ARE PROJECTS BOUND TO FAIL?

Being a consultant, I sometimes have the feeling that the world is full of failed projects. It seems that they are just bound to fail. IT projects are especially prone to that, but basically any project seems to be subject to some sort of failure. Sometimes, failure is much more visible, such as in the case of large infrastructure projects. Sometimes, the lack of success is hidden. And sometimes, people (in project lingo called ‘stakeholders’) simply deny the fact that their project, their love baby, is a mistake and an utter failure. The last category, obviously, is the most dangerous.

But is this really true? OK, fail factors abound. Just read any book about transformation or project/program/portfolio/change management, and conclude, that it’s simply not possible to deliver a project without failure. Chances of success are low, because the chances of failure are incredibly high. Take the following three contingencies and their probability of actually occurring. Lack of leadership: .8 probability. Disaligned expectations: .85 probability. Insufficient sponsor commitment: .7 probability. Taking only three fail factors into account, and the chance of a successful project is just 0.9%! Ok, I agree that this is from a statistical point of view a little bit argueable, but you get the point.

But is this really true? Isn’t there a parallel universe, with successful projects and programs? Do we only see the failed ones? After all, for consultants and scientists, failed projects are much more interesting: you can study them, and you can make money out of them.

I think that there actually IS a parallel universe. And that it IS possible to deliver successful projects. On the one hand, it takes an effort to actually SEE them. This is culturally determined and relates to the fact, that everyone has a different definition of success or failure. Never go for the 100% solution, go for 80! But what’s 100, and what’s 80? On the other hand, project approaches should be situation-dependent. Every situation is different, and it’s therefore dangerous to use a standard approach for project management. This is, by the way, not an excuse for not using an approach!

Last but not least (and this is rather obvious, but in practice rarely encountered): Communicate! Be as transparent as possible. Don’t hide knowledge. Be honest.

It’s very simple.

Frank Harmsen

Learn more about transformation at the third Practice-driven Research on Enterprise Transformation conference in Luxembourg, on September 6th. See: http://www.ea-network.org/wikis/ea-network/pret-2011-the-3rd-practice-driven-research-on-enterprise-transformation-working-conference