Why projects always fail (and how to fix them)

3 June

The ‘Lessons Learned’ document is popular in organisations that deliver projects. Essentially, when a mistake is made, the lesson (i.e. a description of what needs to be avoided in the future) is added to the document and is assigned an owner. At the end of the project it is reviewed and the ‘lessons’ should then be incorporated into new ways of working by the person responsible.

Despite this process, projects continue to fail for exactly the same reasons as they did when I was a project manager almost 30 years ago. Over time, over budget, lack of planning, not enough people, unclear priorities, poor risk management, the lessons learned list goes on.

To address this problem, organisations need to address the only two real reasons why projects continually fail. They are:

Poor project sponsorship
Poor project management

Every reason for project failure can be linked back to these two reasons. You may argue that it’s too simplistic, yet in my experience of heading up project departments for 10 years, it really isn’t. Here are a list of the most common reasons for failure and how they are connected:

The project sponsor is the individual upon whom accountability rests and every project must have one. They have three key responsibilities:

Provide leadership: Be the figurehead of the project, take public ownership, set the tone for the behaviours required and be available throughout
Make decisions: Ensure that key decisions are made to aid delivery of the project and remove roadblocks on behalf of the project manager
Deliver outcomes: Ensure that the benefits of doing the project in the first place are delivered once the project has been completed

The project manager meanwhile has day-to-day responsibility for task management and product delivery. They have three key responsibilities:

Build the team: Ensure that there is commitment from everyone involved to work together for the success of the project
Build the plan: Ensure that a strong plan (and detailed task list) exists such that people understand when they are needed and what they have to do
Deliver the project: Provide motivation, inspiration and information; managing people, risk, issues and output delivery so the benefits can be achieved

Which brings me to the root cause of continual project failure and that is a woeful investment in building the capabilities of both project sponsors and project managers. After all, if you don’t train your people you can’t expect on time and on budget delivery, yet this continues to be the lived experience for most.

Organisations around the world think nothing of spending £10m on projects in a year, but wouldn’t spend 1% of that (£100,000) on ensuring that people are adequately trained to spend the money wisely and deliver the projects efficiently. It defies logic and reason.

I recently completed a two-day project leadership program and a 1-day project sponsorship program for an organisation and it struck me that a) how rare it is that people are given the money to do this work and b) how immediately they are able to gain from this education, developing:

A common language and understanding
A toolkit of techniques to help plan and deliver
Clarity on priorities
An ability to motivate and inspire people
Enhanced communication; and ultimately
Better able to deliver milestones and hit financial targets

For most however, the underinvestment continues and there’s an assumption that people ‘just know’ what to do.

Once you achieve a particular level in a hierarchy you’re deemed to be experienced enough to be a project sponsor, whilst just about anyone can be told to manage a project, regardless of whether they have the skills or not.

The research confirms the issue:

Less that half of respondents said their organisation provided training despite project management being critical to organisational success
71% of companies believe employees need more project management skills

Whilst:

Organisations that invest in project management save 28 times as much money as those that don't

I loved my time as a project manager and feel fortunate to have been given the support to develop and grow. To avoid continual project failure, organisations should start with educating their people properly first. It's an investment that they’ll reap the benefits from for years to come and a demonstration that they’ve truly learned the lessons from the past.