When reading the media there are often observed projects that have been a significant failure. In recent years within there has been a multitude of project failures which range from replacement sea links (shipping) between the islands off Scotland, the replacement chain ferry in Cowes on the Isle of White, the integrated IT System within the UK-NHS, the recent Post Office Horizon system scandal, and the constant delays and cost overruns of MOD projects to name but a few. Projects fail for a multitude of reasons and this article seeks to name some of the principle reasons for such failures and identify important issues for consideration when defining, planning and executing a project.
Lack of Proper Planning
Failure to identify and manage risks is a significant if not the main contributing factor to project failure. When considering project risk, every project has its own risk profile depending on the scope, situation, and context of the project. Failure to identify the potential risks may jeopardise the project and will compound the project risk occurrence itself. Usually, when the risk has already occurred, it will be difficult to resolve and will end result in the need to change the project path or even result in project termination. High impact risk occurrence could even have significant adverse effects on the company itself. Therefore, identifying potential risks and planning a suitable risk response is essential to ensure project success.
Insufficient resource allocation is also a big problem contributing to project failure. In general, even though it looks as if there are enough resources to complete the project, when the project is delivered it will always demand more resources than planned or initially allocated. This is due to a lack of consideration relative to the steps and procedures required in completing the stages of the project and the resource constraints depending on the difficulty in completing the tasking within the work breakdown structure. Usually, projects will require additional resources which will have an impact on project time lead times and thus additional cost.
The reason for every project failure is lack of proper project planning, where the first reason contributing to project failure is inadequate project scope definition. Project team leaders may define the project in many different ways because of differences in perceptions and ideas. Whereas by having a subjective judgment on the idea of the project, it will lead the project into the wrong path and result in the project being delivered not to target and out of cause. Therefore, it is important to have a clear and detailed definition of the scope of the project to avoid differences in perception, ideas, interpretations, and boundaries.
Inadequate project scope definition
There are several other reasons why project planning is a critical factor for success. If the project scope is not adequately defined, the project can suffer from feature creep. This occurs when additional features are requested (scope increase) without equivalent increases in budget, time, and/or resources. If these new features are not absorbed in a controlled fashion, the original project can be compromised, and the added features may result in delayed delivery or increased cost to the customer. Project scope needs to be clearly defined such that the project can be broken down into tasks, and the tasks can be clearly communicated to the project team members. The results of the tasks should also be quantifiable in order to make a judgment on the completion of the task. If a task is not defined well or at all, the task can result in being unnecessary, or the completion of the task can be deemed as successful, but not provide any tangible results. Finally, when a project scope is defined, any changes to the scope must go through an official scope change process. The effects of scope changes need to be analysed against all constraints of the project, then if it is deemed viable, the necessary changes to budget, time, and resources need to be communicated to, and agreed by all stakeholders.
Insufficient resource allocation
Once the total estimation has been done, a resource histogram should be drawn for easy visualisation and to facilitate any necessary changes. All activities should be kept up to date as new changes in plans and scheduling can lead to an imbalance in resource allocation. For example, if there is an increase in the time required to complete the project, hiring more people will not solve the problem. When a new person is hired, they have to be trained by using the existing workforce, which increases both the workforce and the cost. Therefore, a schedule should be properly maintained and updated to keep track of resource allocation. A project is not static, so resource allocation should be continuously adjusted without any imbalance. This can be achieved by using a software tool to draw the resource histogram. One project management tip is to avoid allocating resources too early, as resources may become scarce. One resource allocation strategy is to over allocate a few resources and under allocate others. This can be done at the group or department level with the aim of smoothing resource requirements. This may cause changes in activity dates and durations, but the total over a period of time should remain the same. This strategy can help prevent the need for hiring and firing and minimize continual changes in resource levels.
- Total time required to complete the project and the activities at stage within the work breakdown structure.
- Total workforce required for the project and the type of work.
- Total materials required for each activity.
- Tools and equipment required for work.
Insufficient resource allocation is the improper allocation of resources during a project. All projects depend on the time expected to complete the project, the cost estimated by the project owner, and ultimately the quality of the project that satisfies the project owner. These factors are known as the iron triangle, which includes time, cost, and quality. For a project to be done effectively, all three factors of the iron triangle should be balanced. The main component of the iron triangle is the cost. If the project cost exceeds the estimated cost, then the project is considered a failure. It is observed that an imbalance in resource allocation can lead to project failure, but a well-balanced resource allocation can lead to project success. Steps should be taken to allocate resources for a project.
A project manager should know the following in order to allocate resources:
(i) Failure to identify and manage risks
In other situations, risk management may have no impact on eliminating the chance of something going wrong, but instead will make sure that the project team is ready to face the issue should it occur. This saves a lot of panicked planning if the issue blindsides the team and takes some cost out of the impact. This can be seen as analogous to packing a spare tyre and tools before going on a long drive. You hope you will never get a flat tyre, but you know it's a possibility, and being stranded without the means to fix it would be even worse.
Depending on the nature of the project, in other words, if it is a significant spend project with a fair amount of ongoing risk or exposure, then the chances are high that any related project risks, if not managed, could have a detrimental impact on the project outcome. As a result of not managing the chances, the impact of any project risk will be much higher than it ever needed to be. An IT systems project, for example, may have had the potential to automate a process, saving man hours, and as a result, saving a large amount of money. If the risk of system reliability was not managed and the system failed to work, this could instead result in a loss of money due to a flawed process and system rework. The risk was never to spend an extra 100k to get the system right, but in the end, that is what it ended up costing.
(ii) Poor Communication and Collaboration
The use of inadequate technology or tools for communication is one of the top causes of communication breakdown, leading to the sharing of inaccurate information, misunderstood messages, and ultimately project failure. Email is still the most widely used form of communication on projects as it provides a form of documentation and a non-intrusive way to converse with others. However, it is often an ineffective means to communicate due to its limitations in facilitating discussion, obtaining quick decisions, and allows too much room for misinterpretation. Similarly, text communication lacks the tone and context of spoken conversation and can often be a source of misunderstanding. The misinterpretation of tone in emails and text messages has been cited as a cause for conflict between team members and project stakeholders. Phone calls and video conferencing are much better ways to communicate information as they allow real-time spoken conversation and clarity. High-context, rich communication is essential for relaying complex information between team members and stakeholders in a project, thus these mediums are recommended.
Poor communication and collaboration are also often cited as one of the primary reasons for project failure. With its roots in confusion, misunderstanding, and an increase in conflicting perspectives, communication breakdown can lead to the failure of critical success factors for key stakeholders in the project. Effective communication is a building block for successful organizations, high-performing teams, and productive relationships. Improved communication has been linked to a plethora of positive outcomes; to name a few, higher job satisfaction, enhanced productivity, effective conflict resolution, a greater sense of job security, and fewer work-related injuries are directly related to the way employees interact with one another. While the inverse is also true, that poor communication has severe repercussions for organizations and groups. It is often attributed as the cause for project failure.
In consideration of Ineffective communication channels several reasons for project failure exist. Ineffective communication can result in project teams working in relative isolation and failing to efficiently get things done. The key to effective communication is to identify the key stakeholders and have a clear understanding of their requirements. A simple and free-flowing exchange of information between these key stakeholders often determines the success or failure of a project. If the information is not forthcoming or too much is assumed, the result is a lack of clarity. This is where problems start to arise for project leaders who have the unenviable task of trying to control and direct the project to a successful outcome. If the information is not available, it is often the case that decisions are based on best guesses or assumptions. This can result in wasted effort and rework when an incorrect decision has a significant impact. Clear decision-making is the most important part of any project and one which consumes much of a project leader's time. When decisions are based on information which is patchy at best, the likelihood of making the right decision is slim. If the decision is a critical one, this can lead to project failure. Finally, communication problems often result in stakeholders having differing perceptions about the project. This can be very dangerous as it often leads to differences in expectations, and the perception of success will likely differ between the parties involved. If left unresolved, it is often these issues which cause a project to be terminated.
Lack of clear roles and responsibilities
In project management, failure to manage responsibilities can lead to project failure. Every project is assigned roles and responsibilities, including time scales, budgets, and deadlines. Managing projects involves making decisions on how to fulfill these roles and responsibilities according to the pre-planned schedule. If the project deviates from the initial plan, correcting the failed task becomes challenging. This can result in wasted time and budget and may even require starting again from the beginning. Therefore, effective project management requires clear roles and responsibilities that align with the initial plan, ensuring tasks are executed correctly from start to finish.
Roles are the functions that individuals are chosen to perform based on their skills. Identifying responsibilities and assigning tasks to people based on their roles is important. It is crucial to define responsibilities and tasks properly as it can make a significant difference in achieving the project's goals. For example, a simple task like documentation requires someone with the skill to write it correctly. If roles and responsibilities are not defined properly, someone without the necessary skills may write the documentation in their own way, resulting in a different outcome. This can waste time and resources if the work needs to be revised from the beginning. It can also create discomfort in asking the person to revise their work, as they may believe they have done it correctly. This situation can impact the progress of the project and potentially lead to its cancellation.
Misalignment between stakeholders
A stakeholder is a person, group, or organization that has a direct or indirect stake in an organization (or project) because it can affect or be affected by the organization's (or project’s) actions, objectives, and policies. No matter how noble or well-conceived a project is, it must be aligned with the organization's overall strategic goals. A health indicator that often comes with the failure of a strategy or project is the misalignment of stakeholders' interests. An example of strategic misalignment would be a project that is developed to retain customers when the organization's goal is to move away from its current customer base and focus on a new segment. This will ultimately lead to the project being cancelled irrespective of how successful it was. Political misalignment can also be damaging, with corporate power struggles leading to competition between projects where one must fail. The primary cause of the misalignment is that one or more parties have an incorrect understanding of what the others are seeking to achieve by the project. This is the result of communication failure and amounts to a waste of time and resources.
A recent study showed that 70% of projects that were aligned with corporate strategy were successful compared to only 40% of projects that did not have the luxury of being well aligned. With the high cost of failure, it is essential that all stakeholders and project team members have a clear understanding of what each party wants to achieve by the project and what the success criteria are for each individual involved. It is essential that teams hold meetings to sign off on the project's goals and monitor them throughout the project life cycle.
A typical symptom of misalignment and an attempt to gain control is frequent change in project leadership. If a sponsor feels that the project is not fulfilling his own interests, he is likely to pull the plug and funding. If the project manager feels that the project is different from the one he signed up for, he is likely to resign. Ominously, the largest growth role in the project management field is the change manager. This is no more prevalent than in the IT industry where package software has left companies trying to fit preconceived solutions into problems and custom software is often developed based on a misunderstanding of end user requirements. Typical examples of this include the challenges within the UK-NHS IT roll outs and the Post Office Horizon scandal where the software platforms had significant interface problems.
Unrealistic Expectations and Goals
Overestimating available resources is another common reason for project failure, particularly the overallocation of human resources. It is hard to refuse extra help. This may come in the form of assigning more people than necessary to a task or hiring a contractor when it's not really needed. More money and better technology are believed to be solutions to many problems. Yet this tactic often backfires. High levels of manpower on a project lead to confusion, and their collective lack of experience may produce poor results. This excessive amount of work may cause exhaustion and result in high turnover. The money will, of course, be spent and more, but the project will not necessarily be any better off.
Setting a deadline too soon or on a certain date for political reasons, regardless of project scope and its requirements, is a recipe for failure. Deadline pressure is normal to most projects, yet it is usually counterproductive to define an exact date, especially one that is too soon. It is better to build in some contingency time, leave the date open, and then negotiate it as the project progresses. Often it is hard to figure out how much time a certain task will take, and the planning fallacy, which is the underestimation of task-completion times, can throw off the entire project schedule. Failure to reach objectives and deliverables on time gives a psychological effect to the team, the momentum will be lost, and the team will feel discouraged. This will often create a situation in which time is "made up" by taking shortcuts, thus providing lower quality results. Any time saved will usually be lost in the need to go back and fix the mistakes. The golden rule in scheduling is to always add buffer time because one way or another, time will be lost during the project.
Project success comes from tying expectations and goals to reality. Defining a project's success ahead of time and then sticking to a plan built upon it are two of the best ways to accomplish this. It is important to make sure everyone not only knows what those goals are but believes that achieving them is important to the success of the project. Unfortunately, many project managers and stakeholders set goals and expectations that are simply unattainable. There are several reasons why these unrealistic goals are set. The most common are: setting unattainable deadlines, overestimating available resources, and failing to prioritize project objectives.
Setting unattainable deadlines
Unattainable deadlines have always been the result of setting unrealistic expectations. Deadlines should have some basis in reality; they should be derived from a work breakdown structure that is derived from a task list where each task has been estimated for time and resources. Often, with the best of intentions, a completion date is set for the entire project with insufficient time allocated to planning, analysis, design, or testing (all the "upstream" activities). The inevitable result is that the project gets crammed into the time left and the only activity that is cut is testing, which of course only reveals itself much later on in the form of system failure. Testing being the activity that finds defects, the failure of the system is directly attributable to a lack of time allocated to testing. This scenario is (or should be) well understood, yet deadline setting still tends towards optimism.
Another way in which deadlines become unattainable is when there are changes to the project that are not sufficiently reflected in their impact on the overall plan. This occurs in two broad scenarios; one is where there is a variation to the plan itself – it is often the case that the plan is not updated to reflect this variation and so the impact is not felt until perhaps much later when the variance is realized. The second scenario is where a date is set to meet an objective without sufficient analysis to determine its achievability. Date-driven objectives are in themselves risky and should really be avoided, though it is hard to change the habit of a culture that sets great score by meeting commitments.
Overestimating available resources
There are interesting reasons as to why resource requirements are so often estimated incorrectly. Schedules are often created as if all tasks will be worked on immediately, which result in "all of the duration of tasks being summed will significantly exceed the duration of the project, and yet individual estimate on task duration will be accurate." This is known as The Planning Fallacy as observed by Buehren et al 2013, a phenomenon in which predictions about how much time will be needed to complete a future task display an optimism bias and underestimate the time needed, and originates from another effect which is that workers are generally notoriously bad at predicting how long tasks will take, frequently confusing desired with actual time on what is known as the "Estimation Bias". Step-time and Event-Contingency Display is a proposed solution that can be used to counteract the planning fallacy and estimation bias in that tasks are planned more accurately by representing how the task should be completed in contrast to how it will be completed.
Projects often fail because the project developers overestimated the resources required. They may have underestimated the cost of resources and ended up spending more than they had expected. A resource that is often underestimated is time. Projects frequently run into time problems because they have underestimated how long something will take. This is often caused by a lack of detailed planning and analysis. How things can take so long is frequently a surprise when it is looked at in detail. The project can eventually grind to a halt when it runs out of time, and this is frequently because of other underestimated resources such as human resources and finances as the deadline approaches and people are being moved to other projects.
Failure to prioritize project objectives.
Failure to prioritize project objectives can result in working on the wrong things. This can happen when team members have different ideas of what is to be achieved. Each will work toward his own interpretation, and in the end, the systems will not be integrated. This happened in a software project to develop intelligent tutoring systems. An ITS can take many forms, from explaining simple concepts to simulating a series of Socratic dialogs. Different team members had different ideas of what it meant for a system to be intelligent, resulting in different methods and interfaces which did not work together.
This is a very common reason for project failure. Sometimes project managers do not spend enough time in the early planning stages of a project, determining what the project is actually supposed to achieve. They fail to consult with the customer and have a fuzzy notion of what is wanted, and then assume that they will recognize it when they fail to prioritize objectives. One case involves a company that built an automated system for a warehouse but never bothered to identify what the term "automation" meant. In the end, they developed a computer system to track inventory but it had no effect on the way the warehouse operated. At the time of installation, it was decided that the project's impact would not even be assessed.
Inadequate Project Monitoring and Control
Scope management's implementation of detailed work breakdown structures and the tracking of work units are the best way to avoid drift and change. This is especially true for the newer a project, for which poorly defined scope is a common cause of failure. Change management failure is the cause of the change from the change of project plan or part to an attempt to get back. When the effects of change are not monitored or analysed, more often than not, it is assumed that the change did not achieve its expected results. This can often lead to continuous changes back to the original plan and can sometimes cause more adverse effects today cost and quality part changes.
Without a baseline and comparison to the project plan, the various parts of the project (scope, time, cost, and quality) can drift from the original plan. Drift occurring between scope, quality, and cost can often force unwanted change as resources run out at trying to achieve the original target. If no analysis is done on why the change occurred and its effects, these part changes are a good candidate for project failure in what would be an attempt to get the project back on track that led it to the parts changes.
Simple unobtrusive methods of measuring projects can be qualitative, such as progress notes. But to compare actual performance to the project plan, the ideal method of monitoring is to quantify the work completed against the amount of work planned. This is why what usually defines the lack of monitoring and control project failure is the fact that the qualitative progress notes never were turned into setting new quantified plans. Meaning that at some point, the project plan was no longer being used as a baseline to compare performance, and thus the project may have regressed to what would be an earlier stage of the project, effectively changing the plan but with no management. It is not known if it was for better or worse.
Inadequate project monitoring and control is widely cited as the reason for project failure, and is one of the more ambiguous explanations. There is failure in the project monitoring and control parameter, but it's not just the cause of the failure but also the effect. The cause could be a subsequent of other failures in the project. Since monitoring and control is at the heart of project management, failure in this area will be felt in each of the other areas of project management. Should any of the parts of monitoring and control fail, the result would be, in fact, project failure. Monitoring and control requires information with which to compare the project's actual performance. This information comes from progress, since the project is compared to the schedule and its variances from the original plan.
Lack of progress tracking mechanisms
Progress can be visualised by the use of a Gantt chart. The Gantt chart should be a full picture of the work plan. Inconsistencies or incomplete sections of the Gantt chart are warning signs for the project manager. Unfortunately Gantt charts are not always used or maintained correctly. Progress can also be measured with Earned Value Analysis. Earned value not only gives an assessment of actual progress but also assesses the use of resources to obtain the progress. Often when a project goes wrong, progress is still being made but the cost is far greater than the value attained. Earned Value Analysis uses the baseline to calculate the expected value of work done at any given time. Comparing this to the actual cost will give the cost efficiency of the work done. Schedule slippage can be calculated by comparing the progress made to the amount of work that should have been done by the same point in time. Schedule slippage is also the difference between what has been done and the work that should have been done at the present time. A project manager should differentiate between minor variations in schedule and major overruns. An assessment of the causes of slippage should then be made.
Effective project monitoring assesses the project's progress and performance against the planned schedule. Progress is the quantitative aspect of the project – it is what has been done against what was planned. Performance includes the quality of deliverables and adherence to budgets. The project manager should not in any circumstances compare actual progress and performance to the actual progress and performance. This is because comparing to what has been done invites a re-planning of the remaining work. The project manager should compare actuals to the baseline. Any variation from the baseline should be investigated. The project manager is then better placed to take the appropriate action to get the project back on course.
Insufficient quality assurance processes
Quality assurance should logically involve setting rules and standards to achieve the identified quality. It needs to be emphasized at all levels of planning, preferably in the planning phase, with the aim to prevent defects from being produced. According to Thomas M. Pigoski (2005), he has his own definition that quality assurance is all the planned and systematic pattern of all actions that are needed to give the confidence that a product will fulfill the expected requirements. Quality assurance in software development covers various ways, including code inspection and senior testing. In the first stage, it is expected to improve the quality of software output from the beginning. There is a requirement to do code inspection and checking, but the software on the output should have higher quality compared to the previous student test used as a control to improve quality. Additionally, the research team suggests and conducts evaluation tools that are useful as acceptance software of learning to be tested in the software integrated into the Learning Management System (LMS).
Inadequate change management procedures
Inadequate change procedures are an often overlooked area where project failure can be initiated. As projects are essentially a series of changes being made, it is how these changes are managed and controlled that can determine the success of the project. A change can be installing a new system for your users, it could be a small adjustment to one of the systems configurations. No matter what the change is, big or small, it is imperative that a suitable change management process is in place. Failure to do so can lead to the change being implemented in an ad hoc fashion. The implications of this can be quite severe, even a small change if implemented incorrectly can result in system instability, user disruption and can consume a large amount of unplanned resource in trying to rectify the implications of the change. If the change was a new system implementation and it was to fail, any significant shortcomings resulting from the project change are to be identified quickly, in order to redirect resources and prevent further loss. If the change was simply a project team deciding to re-allocate a couple of their members to a different area, it is important that the project manager is alerted and project plan is updated. Without a clear schedule in the plan any unplanned changes can lead to confusion and can disrupt project progress/resource allocation and cause tasks to be incomplete or not done to their full potential.
In reflection of all the above, I think that I have observed many of the above in my career relating to deliverance of projects for the automotive sector and whilst project managers strive to address all the above, sadly it is the burden of all project managers to deal with the ever evolving environment and the external influences that affect the project. On going situational awareness of the 'shifting sands' is therefore essential to the successful deliverance of any project.
