Why do projects fail? In a multi-industry study of 163 companies, researchers at PM Solutions asked that simple question. Their report identifies five primary causes of project failure:
- Requirements: Unclear, contradictory, and ambiguous
- Resources: Lack of resources, resource conflicts, and turnover of key resources
- Schedules: Too tight and overly optimistic
- Planning: Based on poor data, insufficient details, and bad estimates
- Risks: Unidentified, assumed, or not managed well.
You could look at the list above and conclude that there’s nothing new in this report–and you’d be right. What’s so alarming, though, is that such problems still plague us. This report says that more than a third of company projects are at risk of failing.
But when I look at this list, I see symptoms of project failures, not causes. At the center of any successful project is competent leadership. When you see a failed project, you’re likely to also find poor leadership.
If you perceive one of these seemingly obvious “causes” for failure on a project, you’ll want to look further. The real problem is lurking elsewhere.
I would agree that leadership is the cause of most of these symptoms. Of the symptoms, I would suggest that more projects would succeed if more attention was paid to requirements. Creating a thorough and unambiguous set of requirements up front that the business team agrees to and signs off is critical. Unfortunately, project teams try to rush through this phase almost as a waste of time and get into the meat of the development.
Lew Sauder, Author, Consulting 101: 101 Tips For Success in Consulting
It’s easy for everyone involved with a project to want to get rolling. So, great advice for taking a step back and making sure you’ve really got a handle on what you’re going to produce.
Similar to your point, Michael, I keep looking at the list, baffled by how “Relationships” isn’t on it. Perhaps if I took the time to dig into the research, I’d find it there. For now, I’m left scratching my head. I worked for a $1b technology consulting firm for a decades. Without a doubt, every time there was a serious project failure (occasionally leading to a big fat law suit) without a doubt you could trace it back to a relationship failure — mismanaged expectations, time not spent investing in team building, consultants not being direct with clients when it was time to deliver tough messages, and more. So I guess the key is not to ask, “Why do projects fail,” but “What’s behind that?” … “And what’s behind that*?”
Andrea,
Excellent point, and a clear research oversight.
Every aspect of project communication and performance is really improved with strong relationships. I can think of more than one occasion that a “big fat lawsuit” was avoided because of the strength of relationships.
With the high rate of project failure, you’d think we’d have figured this out by now.