Avoiding Project Failure: It's Not Rocket Science

It's said that every project is unique; however the underlying causes of project failure are usually the same. When we know what these causes are, we can minimise the chances of problems and increase our likelihood of success.

In the words of Nick Dean, Managing Director at Professional Values:

"Projects go wrong for the same reasons all the time. There are no new sins. We can look at a project in its first two months and know if it will be a success or not."

So what should we do when faced with poor initiation, weak control, lack of staffing, risks, issues and unrealistic expectations?

What follows are five common problem areas and possible solutions.

1. Poor Project Initiation

The Problem

Possibly the most common pitfall is failing to initiate a project properly by spending time to gather and agree customer requirements, create a good project plan and set customer expectations.

It's tempting to start work quickly, but a poor initiation stage often leads to problems and even failure.

The Solution

Don't start the project until it has been properly initiated. Don't allow the customer to push you into starting work on the assumption that it will result in an earlier delivery. The reality is that poor initiation extends projects, by causing rework, errors and oversights. Just say no when pushed and never start too early.

2. Weak Project Control

The Problem

It's no-good doing a thorough job of planning and initiating a project if you don't manage it effectively to its conclusion. Typical problems are scope creep, poor work-planning, lack of change control, poor communication and poor management of risks and issues.

The Solution

• Introduce a change control process and make everyone aware of it. Use it to ensure your team stay focused on delivering what is important.
• Practice exception reporting. This saves time and ensures there is better focus on risks and issues as they arise.
• Communicate regularly with your customer, sponsor and other important stakeholders.
• Review and update your project plan regularly. If you don't intend to review and update your plan, then it's not worth creating.

3. Lack of Staffing and Skills

The Problem

Not having the right number of people, or having the right number with the wrong skill mix, is often a cause of project failure. It's frustrating when your project lacks the right number of skilled people, but all too common on today's projects.

The Solution

Insist that management provide suitable people either from internal staff or if necessary by hiring contract staff. Back up your request with a solid project plan showing the areas you still need people. Don't just keep quiet and struggle on, it's not fair on you or your team.

4. Failing to Address Risks and Issues

The Problem

There are many occasions during the project life cycle when risks and issues may cause problems, even failures. Examples of these include:

1. Failure to define the requirements clearly, resulting in not meeting customer expectations.
2. Cutting-edge or new technology that causes unforeseen problems.
3. A poor technical design preventing changes or scaling of the solution in the future.
4. Poor change control allowing change requests to cause the project to drift.
5. Changing business priorities diverting attention away from core work.
6. Poor testing leading to bugs and errors left in the product.
7. Loss of key personnel at critical times.

The Solution

Review a list of risks and issues at the start of every project. A good approach is to brainstorm possible risks and issues with your team or other project managers who have run similar projects. Continue to review risks and issues with your team throughout the project. Solutions for the examples above include:

1. Employ a business analyst to draw out the customers' requirements and document them in a clear and concise way.
2. Ask if it's necessary to use cutting-edge technology or whether a more proven solution will deliver the same benefits.
3. Use your team to create the technical design, this way you have a far greater chance of something robust and scalable, with the bonus that your team has a stake in making it succeed.
4. Agree a change control process with your customer before the project starts and stick to it.
5. Create a weekly work-plan for the team so they remain focused on the priorities and aren’t distracted.
6. Put together a test plan with test scenarios based on the customer requirements. Ensure you have enough resource and customer commitment to run them.
7. Create a contingency plan covering loss of key personnel.

5. Failing to Manage Expectations

The Problem

Often projects start on a high with a huge amount of optimism. During the project life cycle expectations can inflate to a degree well beyond the reality of what is possible. When customers don't know what to expect or don't have visibility of progress, frustration can set in and your relationship with them break down.

The Solution

It's the project manager's role to manage expectations to a sensible level. One-way to do this is to break projects down into smaller chunks or phases with frequent milestones. This way you manage expectations by making regular deliveries so the customer sees what they're getting. This approach ensures the project delivers to the customers' expectations by giving them early visibility of what you're building.

Finally

Research in April 2003 for Unilog, the independent pan-European IT consultancy and services company, found that 100 percent of IT managers had experience of a project that had failed to meet all of its objectives. They identified these seven deadly sins that lead to project failure:

1. Poor project scoping and undefined project objectives, roles and responsibilities - leading to the setting of unrealistic expectations.
2. Lack of communication between IT and the business - resulting in a mismatch of requirements and expectations.
3. No senior business sponsor AND separate project manager.
4. Technology put before people: no or minimal involvement of key users during the scoping phase and lack of regular communication with them throughout the project implementation.
5. No project success metrics.
6. No risk assessment or contingency plan.
7. Lack of regular checks to ensure the project is on track - to time and budget.

Don't become the casualty of a failed project, put measures in place that address the five key areas to help ensure your project success. After all, it's not Rocket Science.

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