Why do so many projects fail?
I am often asked to assist companies who after spending a large sum of money on a new system wonder why the solution is not delivering what was expected. In many cases the elements of the project have in fact delivered as expected but somehow the expected business benefits have not been realized. Quite often however, the same elements are missing from the project at the outset.

It is important to step back from the technology and identify what success looks like at the outset of a project. This is often best done by the business rather than IT. Surprisingly very few companies actually do this. This entails answering a few questions including:

The old colloquialism that there is no such thing as an IT project but IT responding to a business project is absolutely correct and if the project does not stand up to business scrutiny then do not do it. Some strong willed functional leaders, e.g. Sales, Customer Service, HR etc. may believe that their “pet” project is the most important task that must be done within the company but through effective board level leadership each candidate project should be assessed against the company strategy and quantifiable outcomes before being commissioned.

Good projects need good project leaders. I meet so many so called project managers who are quite definitely not in charge of the project but are running around putting plasters over holes in the dyke. If companies cannot afford good project managers or have project managers without the necessary experience it is often best to involve an external company to drive the project along. This is a well proven method of successfully delivering projects but is reliant on careful selection and integration with the in-house team.

All parties need to know who is involved, who the stakeholders are, and flowing through the project should be absolute clarity fed by sound communications. To achieve clarity there is a need for strong relationships, honesty and trust whether the news is good or bad. Good project managers anticipate potential issues usually through a sound use of risk management and do not only rely on the critical path shown in the project Gantt chart. The blame game is a no win situation and should not be tolerated in any good project. There is a time to review where things faltered or went wrong and companies should always face up to having post implementation reviews for every project even though this takes place a few months later when people are in other projects. This is the time to learn for future projects not to blame.

Importantly success breeds success. A good project with sound deliverables and great business benefits is something to recognise and bring to peoples’ attention throughout the company. The model for good project development needs to be constantly refined by the input of good professional project managers.