Frank WintersPhotographer and ConservationistSandwich, Ma, United States
In your experience, what are the primary causes of project failure? I have my personal top ten list, what's yours? In particular, what can be done to improve the abysmal success rate of IT projects? If we solve this conundrum, let's move on to world peace! Saving Changes...
John ZacharProduct Dev Manager| Association for Project Management (APM)Brackley,, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom
I work as a PM consultant in the UK, teaching, researching, education, managing projects - really the whole gamut of things around projects.
I and my colleagues have looked at project failure from a number of perspectives, and we belive that project failure can really be attrributed to four reasons. Perhaps this is somewhat over simplified, but I think you can all easily relate to what we have discovered.
First, and by far the most important is 'the wrong project manager'. This may come from a number of directions, some of which have already been mentioned. Experience of project management is important as is some knowledge of the domain in which the project is to be managed. There is no such thing as an IT project anymore, so some business awareness, as well as knowledge of business processes is needed to even contemplate success.
The second is around poor planning. Think about arranging a holiday or vacation. Would you pack the car with the kids, luggage including the kitchen sink, back the car down the drive, then turn to your partner and ask "Are we going North or South?" You wouldn't do it, yet the number of projects I've examined where there was no concept of where they wanted to be at the end of the project os astounding. Having a good plan is paramount. We could go on to discussing what makes up a good plan, but that is a different discussion.
Third is something to do with insufficient senior management support. "I don't want to know the detail, just get on with it!" or JFDI or similar phrases suggest that sponsors don't have any idea what they are supposed to do. Jeff Pinto and Dennis Slevin published a list of CSFs for project success a number of years ago, and one of them was 'top management support'. It is critical, and without there will be no success - regardless of how well the PM performs or the project is planned.
The final reason (or category of reasons) is an inappropriate organisation. This has to do with the culture of some organisations. I have no idea how to intentionally change in a positive way the culture of an organisation in a short period of time. In my experience, it always takes time, and seems to demand leaders at the front. I've seen organisations that prevent project success by the activities of the senior managers. IN some cases the senior managers believe that they are providing motivation / impetus to 'get things done'; but their demands are impossible to service, so anyone involoved with projects is automatically tarred with a failure brush.
I could go on and on, but perhaps this has provided some food for thought. Happy to discuss further - please use my e-mail address. Saving Changes...
I would like to consider one important parameter for possible causes of project failure. This is related to inadequate resources. This term can be further subdivided into:
-- Funding -- Manpower -- Infrastructure
In the current scenario due to various high impact factors, sustaining business performance is one of the most important factor for any business to survive. If external factors are not in favor of the business it will try to accommodate by compromising their internal systems. In this process any ongoing projects will probably among the first in the radar. Change in the budget towards down side is common for most of the projects. This will have severe impact especially if project is already in critical stage and there is no way going back. Business expectation will remain same: To perform as per the schedule and deliver high quality product or services with this constraint.
Due to above reason it is also common to experience change in the team size. If business is trying to compromise by cost reduction, project will do the same by reducing the team size to maintain its bottom line. This is generally more relevant to projects being executed on contractual basis. In addition change in the functional team from business side due to various reasons is also frequent for most of the projects. In this process project will be impacted due to missing knowledge base and loaded remaining project team.
Third and the last is infrastructure. If business or project is trying to compromise on infrastructure due to first factor, this will have severe impact on project performance. This is more applicable to projects which are being executed from onsite and offshore. General tendency is to compromise on offshore infrastructure and try to execute the same using onsite environment with reduced team size.
All parameters mentioned above are probably more relevant to large and medium size projects being executed in current scenario. Best way to manage and control this is to build robust project plan which can accommodate such changes with least impact. Saving Changes...
I am a third year IS student at Thames Valley University in England. I have my final year dissertation due in, in 3 weeks; and part of my dissertation is a questionnaire that I have been trying to direct towards IT project managers. The subject of my dissertation is IS project failure, and why they occur (I know, I managed to choose myself a huge subject area, but am undertaking it in earnest all the same).
I have so far managed to gain a grand total of 3 respondents to my questionnaire, and in a last ditch attempt to gain some professional backup for what I'm saying in my dissertation, I am emailing you guys, with the sincerest of hopes that you will take pity on me and help me out.
ComputerWeekly recently ran a spread on IS project failure and concluded that many projects fail because of weak project management. After researching the area, I feel that IS project failure is more due to organisational issues, such as: weak strategic planning leading to weak business cases, lack of leadership at all levels, and, of course, failure to procure, mentor and train project managers adequately.
I would very much appreciate getting some way to knowing if current IS PM professionals are in agreement with my analysis or not.
I have attached the questionnaire for your perusal.
ok guys my two bits here there is an interesting boook " what made gertie gallop" by kharbanda and pinto on why projects fail...another good article is "how to fail in project management" again by kharbanda and pinto printed in the business horizons 1996 Saving Changes...
It was more interesting to read the dicussion thread on this topic. In my experience i would like to add few more points(which iam not sure if some body have already pointed out)
Most projects fail(in terms of budget,timeline or expectations)
- Due to lack of motivation of the team members as well as the project management failing to unite the team in one common direction(this again due to each team members ego and lot of other personal attitudes of the team members).
- Failing to maintain transparency and communication in the project. This again is very important in today's world where the project team is in various places (i mean offsite,offshore etc) Saving Changes...
Anonymous
Most projects fail(in terms of budget,timeline or expectations)
From Customer side,
- Due to lack of clear requirements - Due to lack of full participation of the Key users who make business decision. - Internal IT not able to handle the Vendors
From vendor Side; -Due to lack of motivation of the team members as well as the project management failing to unite the team in one common direction
- No effective communication in the project. Virtual Communicatio.
