11 Nov Why Do Projects Fail? Classic Mistakes
Classic Mistakes
Analysis of the examples in the “Catalogue of catastrophe” reveals the most common mistakes. Given the frequency of occurrence, these mistakes can be considered the “classic mistakes”. The following list outlines the most common themes and provides links to examples:
1.The understanding of complexity – cost and / and / or scdeule schedule
2.Failure to establish appropriate control over requirements and / or scope
3.Lack of communications
4.Failure to engage stakeholders
5.Failure to address culture change issues
6.Lack of oversight or poor project management practices
7.Poor quality workmanship
8.Lack of risk management
9.Failure to understand or address systyem performance requirements
10.Poorly planned or managed transitions
Trigger Events
- Goal and Vison – Failure to understand the why behind the what results in a project delivering something that fails to meet the real needs of the organization (i.e. failure to ask or answer the question “what are we really trying to achieve?”)
- Leadership and Governance – Failure to establish a governance structure appropriate to the needs of the project (classic mistake award winner)
- Stakeholder and Engagement Issues – Failure to identify or engage the stakeholders (classic mistake award winner)
- Team Issues – Lack of clear roles and responsibilities result in confusion, errors and omissions
- Requirements Issues – Lack of formality in the scope definition process results in vagueness and different people having different understandings of what is in and what is out of scope
- Estimation – Those who will actually perform the work are excluded from the estimating process.Estimates are arbitrarily cut in order to secure a contract or make a project more attractive
- Planning – Failure to plan – diving into the performance and execution of work without first slowing down to think about the project. The underestimation of complexity (classic mistake award winner)
- Risk Management – Failure to think ahead and to foresee and address potential problems (Classic mistake award winner) Risk management is seen as an independent activity rather than an integral part of the planning process
- Architecture and Design – Allowing a pet idea to become the chosen solution without considering if other solutions might better meet the project’s overall goal
- Configuration and Information Management – Failure to maintain control over document or component versions results in confusion over which is current, compatibility problems and other issues that disrupt progress.Failure to put in place appropriate tools for organizing and managing information results in a loss of key information and/or a loss of control
- Quality – Quality requirements are never discussed, thereby allowing different people to have different expectations of what is being produced and the standards to be achieved.Failure to plan into the project appropriate reviews, tests or checkpoints at which quality can be verified
- Project Tracking and Management – Believing that although the team is behind schedule, they will catch up later.The project plan is published but there is insufficient follow up or tracking to allow issues to be surfaced and addressed early. Those failures result in delays and other knock-on problems. Bad news is glossed over when presenting to customers, managers and stakeholders (aka “Green Shifting“)
- Decison Making Problems – Key decisions (strategic, structural or architectural type decisions) are made by people who lack the subject matter expertise to be making the decision. When making critical decisions expert advice is either ignored or simply never solicited
Behavioural Patterns
Each pattern embodies a broad set of behaviours that negatively influences the way individuals, teams, groups and even whole organizations, make project related decisions and how people work together. The resulting problems interact with individual trigger events (mistakes) and the combined effects are the drivers of project failure.
Pattern Library
The following entries are examples of some of the most common patterns:
First Option Adoption
Team fails to generate alternate ideas for how to meet the project objectives resulting in them settling for the first option they thought of rather than the best available option
Silos
Barriers between organizations and group lead to a breakdown in collaboration
The Pressure Wave
The build up of schedule pressure due to inaction in the face of an impending fixed deadline
Disconnect Failure
Project creates its intended deliverables, but those deliverables fail to deliver the intended business value
Top Led Failure
Mistakes made by Senior Executives early in the project set the project on a course to disaster
Focal Imbalance Failure
One or more critical aspects of the project receives insufficient attention leading to failure
Bottom Fed Failure
Poor quality at the implementation level results in project failure
Alignment Failure
Different parties are focused on different goals (often unstated goals) resulting in conflicts and misalinged efforts
Schedule Pressure Failure
Excessive schedule pressure results in critical mistakes that otherwise would not have been made
Commitment Failures
Project team makes unachievable commitments to schedule, budget and scope
Navigational Failures
Team lacks leadership and oversight in one or more dimensions
Intellectual Disintegration Failure
Failure to communicate results in individuals and groups having different understandings and heading off in different directions
Transitional Failures
Deliverables are created, but the value the project hoped to create is lost due to an ineffective transition into the operational world and failure to track outcomes
TheFast-Forward Freeze-Out
The failure to consult stakeholders during the planning process in order to expedite progress
Green Shifting
The tendency to report project status in positive terms despite growing indications that serious problems exist
Left Shifting
Key strategic, architectural and organizational decisions are down played in favour of diving into the hard core development activities
Quality Kaboom
Quality and testing activities are pushed to the end of the development cycle rather than being seen as an ongoing activity
Techcentric Myopia
Technology aspects of the project become primary focus while business and organizational issues are handled superficially
Gravitation
The tendency to be drawn to back to our comfort zone
Poly-Project Blindness
Failure to recognise that a new project has different characteristics from prior experiences and hence needs to be managed differently
(Calleam Consulting Ltd 2024)
10 Common Project Management Challenges & Solutions
Identifying a problem is the first step toward solving it. Here is a comprehensive overview of ten common project management challenges. This guide also includes tested and proven solutions to each of these problems.
1. Vague & Undefined Goals & Objectives
What do you want to achieve through the project? It is not enough to picture the project’s goals and objectives in your mind, regardless of how clear they may seem – you must define and articulate them.
A successful project is founded on clear goals and objectives. Many of the project’s aspects, including its plan, will be based on the project goal. Unfortunately, many project’s goals are usually vague or undefined, and most end up in failure, while others waste valuable resources trying to find their bearing.
Solution
It is advisable to consult widely with all stakeholders when defining goals and objectives. Adopting reliable project management methodologies for setting goals and objectives helps. The SMART method is reliable, and it requires that your goals be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.
2. Internal Conflicts
Most projects require teams of experts in various fields to work together in a concerted effort to achieve the set goals. Ideally, project teams should work smoothly. However, differences and disagreements between team members can create a chaotic work environment and compromise the project’s progress and outcomes.
Solution
The project manager is responsible for running an efficient, well-coordinated team. Poor communication is the leading cause of inter-team conflict because team members don’t have a shared vision. Transparent and timely communication would help clarify the team’s progress and goals to get all team members on the same page. You will need efficient management approaches tailored to meet different projects’ and teams’ varying needs.
3. Poor Communication
Poor communication is a common challenge for project management. For example, it is the leading cause of team conflicts. Effective communication is vital in project management because individuals and groups within the team should coordinate their roles. Miscommunication and lack of communication create silos that compromise the team members’ productivity, cause delays, and compromise the final outcome.
Solution
It is advisable to establish open communication channels when constituting the team. This will help ensure that everyone is on the same page from the very start when defining the project’s goals and objectives. Creating one central platform where different team members can exchange and track information is also important.
4. Scope Creep
Most projects’ goals, plans, and outcomes change as the project progresses. Minor changes are easy to handle, but major changes can throw the plan into disarray, resulting in delays and failure.
Scope creep refers to how such changes and adjustments increase the project’s scope. Effective project management requires the project manager to be in control of everything. Unfortunately, scope creep changes the plan, creating confusion and new challenges.
Solution
A comprehensive plan is the best solution to scope creep. Ideally, the plan should evaluate as many foreseeable opportunities and challenges as possible to avoid unexpected turns during project development. Adopting an agile project management methodology also helps maintain the team’s focus on the goals while continuously evaluating and reviewing the plan to ensure that they are aligned.
5. Budget Changes & Restrictions
More than 50% of projects usually exceed their allocated budgets. Ideally, the project’s plan should be thorough and detailed enough to develop a reliable estimate of how much the project will cost. However, changes caused by scope creep usually result in additional costs that exceed the allocated budget.
Budget changes restrictions limit access to the resources required to complete the project, causing delays and compromising its outcome. Most notably, the project may grind to a halt if the budget is not increased.
Solution
Managing scope creep and developing a comprehensive plan will help you accurately estimate how much the project will cost. It is also advisable to over-estimate the project’s cost by a reasonable range to cater to unforeseen expenses and cover unexpected losses. More importantly, the project manager and team members should identify and solve the causes of resource wastage as they track the project’s progress.
6. Unqualified & Under-Qualified Talent
Ideally, the team working on your project should comprise experts in various fields. Every team member’s contribution is important, and the quality of their input will impact the outcome’s overall quality. Essentially, incompetence in one or more team members would be the hypothetical weak links that may make the whole process crumble.
Finding good talent is becoming increasingly difficult. However, it is important to ensure that everyone in the team (starting with the project manager) has the required skills for the task.
Solution
Companies should aim at recruiting talented and skilled employees if they use in-house teams to run their projects. Alternatively, project managers can outsource some of the project’s tasks to managed services providers and choose new team members with matching skills.
7. Lack of Accountability
Ultimately, the bulk of running a successful project stops at the project manager. However, while the manager has many roles and responsibilities, they cannot do everything. As explained earlier, every team member’s input impacts the project’s outcome, and incompetence can compromise the whole project. Unfortunately, there is usually a lack of accountability among team members, which generally contributes to some of the challenges discussed here.
Solution
Ideally, every team member should be accountable and responsible for their work. Good communication is one of the integral requirements for fostering accountability. Making the project’s progress visible to everyone in the team will help keep them on their toes to keep up with the set schedule.
8. Rushed Deadlines
Some projects take days or weeks to complete, while others can go on for months or years. Ideally, the amount of work involved in developing and completing the project should determine its timeline and deadline. Unfortunately, many companies and project managers are usually very eager to see their projects’ results, and this often results in rushed, impractical deadlines.
Rushed and impractical deadlines are usually impossible to meet. The pressure to beat the clock can also result in errors and half-baked solutions that compromise the project’s outcome.
Solution
Impractical and rushed deadlines further emphasize the need for meticulous, comprehensive planning. It is important to allocate enough time for every task and map out a reasonable project timeline. It is also prudent to over-estimate the timeline by a reasonable range of work on eliminating time and resource wastage to prevent unnecessary delays.
9. Inefficient Risk Management
How would you handle these and other risks if you experienced them in your projects? Ideally, your risk management plan should answer this and other questions about all foreseen and unforeseen risks and challenges. Unfortunately, project managers cannot anticipate everything, and some project managers aren’t usually adequately prepared when undertaking new projects.
Solution
The project manager should work with the team and other essential stakeholders to brainstorm and identify any possible risks and setbacks. It is also worth noting that many Project Management Systems come with in-built risk management solutions.
10. Failure to Use Project Management Software
Research shows that only one in four organizations use professional project management software, which helps explain the high project failure rate. In contrast, three out of four of all successful projects use project management software
Solution
Project management software helps improve team members’ productivity and improve collaboration. It also helps with complex tasks such as data analytics and risk management. You can choose reliable project management software from hundreds of vendors.
(Padraig Friel PM360 Consulting 2024)
Article written 11 November 2024 by Padraig Friel MSc PM® MBA® IPMA-C® CMC® PM 360 Consulting
www.pm360consulting.ie/blog
Robert Goatham Calleam Consulting Ltd
www.calleamconsulting.com