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...
Personally I think that inadequate communcation should be the number one reason for project failure. Without proper and effective communcation you'll get all the other reasons why the project failed anyway. People tend to blame the failure on all kinds of things, but the core of the failure is that problems and issues and the requirements weren't discussed properly in the first place. And I'm quite surprised that on your list you there isn't any mention of the triple constraints. (well at least I didn't see anything :)) These constraints being the scope, time and cost. These are also vital to proper success and actually satisfying the customers and stakeholders that are involved/will be involved in the project. Mentioning these constraints you also have to bare in mind that if one of them starts becoming more important than was originally planned you have to relook at the planning and what is most important. e.g. if the cost starts to become more of an issue than say the scope then you need to focus more on the cost of your project.
I'm currently busy on a research essay about projects and why they fail and your article/s have really helped me to start being able to produce an essay of a high standard.
I think a project can only really fail if it fails to deliver the benefits it was designed to enable.
Most PM methodologies and training focus on time, quality and cost. None of these are really important if the cost benefits still stack up.
Having said that, there are then grades of success depending on the perceptions and expectations of the people involved and the proportion of the benefits delivered. Saving Changes...
Paul NaybourFounder and Director| Parallel Project TrainingNailsworth, United Kingdom
I think project fail because of people every time... Saving Changes...
jay yellottDirector| KPMG LLPDallas, Tx, United States
I just copied Thomas Shubnell's list from below and hung in my cube....brilliant!
As for me, I think there are many things that help cause projects to fail, but in my experience one of the major limiting factors is the "fear of change."
To understand project failure, we first have to understand what would make for a successful project. In my opinion, a successful project delivers the intended business result. If that target is missed, then being on time, on schedule, and even on-scope is irrelevant. On top of that, project success often can't be seen until well after the project is closed, as benefits are often realized well after implementation.
So, my top reasons for project failure include:
- Not understanding the true business target, which is different from requirements. I like to encourage business sponsors to give me a very short summary of the business justification for the project. If it fits in a tweet, that's greart! I once interviewed a CIO at the start of a project, and his goal was "I want to know where the money and time in IT are being spent!". I just kept that in mind the whole time.
- Confusing business requirements with the business target. Even business sponsors often do not articulate the requirements well, and in IT project often don't understand the capabilities of the technology. So, we end up with a list of business requirements that might not actually lead to the end goal! This gets compounded as we add on functinoal requirements and tech specs. It's like a game of telephone where the true message (the goal) gets lost with successive passes
- Focusing so closely on time and budget that the goal is sacrificed. I saw a study last year (wish I had saved the reference), that the most successful project (as rated by the business sponsors and users) were on average 20% late and 20% over budget. Why? Because those project teams were willing to change course to ensure the business goals were met.
- Resource churn: It's great to put together a solid project plan, but if competing priorities keep pulling people off/on the project, it's really hard to stay on track.
OK - there's my two cents, and my soapbox about staying business focused :-) Saving Changes...
Jeff PatridgeAnalyst / Project Manager| State of MissouriJefferson City, Mo, United States
Speaking from experience of having to turn around several projects that were failing under others, I would say the most important reason that projects fail is that most project managers are more worried about technology and tasks than people.
As I have discovered your project sponsors are people, your development team are people, your managment are people, and so are the users of the final products of your projects. If project managers fail to take into consider the concept of people, it doesn't matter how good they are are keeping schedules, maintaining budgets, or know the technology, their projects are doomed to turn out less than successful or even fail. Saving Changes...
1 Understanding the required outcome to me is first, everyone needs to know what is expected as a whole group and as individuals with time line.
2. follow up is the responsibility of the PM
3. The PM must keep everything moving forward and be able to adjust to any problem and stay on line with time line.
4. Failure occurs when there is no adjustment to issues occuring within the project, when the right hand do not know what the left hand is doing or where they are within their part of the project. Saving Changes...
The most often asked question but one that does not have a clear cut answer. I'll attempt though from my experience
1. Lack of setting the right expectations with all the project stakeholders at the commencement of the project
2. Lack of proper estimation and planning
3. Lack of proper documentation esp in case of projects run offshore as maintenance engagements. The offshore team often forced to assume a lot of requirements
4. Lack of adherance to a work/process flow
5. Inability to handle change
Saving Changes...
Peter WrightProgramme Manager| BAE SystemsSouthport, Merseyside, United Kingdom
A lot of good points raised so far and from real world experiences and lessons learned some "Route Causes" of failings I would agree with (e.g. raised by Jeff Patridge and Paul Naybour) are:-
1) People - Not doing the activites and the jobs they are responsible for
2) Workloads - Businesses are trying to squeeze every peny out of peoples time and overloading of work resulting in (1)
3) Communication - Agreed updates/meetings commms not undertaken due to (2) thus resulting in (1)
4) Senior management/directors not believing that additional resource will be required to deliver the bow wave of work being pushed through resulting in (3) etc etc.
There has also been a lot of phrases uses that internal business projects have failed as they did not meet the directors/stakeholders expectations at that moment in time as the project scope/charter etc has been filed for x months and never reviewed with them. Not due tothe PM's fault but down to their acceoptance that they shoudl allow this engangement and review with the PM to ensure they are not making assumptions on the scope.
