W5_OKIEMUTE ODUDU_REASONS WHY PROJECTS FAIL IN MY ORGANISATION

W5_OKIEMUTE ODUDU_REASONS WHY PROJECTS FAIL IN MY ORGANISATION
Statement of the Problem

Every organisation strives to achieve successful projects delivery all the time by employing best practice in their operations. Despite this attempt, projects do fail most times, and is a source of tension between management and project team, who is usually at the receiving end of such failures.

Based on the above, I intend to analyse the reasons why most projects fail in my organisation and highlight my findings to management.

Reasons Why Project Fails

In most cases the root causes of project failures have been attributed to one or more of the following:

1. Poor resource planning and management
2. Poor project communication management
3. Poor project management and leadership issues
4. Poor scope definition, and specifications
5. Poor cost estimating and control
6. Poor time/schedule planning and control
7. Poor Front End Loading

Criteria for Failure

According to the Independent Project Analysis (IPA), a project is termed to have when any or all of the following happens.

- Cost growth/overrun > 25%
- Schedule slippage > 25%
- Absolute Overspent >25%

Analysis of the Causes of Failures

Below is the analysis of the top three causes of project failures in my Organisation

I. Poor scope of work definition and specifications: this is one of the predominant causes of project failures in my organisation as it leads to price variation resulting from frequent changes to scope, and to the benefit of suppliers. The main reason for this is as a result of inadequate front-end loading. The effects of these are both cost and schedule overrun growth of more than 25%.

II. Poor time/schedule planning and control: Over optimism on the part of leaders and pressure from top management granting aggressive and unrealistic time frame to project managers is common in my organisation. In most cases, project managers are afraid to challenge their bosses even when they realise a project planed duration is unrealistic from the onset.

III. Poor project communication management: Though there is a clear cut procedure for project communication management in place, there exist considerable gap in communication between the project team and management especially when the issues may be confrontational. This is even more complicated when a project manager may be afraid of the consequences of been victimised if his ideas contradict that of his managers.

Performance Monitoring

Proper implementation of adequate front-end planning is essential to eliminating failed projects. Only proper implementation at the beginning of any project and continuous benchmarking against the Independent Project Analysis Criteria would ensure successful projects.

References

Project Failure and Success by Herry Hendarto PMP,Email: herolian@projectmanagement-mentoring.com