WHY PROJECT FAIL??????

Thanks,If your comment is a wish for my success

I think you’ll do well.

Yes, to project manager

Project management requires people to be full of s£"% because if they weren’t then most projects would never get funded. It requires a special type of person who is both optomistic and realistic. As all engineers are pessimistic we have to intrinsically think everythin will be fine in order to balance thing out!



Have you considered a career change?

Hi Chris,



""A decision may give disbenefits as well as benefits AND both can be quantified.””” Fully agree.



YES, but the ones taking decision do not like to hear the disbenefits, they just want to hear benefits. In the case of no benefits at all, they just invent WHATEVER and try to bullshi…..., everybody. Sorry, I came from some unsuccessful projects where all your statements were no realities.



My comments sounding like Charlie’s : well I like to read Charlie, I have always admitted. WHY ?? may be because I share the opinion that projects is a business full of …...



Cheers,

Hi Guys,



A lot of reasons why Project Fails, one of this is the absence of COORDINATION between the Project Management Teams.





Arnold

Carmen,



Whether the example makes you smile or not, it is fact and verifiable as such if you care to check it out.



I disagree when you say that establishing whether a decision is for the benefit of the project is subjective. A decision made about the project either has a demonstrable benefit to the project or it doesn’t. Quantifying the benefit may be subjective, and it is equally possible that a decision may give disbenefits as well as benefits which will need careful evaluation.



In the organisation I work for, the Project Manager manages the project on behalf of the Project Board, and has to report to them on a regular basis. If the Project Manager starts taking decisions which are not demonstrably for the benefit of the project, he or she would be replaced in very short order. I’m not entirely sure what you mean in your last statement, it sounds rather like something Charlie might come up with, could you clarify it a little?



Chris Oggham

Chris,



Keep reading too much your posts #19 and #24 and at the same time smiling with your example.

With the example, I do agree your statement “Women are vulnerable in ways men are not”. Hidden contradiction: So vulnerable that we can manage a project of having a baby by our own while you can have only ideas and words.



Decisions and benefit of the project: To establish this link is very subjective. As you mentioned : benefit of project in terms of resource or cost or schedule OR quality OR…whatever.



I see the option of project success unapproachable when I have project managers taking wrong decisions supported by excuses such as for the benefit of whatever they want to say.



Cheers,

Mark/Oliver,



Now we’re getting down to solid reasons why projects fail, decisions are made which are not for the benefit of the project. If you check out the rather dramatic example of the mixed sex strike team in my post #24, this is exactly what happened. A decision was made which was not for the benefit of the project but for the benefit of a project resource.



Chris Oggham

Couldn’t agree more. Personality traits over gender.

I thought I’d take a step back & look at it;



I believe a project may fail, when the majority of decisions made are not "best for project"



If all who work on a project make their decisions based on "is this best for project" & cast aside personal preferences, prejudices etc, then I believe you have a good chance. Whether these decisions are made by men, women or monkeys is irrelevant...



My two cents for what it’s worth. :-)



Cheers

Mark

Carmen,



I think you may have been reading a little bit too much into my post #19, what I actually said was where practicable bringing women on to a project team can have a positive effect both on team morale and performance.



It doesn’t happen automatically, sometimes there is no difference, and at other times bringing women on to a project team can have a profoundly negative effect. Whether using mixed sex teams or single sex teams always we must match the skills and charactaristics of the team to the requirements of the project.



As for not being able to imagine why you would need single sex teams for military/security operations, I’ll give you one brief example:



A mixed sex section of seven soldiers carrying out a surgical strike to destroy an enemy installation. A minimum of four are needed to reach the objective in order to successfully neutralise it. Casualties are expected. On the way in, a female soldier is wounded, not seriously but enough to incapacitate her. In this particular scenario two other members of the section will remain with her probably one male, one female, while the rest go on towards there objective. Note that the section is now down to its minimum effective strength, one more incapacitated or killed and the mission/project fails.



Same scenario all male section, the wounded soldier is left behind alone to be picked up when the section returns after the mission/project is complete. Of the six one more is incapacitated/killed on the way in, still above minimum effective strength mission/project can succeed.



Same senario all female section the wounded soldier is left behind possibly with one other depending on circumstances (women are vulnerable in ways men are not) to be picked up after mission/project is complete. Of the six/five one more is killed/incapacitated on the way in, still above or at minimum effective strength, mission/project can succeed.



These actually happened with units of the Israeli Defence Forces.



Chris Oggham

The word should actually have been ’impoverished’.



Past tense.

Chris,



You have started in this business with wise words regarding Parkinson, Murphy and Sod being part of the team.



Fully agree with you regarding that I (as a woman) have a positive effect on team morale and performance among other values.



I can not imagine which specialized projects (security/military) you need single sex project team. Well, I take your comment for valid BUT in normal Oil&Gas&Mining&Chemicals … projects, both sex project team will improve project performance.



Oliver,



The word is impoverish, to make sth worse in quality.



Cheers,

Carmen,



To clarify why i asked the previous question; i am trying establish what traits you believe a female can bring to a project that a male cannot and vice versa.



Thanks

The following is not my opinion but more something that has been joked about by people i have worked with in the past.



Do the personalities of women that choose to go into male dominated industries such as engineering/construction tend to be more ’male’ in their traits than the people who have ’impoverised’ the industry for the last 30 years.



(Not sure if ’impoverised’ is the right word, or even a word at all!?)

Hi Carmen,



I didn’t think a throwaway one-liner about being puzzled why projects still fail would be taken seriously. I agree with you that even if we covered every possibility for failure that was known, people being people would find a new one. When I first started in project planning I was told "Remember that Parkinson, Murphy and Sod are alive and well and working on your project."



As for all male project teams being a huge mistake, I think it rather depends on the industry. There are still some industries where there is still little or no female involvement, so your project team is all male by default. I do agree that where practicable bringing women on to a project team can have a positive effect both on team morale and performance.



Having said that there are also certain specialised projects largely within the security/military area where single sex project teams are essential to project success. While these are very specialised, they do bring home the need to match the skills and charactaristics of the team to the requirements of the project.



Chris Oggham

Oliver,



100 % male participation in project teams impoverishes the team relationships. Gender mix will add value, especially in decision making (not only secretarial work).



Being puzzled with tendency to fail, how can it be different if we keep doing project with the same male domain teams as 30 years ago.



EGO: simplistic to say it is related to personality. I can not add more Because I am changing my perception of EGO after reading the book “The monk and the philosopher” . Occidental and Oriental opinions on the subject: EGO.



Cheers,

So what you are saying is that gender doesn’t effect success, but the effect gender has on the project team does effect success?!



This seems to be a contradiction.



As for EGO, i don’t believe this is something we in the west are trained in, it is more something that directly relates to personality.

Oliver,



I am not saying that gender has an effect on success or failure of project.



I do believe that gender mix has a positive effect on project team relationships. This will contribute a bit to project success.



About EGO. Our western education is based on developing our EGO. Important is to recognize when our over-inflated EGO is leading us to hell on earth.



Cheers,

I don’t think gender has any effect on the success or failure of project, but people with the perception that it does are usually the ones with the over-inflated EGO.

Chris



Why being puzzled about WHY projects are still going down the tubes.



Projects are executed by human being. If we think that having technology, knowledge , thousands of analysis of WHYs, we will end with the tendency to FAIL, forget IT.



We still have the human being with common problems in any culture. For instance, poor communication (if any), being selfish at the moment of sharing information and working with the team, huge EGO in some key project players ( the ones taking decisions) and so on.



Besides, 100% male project team, huge mistake, and we keep doing the same, especially in Europe.



Cheers,

PM Hut is, of course, absolutely correct and the articles quoted make many of the same points as a review commissioned by the British Government in 2004. The Office of Government Commerce published the findings of the review as a set fo guidance for project reviewers called Common causes of programme/project failure



Since we know why projects fail and why they succeed, I must admit to being a bit puzzled why they still go down the tubes.



Chris Oggham

Projects fail for a lot of reasons, and these reasons really depend on the maturity of the project. Check this article by Russell Archibald: Failure Causes in IT Project Management (at different maturity levels), although this article is mainly written for IT, I think engineering and construction PMs can relate.



There is this article that I think is very interesting Why Projects Fail , the first reason being Lack of Support from the Executive Level.

Chris,



Thanks for the links.



Agree with you regarding to the group pf people who expected the project to fail. Very important to identify this group in any party, client, epc contractor or contractors.



Your last paragraph is an expression of the WHY and WHAT FOR way of thinking. In brief, the WHY question makes us to look backwards, searching for someone to blame. Why project fails ??





WHAT FOR question makes us to look forward. To know how to make projects succeed allows us to look forward succeed.



Cheers,

So the project fails because people’s expectations were not met? What about the group of people who expected the project to fail, does it count as a success for them? Their expectations were met, so following the converse of Charlie’s reasoning it must be, so we are left with the ludicrous situation where the project is both a success and a failure.



We might be better off looking at successful projects and what we can do to make them successful. As Duncan Haughey points out it’s not rocket science.



For anybody who wants to go into things a little more deeply, there is a white paper on why projects succeed available free by registering with this site.



Knowing why projects fail won’t give you a successful project, but knowing how to make projects succeed just might.



Chris Oggham

Hi PP members,



Reading Sensei’s comments gave me the opportunity to think about project failure having more chances to occur that project success.



My comments are based on the following:

“

The psyhology of Failure is very simple.

"UNMET EXPECTATION"

Everyone did fail to deliver everyone’s expectation

And that is failure “



Everyone’s expectation: In project, we have important every ones such as: client, epc contractor and its contractors. Do we all share same expectations in terms of budget and schedule. We should BUT ….



In Project

“

The traditional measure of success is:

Within Schedule, within budget and within quality.”



What happens when the schedule is unapproachable for many reasons.



What happens when the budget is unapproachable due to the budget was based on estimates +/- 30% accuracy.



Cheers,

maybe...

stakeholders/owners borrow money fr bank for their projet investment.

investment need return in investment and also to pay their debt to bank.

also to secure their investment contract were put up and seal betwen owner(client) and contractor; or pmc with designers and contractor.

ROI need timeframe.

PMI somehow function indirectly to secure the whole system which could secure the money lender i.e. the bank which they give loan in digital amount and not gold.

so, if the whole ’security’ process failed to benefit the money lender,it will be termed as FAILURE ( ref: time)



maybe,

if somebody have ready money , real money , not borrowing from bank, the pressure is not there (ref:time)in paying the debt (or digital debt to money lender/bank).

most likely the definition of project fail is not really there.



intoxically,

smilingshagger

Lack of commitment, efforts n zeal to success

why do projects fail? a very interesting question? i think it’s neccessary to define the boundaries of project failure... a building project completed 4 years ago on schedule and within budget may fail today if quality of materials was not put into consideration.



MIT’s Gehry building will throw more light on the above. Refer to the link below:



http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7055232,00.html

Why do projects fail? Possibly because they’ve got a dork for a project manager who does one or more of the following:

• Doesn’t spend sufficient time or effort doing the job he’s paid for;




• Antagonises or patronises the people he has to work with;




• Doesn’t give straight answers to straight questions;




• When asked for an explanation, either becomes evasive or spouts a complete load of horse puckey;




• Imagines that software and paperwork will manage the project for him;




• Has an overinflated opinion of his own intelligence and abilities;




• Is unable to accept criticism;




• Has preconceived ideas about people based on stereotypes of race or nationality;




• Is unable to admit it when he doesn’t know something;




• Wastes people’s time with trivia and irrelevances;

Not an exhaustive list by any means, but at least it’s a start.



Chris Oggham