PMO Leadership: When a project fails, who is to blame?

When a project fails, who is to blame? Should the blame fall entirely upon the project manager? Or, is a failed project the result of others not doing their work, whether that is the users responsible for but not providing clear requirements, the business analysts responsible for analyzing and validating the requirements, or the developers responsible for design and delivery of the solution, or perhaps management redirecting resources and jeopardizing the project.

Surely, the blame can be spread around. But, it is the project manager that is the person that must deliver the project and manage and be responsible for all issues and obstacles that stand in the way of successful project delivery. So, at the end of the day, there is only one person to blame for a failed project, the project manager.

Or, is something else really the blame. According to Deming, “95% of a problem is the process, only 5% the people.” Perhaps not always, but more often than we would like to admit, project organizations have much better people skills and tools, than they do processes. 

So, I would like to suggest that treating project failure as a process defect, and correcting that defect, will likely be more beneficial to the organization and than berating the project manager, not to mention it might very well be the right spot to place the blame.