Project Management

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Why do projects fail?

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Abolfazl Yousefi Darestani Manager, Quality and Continuous Improvement| Hörmann-TNR Industrial Doors Newmarket, Ontario, Canada
As an expert in the field of project management, you probably have experienced, seen or heard of fail projects story. Based on your experience, what are the 3 to 5 main project failure reasons?
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Keith Novak Tukwila, Wa, United States
Failures due to poor requirements management is an interesting one. I think it was at the PMI Business Mgmt. conference this year where I listened to 2 back-to-back presentations, one of which said that around 90% of project failures are due to bad requirements, and the next described how PMs spend too much time worrying about requirements. Clearly there are some differences of opinion on how important requirements management is to the success of projects.
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Greg Githens Author, "How to Think Strategically." Executive & Leadership Coach| Catalyst & Cadre LLC Lakewood Ranch, Fl, United States
A few years back I did an informal survey involving more than a thousand project managers across all industries and sectors.

The #1 root cause of struggling and failing projects originated in requirements.
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Mirko Blüming Senior Project Manager| Statkraft Germany GmbH Düsseldorf, Nrw, Germany
Often, it's already how the project is started: with a poorly written statement of intend or charter the project is already doomed to fail.
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RAJESH K L Project Manager, PMP| Bharat Electronics, Bengaluru, India Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Poor communication & ineffective project management
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Keith Hogan Sr Project Manager / Scrum Master| Sleek Solutions Inc. Saint Petersburg, Fl, United States
Jan 25, 2019 11:37 AM
Replying to Peter Ambrosy
...
On top off above mentioned reasons:
Poor business analysis and requirements management
Poor requirements validation / solution validation
Define Failure = failed to meet all the requirements on schedule and on/under budget.
In dynamic business environments, circumstances may change faster than the team can adjust. Therefore, the rate of requirement change exceeds the rate of delivery.
Agile is a method for keeping pace of change as you go.
Traditionally, a snapshot of the business needs generates the initial requirements. Over the period of the project this may change. Shorter period is more likely to succeed. Long period is more likely to fail. We break the project into incremental deliveries allowing the requirements to be fixed at the beginning of the phase.
Poorly defined requirements result in rework that eats the schedule and budget.
This may even be due to poorly defined business terms e.g. price may be computed differently by different business units.
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John Keay Head of Technology| ElectraNet Australia
1. Poor sponsorship
2. Poor capability of the PM
3. Poor monitoring by PMO
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Hilary Emmanuel DIADEM UK London, United Kingdom
1. Project costs spiralling out of control
2. Hidden and unknown disruptive stakeholders
3. Poor risk analysis and management
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Mirko Blüming Senior Project Manager| Statkraft Germany GmbH Düsseldorf, Nrw, Germany
Maybe the project model is chosen sub-optimal: trying to apply traditional waterfall in a volatile and uncertain environment, or vice-versa: trying to force agility in an environment that needs in-depth upfront planning.
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Baljeet Kaur Student| Syntel Pune, Maharashtra, India
1. Solution provided and technology chosen to address business case was incorrect
2. Methodology (Waterfall / Agile) chosen for the project was wrong
3. Risks not managed properly
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MOHIT KATARIA Passionate Project and People Manager| - New Delhi, Delhi, India
A few key reasons for a failed project, which I was part of:
1. No risk management
2. Poor stake holder management
3. No strategy for conflict management/ dispute resolution
4. Not taking into account Enterprise Environmental factors
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