I have heard it a couple of times: "50% of all projects fail". When I tried to check wheather the statement is true or not however, I was quiet surprised to see that some sources anounced that up to 94% of projects don't achieve their objectives (budget, time and client satisfaction), and 12% of all project "were deemed failure" according to the pulse of profession.
My question is: does anyone know where the 50% number comes from? Is it based in reality or is it more of a saying? Saving Changes...
I have not seen any valid report for this claim. However, some projects do fail. I suspect this comes from a specific industry or context that has been investigated over a short period. Saving Changes...
I think it is more of a saying. To justify that figure, the first question would be what does fail even mean? Not all the project objectives were exactly met, the project was never delivered, something in between?
Without that definition, statistics are meaningless. Saving Changes...
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
I totally agree with Keith - On the other hand, if that was literally true, half of the organizations will go broke which is not the case. Saving Changes...
As Keith has said, context counts. Depending on how you define failure and what sample of projects is used, the percentage likely varies widely and the absolute number is not as useful as an understanding that there are still a sufficiently high number of projects failing to provide necessary benefits that it is advisable to learn what NOT to do to avoid being part of a statistic.
Mark WarnerProject Manager| AURATucson, Az, United States
I've looked at this in detail before. It's really hard to get to a bottom line number, but from data from PMI, Standish, Wrike, et al, approximately 75% of projects fail to meet at least one of their stated baseline objectives. This includes failure to meet full scope of deliverables, failure to meet all quality requirements, failure to make schedule, and/or failure to stay within budget. Complicating matters is differences between industries, agile-vs.-waterfall projects, etc. But in general, yes, only one in four projects can be considered 100% successful. (Oh, and then there's also subjective "failures," to add to the mix, such as unhappy stakeholders.) Saving Changes...
Based on the various numbers provided, the average comes out to 60% fail with a standard deviation of 30, and 2 out of 5 points are outside one sigma.
That looks more like random data points to me. With meaningful statistics, the data should reflect some underlying cause. Based on the scatter, I'd say most of those estimates are describing different things and not particularly comparable. Saving Changes...
Peter RapinSubject Matter Expect; Project Delivery| Independent ConsultantOntario, Canada
In response to your question "where the 50% number comes from?" - its a marketing ploy/statement. I recall this 'statistic' provided by company(s) looking to provide 'innovative' ways of delivering projects. I did a quick check but haven't been able to pin it down. Maybe it will come to me or someone else may recall. Saving Changes...
James HallPMO/Project Management| Independent & AvailableValencia, Ca, United States
I found an article on TeamStage that says that 70% of all projects fail, but that depends on how you define failure. Being generous, most project make it to the finish line but are behind schedule, over budget, or without key functionality. Did we get the software, yes, kind of, are we happy with it? Well, we are happy it's done, but it doesn't do X, Y and Z, like we had hoped. Project success means we hit all of our major targets, and I find that very rare.
Improving our project management skills and getting stakeholder buy-in to good practices is a major way to improve our success numbers. Saving Changes...
Uzodinma UgahArchitect| Cladu-Ocad Global Synergy LimitedOta, Og, Nigeria
The Definition of "Fail" is key in answering this question. Like has been posited by other respondents while failure in terms of Practical project Completion might not be up to the figure or percentage asked especially in construction projects. The Project can be termed a failure when other parameters are used. However, if the end goal is achieved, then the percentage fail rate goes down. Saving Changes...
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