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The main reason why projects can fail

After many years of being involved in a variety of projects and project roles including conducting Lessons Learnt sessions, we can identify seven main reasons why projects can fail.

  1. Project Handover: Transferring a project from, say, a business unit manager to a project manager is often not done in person, but only by sharing documents (or just a half-hour meeting). Time is short and the project manager simply accepts a poor handover.
  2. Missing support: Project managers lack support from e.g., the Project Steering Committee and senior management.
  3. Experience: Some project managers – and members of the project team – are inadequately educated and trained in the successful execution of projects. In addition, the project manager is often simply unavailable to the team because he is involved in day-to-day activities that can easily be transferred to project team members.
  4. Quality issues: Those responsible regulary fail to manage quality, risk, and to optimise project opportunities, leading to uncontrolled projects.
  5. Scale, not skip: The available procedures and work instructions are rarely tailored to the needs of the project. The responsible persons sometimes simply skip the required procedures and work instructions instead of adapting them to the needs of the project.
  6. Poor change management: This one is more the rule than an exception, the process of managing change is either non-existent or not implemented at all.
  7. Unrealistic Milestones: Projects are regularly driven by unrealistic milestones and a debatable available budget. Milestones are quite often set by the company or client expectations but not challenged nor benchmarked. The budget is sometimes based on a few high-level figures and not built up using proper cost engineering input and not questioned by experienced cost engineers and project management. Cost benchmarking is rarely done. Certified Cost Engineers are not available or not hired through an external company.

The effect of the seven topics above

Handover

If you don’t take the project handover seriously than you might end up with serious issues such as re-work, schedule- and cost issues, furthermore, it can also ruin valuable (business) relationships.

Support

Even senior project managers need support from management, and a steering committee shall provide visible and ongoing support to the Project Manager and his team, including important decision making when necessary. If that support is not there, you can face serious risks in all areas of project management.

Expierence

The project manager and his team must have sufficient experience in the area of expertise. Not enough experience often results in a project with many unexpected events and poor risk and opportunity management. It would not be the first time that budget, schedule, and quality problems were caused by individuals without the proper skills and experience. However, it is good to have young, inexperienced personnel on the project, if guided and supported by the experienced, older personnel or hired staff.

Quality

If a quality system is not in place or not properly managed, it will result in unwanted surprises and can lead to missing project objectives. In addition, if risks and opportunities are not managed then this will always end in budget, schedule, and quality issues and sometimes even Health, Safety and Environmental problems.

Scale

Standard project procedures and work instructions result in a structured way of project execution. Some standardised documents may not fit or may be over the top for a specific topic. Both Prince2® and PMBOK® recommend that certain documents be tailored to the project needs so that they do fit the project. The result is that you will still be working to project standards and quality system and most likely more efficiently, which can have a positive impact on both budget and schedule.

Change

Failure to manage changes will result in a project with budget and schedule overruns. For an owner organization, managing changes is of great importance because it can provide insight into deviations in, for example, cost and time. In addition, a good Management of Change process can prevent unwanted changes at an early stage. For an engineering and construction company, a change is the way to increase the profitability of the project and get paid for the work done.

Milestones

Basically nothing more to add for this topic.

How we can help you

  1. First of all, identifications which procedures, work instructions and reports are applicable for the project and, if necessary, we’ll write a deviation form or draft a project specific document.
  2. Conducting cold-eye reviews always results in a better project.
  3. Check if your project is truly in control with the help of Boelens Projects In Control or other independent company.
  4. if your project is in trouble or you are not sure if your project is under control, please consider a Project Health Check. The Project Health Check will help you find the root causes why your project is in trouble or will identify the areas of improvement needed for a successful project. A separate part of the Project Health Check is the Project Control Check, which is quite strong in analysing your project controls.
  5. After the analysis, you can start making improvements, like the topics as described in the “Services” menu.

Basil S. Walsh (1955) wrote the following statement.

An intelligent plan is the first step to success. The man who plans knows where he is going, knows what progress he is making and has a pretty good idea when he will arrive

Do you know when you arrive at your destination?  We can help you to find the best way to get there in time, do not hesitate to contact us!