Sandbox 007 - Why Projects Fail

Learn how to identify tell tale signs leading up to catastrophic project failure.

So why do projects fail? In my experience and opinion:

• Poor planning — failing to carefully capture and make decisions on all requirements, how to execute, how to define budget, and how to properly allocate resources.
• Not setting client, stake holder and/or internal expectations in order to hold people accountable.
• Unrealistic due date that is not tied to specific business need or resource commitments.
• No defined timeline to set expectations and dependencies for all required resources.
• Lack of clear leadership, decentralized leadership and poor project management.
• Poor/no requirements clearly defined — vague functional and technical requirements opens the door to misinterpretation and scope creep.
• Scope/feature creep — many little things add up quickly.
• No change control system to document and prioritize decisions.
• Not enough time for development and proper testing forces shortcuts and introduces more bugs.
• Same resources working on multiple high priority projects divides focus and increases risks of errors, confusion and missing deadlines. There are only so many hours in a week.
• Requirements exceed budget, in turn profitability suffers as scope creep escalates.
• Client / stake holder is not required to approve deliverables at specific milestones and freeze features.

How to lead a successful project:

• Continually learn from mistakes. Hold project post-mortems to help be better prepared for new projects.
• Estimates approved by internal department representatives.
• Clearly define leadership and who manages certain relationships.
• Excellent communications.
• Thorough documentation.
• Aggressively managing scope creep.
• Manage client/stake holder expectations.

Share your thoughts or project from hell stories.

Thanks for listening!
-Roland

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Copyright 2008 Roland Reinhart, NewMediaSandbox.com. All rights reserved.