By Chris Stone, Project Manager for Rocky Mountain Trade Adjustment Assistance Center
Too Many Reasons
Somewhat depressingly, the list of reasons why projects fail is quite long.
My initial assessment identified 46 possible reasons for project failure. Short discussions with a few colleagues delivered a loud message – “you either need a shorter list or you need to group the 46 into a few categories”.
After rejecting an idea to go find new friends, I took a close looks and discovered 5 categories for project failure.
These categories are:
- Leadership Failure
- Project Management Failure
- Technology Overreach
- Stakeholder Failure
- Environmental Change
Suspecting you want more, let’s take a closer look at each one.
1. Leadership Failure
- Lack of a clear vision and mission
- New executive team comes in with different vision
- Organizational goals are not communicated clearly
- Unrealistic expectations – demanding perfection
- Poor assessment of risks
2. Project Management Failure
- Plan asks for too much in too little time
- Poor estimates, especially financial
- Unrealistic assumptions, if they exist at all
- Plans based upon insufficient data
- No systemization of the planning process
- Planning performed by a planning group
- Inadequate or incomplete requirements
- Lack of resources
- Assigned resources that lack experience or the necessary skills
- Resources that lack focus or motivation
- Staffing requirements that are not fully known
- Constantly changing resources
- Poor overall project planning
- Established milestones not measurable
- Established milestones too far apart
- Missed deadlines and no recovery plan
- Budgets exceeded and out of control
- Lack of replanning on a regular basis
- Lack of attention provided to human and organizational aspects of project
- Project estimates that are best guesses and not based upon history or standards
- Not enough time provided for estimating
- Exact major milestone dates or due dates for reporting not known
- Team members working with conflicting requirements
- People shuffled in and out of project with little regard for schedule
- Poor or fragmented cost control
- Wrong type of contract
- Poor project management; team members possess a poor understanding of project management, virtual team members
- Assigning critically skilled workers, including the project manager, on apart-time basis
3. Technology Overreach
- Technologically unrealistic requirements
- Technical objectives that are more important than business objectives
4. Stakeholder Failure
- End-user stakeholders not involved throughout the project
- Minimal or no stakeholder backing; lack of ownership
- Unclear stakeholder requirements
- Passive user stakeholder involvement after handoff
- Each stakeholder uses different organizational process assets, which may be incompatible with each other
- Weak project and stakeholder communications
5. Environmental Change
- Weak initial business case
- Business case deterioration
- Business case requirements that have changed significantly over the life of the project
- Technical obsolescence
- Environmental factors that have changed causing outdated scope
About Chris Stone
Chris is a Project Manager with The Rocky Mountain Trade Adjustment Assistance Center (RMTAAC) in Boulder, where he helps small U.S. manufacturers improve their competitiveness versus import competition. RMTAAC is a federally funded (U.S. Department of Commerce) program that is managed through the University of Colorado, Leeds School of Business.
Over the course of his 18 years at RMTAAC, Chris has helped turn around more than 100 manufacturers across a wide range of industries in the Rocky Mountain Region.
“With my client companies, I like to focus on what is realistic and “do-able,” given a company’s background, experience, and capabilities. Oftentimes, small companies simply don’t know how or where to get started with change. They lack a vision. I view my role as a facilitator and guide, like a business coach, helping companies get moving with key projects, starting small and building upon successes. As companies get comfortable with change and start to see results, they gain confidence and are then able to refine and clarify their vision for the future.”
Chris has worked in manufacturing for more nearly 30 years, beginning in the quality control department of a Colorado Hi-Tech manufacturer. His educational background includes a BA in Economic History, focusing on regional economic development, as well as an MBA from The Leeds School of Business at The University of Colorado.
Beyond the world of work, Chris is an avid sportsman. He likes to keep fit playing tennis, mostly against his daughter and son, along with the occasional mixed doubles with the wife versus the kids, who, these days, generally win.
See: LinkedIn profile
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