Project Failure: A Survey and Analysis by a Project Recruitment Specialist

Imagine a project team where they’re unmotivated, have no sense of purpose, are uncertain of their role and feel a lack of team harmony. Added to this, they're not receiving clear leadership from the project manager and business sponsor and aren’t being allowed to do their job due to the interference and lack of support from the board (steering committee). This is hardly the makings of a successful project! Does some or all of this resonate with you from your experiences? Let us explore this further.

Figure 1 – why do some projects fail rather than succeed 

Background/intro

I am a recruiter who has been integrated into the project community for several years and while I've never been a project practitioner, I’m in a position where customers (clients and candidates) can openly talk to me about their current challenges and issues. I am regularly exposed to projects that are in distress…they're failing, out of control, turning red or have been red for some time. Often these organisations are spending millions on projects that end up with systems, products and services that don’t justify the money spent. In some cases, these projects are cancelled mid-flight, which offers no return or business benefit for the organisation. It's little wonder that some stakeholders are resistant to change. 

Now to be clear, there are many projects that deliver outstanding successes for their respective organisations. But at the risk of being ‘half glass empty’ I’m not focussing on this, after all it is estimated by various sources that approximately 60-70% of projects fail. This is significant.

Why have I written a piece about project failure? Primarily I would like to provide some insightful content that is interesting and valuable to the project community. Hopefully some people will learn a thing or two or at least pause to consider how they approach projects. I personally feel that project failure doesn’t get spoken about enough. Also as a recruitment business owner in the project space, if I’m better able to understand the nuances of project failure, I will be better positioned to facilitate good outcomes.

In order to obtain some detailed feedback from the market, I met with a range of highly experienced and well regarded project practitioners who have been at the coalface including Head of Projects/Strategy, Program Directors, Program Managers, Project Managers, Business Analysts and Lead BA’s. I also conducted a survey with a wider audience.

Feedback from market

The feedback was varied. This isn't surprising given that no project is the same. Projects are complex with many dependencies and different stakeholder groups (IT, business, risk, vendors etc) involved. Thus it is often a range of reasons rather than a single one that contribute to issues on a project, yet there are some reasons that appear to be more prolific than others.

It became evident that ineffective project sponsorship is commonly viewed as one of the major causes of project failure. Other prominent reasons that regularly came up included planning/strategic vision at the initiating stage and stakeholders who aren't willing or committed to the project. Project methodology wasn’t raised as one of the major reasons.

In the accompanying survey, respondents reiterated this sentiment as is echoed below:

Table 1 – respondents rated the main reasons that projects fail

Why project sponsorship?

Is it that without robust and effective support from your project sponsor (could be delegate sponsor, business sponsor) the project is doomed to fail? The feedback and data indicates that this is the case.

The sponsor should be the advocate within the business who is continually championing the project. The project sponsor is the link between the project and executive leadership. In collaboration with the project manager, they are instrumental in guiding everyone in the same direction. Without vocal and supportive project sponsorship it is challenging to get business buy in and project momentum.

You would assume that project sponsors have every intention of ensuring that the project is on track. Through their leadership, they can ensure the organisation is well positioned to embrace this change. Yet sponsors are often not utilised effectively. There appears to be a few reasons for this.

The consensus is that they're either unaware of how to support the project, don’t have the skills or their responsibilities as a project sponsor are unclear to them. Sometimes they're simply time poor and haven't allocated the time required to make it work. This had led some participants to strongly suggest that there needs to be better training or guidance provided to sponsors, specifically executive level training that will better prepare sponsors for this critical role. In addition to this, project teams needs to do a better job of setting expectations on what is required of the sponsor, preferably from the very early stages of the project. So is the importance of project sponsorship underestimated, or is it a component of projects which is hard to get right?

Other key reasons that projects fail?

Planning/strategic vision

Figure 2 – what does your vision of success look like?

Feedback indicated that projects will start off on the wrong path if there is not a clear project plan or united vision. Breaking down the projects objectives, the definition of success needs to be clearly defined with sponsors and stakeholders alike and this needs to be the centrepiece of the project.

Without a clear definition of success, it's difficult to have a ‘shared vision’ and have everyone pedalling towards the same goal. Once the project objectives are clear, they need to be constantly re-visited throughout the project as scope changes, just as key scope items need to be linked to benefits.

The Willingness, Commitment and Attitude of stakeholders

Figure 3 – is everyone on the project, eager and working cohesively?

In projects where there are so many parties involved, a ‘coalition of peers’ is relied upon to get the job done in what's usually a highly complex environment. As a result and unsurprisingly the overall outcome of a project is unlikely to be positive when stakeholders are resistant to the change. 

Regardless of the brilliance of the projects strategy, if people aren't committed to the project, the risk of failure is increased. The willingness of everyone involved on the project is related to the ability of the project team and power brokers (i.e. Project sponsor, steering committee) to influence and get everyone on the journey. They should have the authority and tactfulness to break down resistance, get people believing in the vision of the project and working cohesively.

Other Causes of Failure

Other factors were brought up in addition to the main points above:

Project Governance

Given the complex nature of projects, it's no surprise that respondents view project governance as an important factor. There are many issues and problems on a project and effective governance provides a good platform for resolving these. However, it was stated that governance can become a pain point, especially in highly bureaucratic or very political organisations. There’s politics in every organisation.

Steering committees

It was noted that steering committees have the potential to destabilise projects. The support and influence of steering committee members can be one of the key elements to tying everything together at the executive level. Steering committees can be very supportive and helpful when there's a vested interest or clear incentive/s for the individual committee member/s. The opposite can be said when a committee member can’t gain a clear or obvious benefit, for example if the project has a negative effect on their bottom line or simply doesn’t align with their interests.

Management of risks and issues

Potential risks and issues need to be clearly articulated and monitored. If these risks are realised they can be costly and derail a project. In these events, contingencies need to be identified and pursued. It is the Project Managers role to spot these hurdles before they trip you up and interrupt the project.

Figure 4 – does your projects understand its risks

The right resources and skill levels

Not only does a project team need members who are capable and in the right role, they need to be a good cultural fit ie the right person for the role. Could a project with strong vision, governance and sponsorship deliver a good outcome with an average project team?

Methodology

The methodology (i.e. Waterfall, Agile etc) being applied to a project was rarely attributed as being a major factor and the difference between a project succeeding or failing. Surprised? The consensus is that you need structure/methodology to provide a platform for a project. This is a hygiene factor and it's assumed that most ‘good’ project practitioners should have the skills to set up a project structurally.

There was broad acknowledgement that businesses are still transitioning to agile and that a lack of maturity in delivering to agile can provide a range of challenges. Though given that methodologies such as agile receive so much airtime, some would have expected more respondents to stress the importance of using the right methodology.

Conclusions and Further Questions

Clearly there are many reasons that a project can fail and there is no magic solution. However it is evident that businesses need to do more to provide a platform for business sponsorship. Should businesses invest more into training for executives and steering committees? Do they need to re-assess how they engage and appoint business sponsors? I’m sure there are some businesses that are utilising sponsors effectively but given the percentage of projects that fail, we must assume that many businesses aren’t providing the right platform for sponsorship. There is a real opportunity here.

Do organisations spend too much time working on how they deliver projects (methodology) where a focus on the key points above (sponsorship, planning, stakeholder engagement) would improve their delivery?

From talking to project specialists who have been delivering projects for years, it seems that regardless of the methodology applied, without supportive power brokers, good project management, invested stakeholders and clear direction/planning your project will be a on a fast road to failure.

What’s next

As a direct follow up to this article, I will be writing an article about ‘critical factors to delivering successful projects in the current environment’. What typically occurs in the 30% of projects (successful ones) that doesn’t happen in the other 70%? This will be somewhat of a positive spin on the above but I will be speaking to people about what is going right this time, half glass full next time around so stay tuned. If you have an interest in this, please let me know – I’m all ears.  

A very special mention to all the participants, those who took the time out of their day to sit down with me including (in no order) Paul Doyle, Delia Richardson, Jon Fawcett, Chris Crane, David Lee, Andrew Connery, Paul Bernard, Graham Downes, Janet Kim, Carlos Milanesi, Penny Rizgalla, Owen Davies, Scott Nicholas, Martin Carlisle, Jim Bililis and Richard Chesterman.

Thank you to all that took the time to fill out the survey.