WHY DO MOST PROJECTS FAIL?
We are certain that you have probably experienced some of these reasons on your own. We have looked at most of these and over time, they have been repeating causes of projects failures. There are many types of research done out there on this subject which you can google and get over a million suggestions. But these top 10 reasons are from our own experience and we have also discussed how to solve them.
1. Unaligned expectations:
When the expectations are set on papers by the agreement of every organization, team, or people but they have their different expectations from the project. Ex. When two candidates have defined their expectations on the project, after departure from the meeting, they still have their different expectations and unconsciously start doing what they want to do. Which ends up in unexpected results.
- Solution: To keep everyone on the same page, leaders should establish proper communication between the candidates so that they can share their different opinions on the project without hesitation.
2. Implementing before the project’s feasibility/sustainability is calculated:
You would possibly have seen many businesses seeking to promote a brand-new product as quickly as possible due to the fact they want to be the first to market the product that is in high demand, or the team individuals are skilled in what is meant to be carried out so that they start rushing the project without any type of proper calculations. So mostly what happens is that people start doing things that will not end up inside the final plan. Such as when they thought the budget or resources that will be allocated, which doesn’t happen and the project ends up going out of budget and planned scope, creating a possible failure.
- Solution: Every candidate should hold their horses and maintain their discipline to overrule enthusiasm. Experienced personal should be involved throughout the whole planning process to monitor and the supplier’s advice should be considered while dealing with raw or semi manufactured materials.
3. Inexperienced or untrained resources:
We all are fighting for resources and today many organizations are trying to do more with less without estimating their project appropriately. When a company had a previous project with experienced people after which they decide to hire new people, now they have their old estimates with them which provided a certain task or produced a certain deliverable in the past.
If you put a new resource that is not going to have the same experience and skillsets then they are probably not going to be able to accomplice it in either the same quality or same time. So, it sets that person and the project up for failure.
- Solution: The company should definitely get the right man for the right job. While hiring new staff, their skills and experience or the training they will need should be considered as a priority.
4. Inadequate communication:
Suppose the project is in which the resources are global or remote, your team members are remote and you need some access with people to collaborate and update things. Therefore, without having adequate systems where people can communicate online and update each other in real-time, people will not be informed and updated appropriately.
- Solution: Everyone on the team should be able to communicate with each other online and have access to each other whole time.
5. Inaccessible systems:
Similarly software, spreadsheets, tools, and templates that are not online or critical resources on your projects which aren’t being updated. They might not even be visible to others or they don’t even know about their responsibilities in a task or what they are supposed to produce and by what timeline. These also set you and the team up for failure.
- Solution: If you find it necessary to assign a new department to manage and control all the departments for coordination, you should also consider their time and funds in the production.
6. Team conflict:
When projects start failing or things start going wrong, emotions start going high and teams start getting into conflict while everyone is at their worst at that time. Conflicts are common in teams and may end up being the reason for derailing the project.
- Solution: Leaders should always keep an eye out for everyone and should have capacity to be always in high spirits and have keen sense of observation to know what people and the project need at the current point of time.
7. The "us" versus "them" mentality:
You might have seen when sales and marketing teams don’t get along or the marketing team doesn’t like the manufacturing team because the sales team sells something while saying the manufacturing team can’t get it done, making it harder for marketing team to promote the company. These things happen mostly because people stake their territory and they fight for their rights. They try to take their stand and it just leads to more problems.
- Solution: Everyone should have respect for each departments and motivate each other through the comfort zone. Same as the 2nd point, everyone’s approval should be taken for critical decisions.
8. Misaligned resources:
We do what we love doing and know how to do it. When a company puts someone in a role in which they are not experienced, trained or they don’t even want to do it then things don’t get done properly.
- Solution: Management should not expect a fish to climb a tree. Before allocating someone to a new project or department, their honest opinions should be asked on the change and their skill and experience should be properly evaluated for the new job.
9. Switching priorities:
If priorities change within the organization and it is not communicated to the teams such as a change in the plan or postponed approvals, sometimes critical resources or people on the team get taken away, some of the scope or budget gets cut from your project and gets shifted to another all the while people have done most of their work according to the previous one; all of these can lead to project failures.
- Solution: If it becomes absolutely necessary that certain changes in priorities can’t be avoided, rather than making changes in whole plan and resetting it to the start, the leader and management department should try to work around already finished assignments and try to use them as efficiently as possible so that project doesn’t lose much of the progress and continues on without a hitch.
10. Uncontrolled Scope:
When companies start making additional upgrades and integrating things back and forth for economical gains, sometimes this leads to uncontrolled expenses in manufacturing which in turn leads to delay in supply or lack of funds for further processing of the project.
- Solution: As the saying goes, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Companies should focus on getting their main project done rather than becoming greedy to get other extra things done in the process so that they can avoid not messing up everything and create a situation where nothing happens in the end.