Michael ZiyadehContracts Negotiator Sr. | Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin CompanyBranford, Ct, United States
To what extent do you believe optimism in project planning to be the cause of project failure? Optimism can be the result of past success, lack of experience and other motivating factors. Saving Changes...
If I can take this back a step, optimism can do more than kill individual projects. I've been in situations where organizations have been optimistic about the amount of projects they can take on, affecting multiple projects. One project was delayed over a year, as a result.
In my case, the optimism was a result of making decisions in a silo, and not taking other activities into account. The organization had the resources and capability to deliver each project on time, individually. Collectively, however, coupled with activities being pursued by other parts of the company that either needed the same resources or caused schedule conflicts (or both), it was a recipe for significant delays to multiple projects.
I realize that this may not sound like the standard definition of optimism, but it was the "we can do it" attitude that contributed to not taking the time to figure out the amount of work that was really involved. Another factor was the expectation to appear decisive and not "waste" a lot of time on analysis, but that's a topic for another post. Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
This is a great discission so please let me one more comment. In my post I talked about Optimistic Bias that is not tbe same to be optimkstic. We need to be optimistic and we need to have posite attitude always. Saving Changes...
Michael ZiyadehContracts Negotiator Sr. | Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin CompanyBranford, Ct, United States
Feb 01, 2017 6:37 PM
Replying to Sergio Luis Conte
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We are in the same page I guess, but because my english is not good please let me clarify one point. I have discussed for years in lot of forums and inside each organization I have the opportunity to work the same thing: when you review if a project fail you will find in most of the cases that the metrics to determine if a project has failled or not are not correctly defined. In my personal experience the project objectives are defined to determine if the project has failled or not. More than that, to determine in governance sections if the project deserves to continue, to be killed, to be paused. But the key point is that people (and what is worst some project managers) define product objectives as project objectives and then it is impossible to determine the project success.
Thank you for taking the time to clarify. You are drawing a distinction between project criteria for success and product criteria for success, is that correct? I can see your point. These two sets of criteria are separate and should be treated differently. Saving Changes...
Optimistic as well as pessimistic Project Planning, invariably, is one of the major causes of Project failure.Even rationalistic/achievable planning will be only good on paper if the project requirement is not correctly understood and without necessary deliverable inputs viz.resources planning and management,work breakdown structure,method statement,quality/safety/environment assurance & control ,cash flow management .Experienced Project Manager's inputs will be very vital in giving due credibility to the Project Planning.Hope this helps ! Saving Changes...
Michael ZiyadehContracts Negotiator Sr. | Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin CompanyBranford, Ct, United States
Feb 02, 2017 10:24 AM
Replying to Sungjoon Park
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Optimism might be one of the main causes to make project planning and overall project failed due to less counter measures incorporated into the detailed plan. I think we should distinguish the we-can-do-it from the we-should-do-it.
Well said, optimism is no substitute for proper planning. Saving Changes...
Many organizations need to be innovative to stay competitive in the marketplace. They may launch initiatives based on past success in order get to market faster; so they may choose to be more risk tolerant than risk averse. Some startups and organizations may choose to accept the approach that if you are going to fail; fail fast. Do I think optimism causes project failure; it could depend on lots of things. Shiny ball syndrome, gold plating, requirements, teams makeup, budget and the list goes on. Your past success is a leading indicator of future success but plan accordingly and do a thorough risk assessment and manage them (risks) throughout the project. Every project is a unique undertaking that may have varying degree of risk. Optimism is a mental attitude that many teams from project leader to kickoff a difficult and challenging projects. Saving Changes...
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