The principle aim want to know , is to identify and explore multiple dimensions of project failures during the entire life of project execution. Many projects fail, especially IT projects. Methods that companies can get better at performing projects is by learning from projects they have carried out. There are small things which can decide fate of project. These all in project management practice and research, has been to see it as a threat and as something that should, if possible, be neutralized, reduced and followed.
Introduction
In a perfect world every project would be "on time and within budget." But reality (especially the proven statistics) tells a very different story. It's not uncommon for projects to fail. Individuals are trustworthy budget and schedule are met, one must ask -
Question - "Did the project deliver the results and quality we expected?"
Answer to this question could be different in different perspective. There isn't single method or organizational structure you can use to manage projects to success. Project failure can happen in any organization and to any project.
Many reasons exist why projects (both simple and complex) fail; what number of reasons can be infinite and can fit into different phase of SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle), initiation through go live. Sometimes it's straight from the control of a project manager and/or the team members. Sometimes failure is controllable. Failed projects and people involved with the failure have some things in common. I have tried to draft few critical and most basic reasons based on my experience for project failure and may differ project to project.
From outside view, knowing that all reason will roll up to project manager's responsibility and accountability however from my perspective it should be collective responsibility.
Here are the most of the common reasons why project fails - based on my experience.
1. Incompetent Project Manager
First possible cause of project failure is the project manager. A project manager who helps steer the project in a timely fashion and provides sound, inspiring leadership can significantly help toward bringing about a successful project. Reasons like "an incompetent project manager" "project manager unwilling to make decisions," "project problems ignored", "poor management by the project leader," "loss of control by the project manager," and "the failure of the project manager to delegate", "working as only as coordinator" are most important reason given for project failure.
2. Less Involvement of Project Managers
This is always a topic of debate for project managers: Should they just focus on pure project management activities such as reporting, cost and issue tracking, or should they also dive into ground-level review and design? There isn't correct answer. Even the biggest project depends on the achievements the smallest components. Every detail contains a seed that can mean the difference between success and failure.
3. Unavailability to Skilled Resources
Every project has some resource estimations before starting of the project and even every vendor submits key personnel details and profile within the bidding process to acquire project. However picture is always opposite once project is awarded. Initial resource estimations and loading sheet handed over to project managers within the sales hand over process but I've come across that project managers always struggle for right skilled resources hence it will be important that leadership team should understand criticality and provide planned/skilled resources on time to avoid project delay or failure.
4. Lack of Proper Planning
Project managers should have clear projects outcomes visibility and should involve himself./herself right from sales hand over as this phase is critical for project success. If you don't have a clear focus at the earliest stage of the process/project, you make things harder on yourself. This would lead to inappropriate estimations and half cooked planning.
5. Lack of Management Support/Leadership Alignment
One must always ensure that the senior management remains fully engaged throughout the project life cycle. The involvement e.g. through project update sessions imply that they will take appropriate actions to address issues raised by the project team, mitigate the project risks, provide leadership, thus contributing to the project success.
6. Missing Communication
Communication plan plays very substantial role in project success or failure. Plan should contain stakeholder details I.e name, role, contact no. and email, project team details, escalation matrix and other dependent groups. Information distribution details (stakeholder, information detail, distribution methods, format and frequency) should be clearly defined in plan. To save your project from failure, project manager need to establish a clear communication channel.
7. Ignoring Change Management Process
Take a second before your project starts to undergo significant changes, or even before you discover a technology solution. It's critical to define your change management process steps. A firm understanding of change management principles will function as strong backbone for any change management plan. Change is inevitable, irrespective of how large is your project. Whether consistently, it must be managed well to ensure the project continues without disruption. Every project must check here have a change control process, and every change request, however small, must go through it.
8. No Risk Management Process
Many projects fail because there isn't an risk management process as an integral part of the project management process. Practical goal surprised because For a nice and on many projects where the risk log is created at the beginning of the project and then quietly parked, never to appear again. Then guess what - a perfectly predictable situation arises which no one can react to.
9. Inadequate Quality Assurance
Now here the technicality comes in. Software projects often fail when no quality assurance activities are planned and no systematic activities are performed to evaluate the caliber of development process or ultimate deliverables. This is due to managers often fail to project appropriate reviews tests or checkpoints where quality can be verified. Code review is part of this (as defined in #20).
10. Missing Project Management Tools/Framework
Successful projects derive from a methodology or framework that includes project management tools. Right approach can help project managers to stay along with the project and by using some reliable management tools; project managers can enhance the team's productivity, can increase accuracy and save time by automating activities like task tracking and managing dependencies.
11. Company/Project Culture
This involves managing and retaining the most highly skilled and productive people. Knowledge is money. It is job of project managers to manage and motivate so that project efforts will experience a zone of optimal performance throughout its life.
12. Inappropriate Prioritization
While some work best on some requirements, others are better suited to very complex projects with many decision-makers. But regardless of when it is done, before a requirement can be prioritized, project managers must consider why requirement is most important from a business standpoint and what would be the impact of this on overall system whether new requirement would add value to overall system or it can be overhead. Project managers should lead prioritization exercise along with all relevant stakeholders. There exist several possible business considerations, including value, cost, risk, and improve customer experience, stakeholder agreement and urgency variables.
13. Inaccurate Stakeholder Analysis
Stakeholder Analysis is the initial step and an important process that successful project managers use to win support from others. Managing stakeholders helps them so their projects succeed where others might fail. There are three steps to follow in Stakeholder Analysis. First, identify who your stakeholders are. Next, work out their power, influence and interest, so that you know who you should focus on. Finally, develop a good understanding of the most basic stakeholders based on Power/Interest grid, so that you know how they will respond, and the way to win their support which can lead project success.
14. Use of Unfamiliar Tools
Tools are definitely needed for project execution and success but unfamiliar tools may result in chances of failure as well. Sometimes, it can many severe problems during project life cycle as the team has to deal with the learning curve of new tools along with usual project tasks and duties. Project managers should ensure that tools are not enforced on project team members, just to utilize for fulfillment of audit compliance unless tools adding some productivity and save some efforts.
15. Change - Always saying "Yes' to the Customer
Many behaviors can cause a project to fail, but accepting whatever the client says will most likely spell project doom. Initially, a stakeholder might appreciate your flexibility - but which will be overshadowed later by the impact of possible schedule slippage and unmet objectives.. Change is a major cause of project failure. Project specifications can be changed for several reasons: initial planning was not complete or thorough; Senior-level management changed the scope of the work; the client (if not upper-level management) changed the scope of the work; this isn't to say you must always tell customers "no." If you choose that, they'll feel their concerns are not being addressed. Before you commit to something, perform due diligence and analyze the advantages and disadvantages of your decision.
Conclusion
There might be many different, seemingly independent causes of project failure. However, it becomes clear that a large number of causes are actually linked to project managers (which may differ project to project) and their way of execution. Past failure should not discourage project managers from future efforts. Past examples of IT project failures gives us the opportunity to point to the relevant lessons that might be derived from recognizing areas where IT projects is apt to fail.
Changing the project's scope not only affects cost, but it affects schedules and resource allocation. One particular overcome to all causes is usually that the various stakeholders and project team of the project should be included in the thorough planning process, thereby maximizing the input from the various vested interests and broadening the understanding of the project manager and team members resulting in success rather than failure. An improvement in success rate of IT projects is possible by putting significantly more focus on general-management activities. With accurate planning, defined goals, clear assignments and effective communication, proactive managers can overcome those odds to master, even the most challenging project and also required support of leadership team which can help project managers to complete more projects on time, within the allocated budget and with expected benefits/outcomes.