Why Is Project Management So Important To An Organization? and Three Reasons Why Projects Fail?

29 Oct Why Is Project Management So Important To An Organization? and Three Reasons Why Projects Fail?

1. Strategic Alignment

Project management is important because it ensures what is being delivered, is right and will deliver real value against the business opportunity.

2. Leadership

Project management is important because it brings leadership and direction to projects.

3. Clear Focus & Objectives

Project management is important because it ensures there’s a proper plan for executing on strategic goals.

4. Realistic Project Planning

Project management is important because it ensures proper expectations are set around what can be delivered, by when, and for how much.

5. Quality Control

Project management is important because it ensures the quality of whatever is being delivered and consistently hits the mark.

6. Risk Management

Project management is important because it ensures risks are properly managed and mitigated against to avoid becoming issues.

7. Orderly Process

Project management is important because it ensures the right people do the right things, at the right time – it ensures proper project management process is followed throughout the project life cycle.

8. Continuous Oversight

Project management is important because it ensures a project’s progress is tracked and reported properly.

9. Subject Matter Expertise

Project management is important because someone needs to be able to understand if everyone’s doing what they should.

10. Managing and Learning from Success and Failure

Project management is important because it learns from the successes and failures of the past.

Three Reasosn Why Projects Fail

(1)   Poor Sponsorship.  Just as there are important characteristics in team members, there are also critical qualities in good sponsors.  Sponsors tend to be in management level positions so they can remove barriers and obtain resources to get things done.  However, that doesn’t mean that they know what else they need to do to be a good sponsor.  Identify what behaviors you need in your sponsors, and then have a collaborative and respectful conversation with them.  Just like you, they appreciate knowing what they need to do to make the project successful!

(2)   Missing Stakeholders Agreement.  Every project requires a SMART objective – a Specific, Measurable, Agreed Upon, Results-oriented, and Time-based description of what it’s supposed to accomplish.  Once your project objective has been written, you must get agreement from your key stakeholders.  If you’ve done a good job of uncovering your stakeholders’ requirements, then getting agreement will be much easier.  If you haven’t then conflicts will arise throughout your project, which are usually symptoms of uncovered requirements.

(3)   Non Established Project Objectives and Incomplete Requirements.  Most people haven’t had training on how to elicit, clarify, and validate requirements, so it’s no surprise that this is the most common reason for project failure.  Since requirements make up the scope of a project, if you are missing requirements you are missing scope. And if you’re missing scope, your stakeholders will be unhappy with the deliverables. Make certain you identify all of the stakeholders and then get a complete, correct and clear set of requirements.

A common practice is to rush through the initiation and planning of a project and start executing before requirements are clarified and agreement is obtained:  This is a recipe for failure.  You certainly don’t save any time or money by producing deliverables that don’t meet expectations.  All three of the above pitfalls must be addressed at the start of your project.  Only then can you execute a well-crafted plan according to the needs of your stakeholders.  Slow down to go fast.

Article written by Ben Aston 10th August 2021

https://thedigitalprojectmanager.com/why-is-project-management-important/

Three Reasons Why Your Projects Fail : Article written by Tiffany Dahlberg 10th Febrary 2015