they should be avoided, the most obvious traps are still sometimes the ones we fall into—especially when managing projects with dozens of competing priorities that distract us and take our eyes off the trail ahead. This two-part article series identifies the top 10 reasons projects fail and focuses on how to avoid these common project management pitfalls.

1. Lack of Risk and Issue Management. Good project managers spend 90% of their time communicating. This may occur in a variety of ways, but ultimately communication is the most important critical success factor for bringing a project in on time, on budget and delivering the scope the client requested. Yet when the pressure is on and time is limited, one of the first and most critical pieces of communication is often ignored: the issues and risk log.

One of the most prevalent problems I see with issue and risk management is that they are turned into monumental efforts, when most could be recorded in seconds and maintained in minutes a…

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