The British Computer Society provided a list of the reasons why projects get cancelled, today project failure can come from the same sources.
Business strategy superseded
Where scope of programmes increases and complexity grows, we find the timeline takes longer and the programme’s ability to deliver is delayed. With many organisations and leadership cycles reducing programmes can find that the business strategy is more agile and changes under the programme’s feet and the objectives are now not aligned to the business’ strategic direction.
Poor requirements management
Requirements management is at the core of ensuring that projects and programmes keep aligned to the objectives and scope. What gets delivered must meet what was required and without effective management then the project requirements can drift.
The process of requirements traceability is the key to ensuring the golden thread of requirements is tracked throughout the design, build, test cycles as the project progresses and delivers.
Business benefits not clearly communicated or overstated
The preparation of business cases often requires early identification of the benefits to be delivered by the project or programme.
In the early identification the knowledge available and detail of benefits to be achieved is limited. Benefit profiles can be built on estimates and assumptions that are used to justify the work being initiated.
As further analysis and knowledge emerges the benefits can grow and new benefits can be found. The alternative is that as information and knowledge matures the opposite is found and the benefits case can be diminished.
In this scenario there can be a tension as the project has been invested in and there is a reluctance therefore to halt the project even though the business case no longer stands as the benefits are reduced.
The strong role of governance and assurance plays a part here to ensure the integrity of the business case stands and where weaknesses are found then they are communicated and escalated.
Governance issues with the contract
Commercial aspects of contracts continue to be a perennial problem for the delivery of projects.
The construction of contracts and partnerships to deliver projects are often built on positive references from previous project successes.
The problem is that each project environment is unique and as such has their own constraints, relationships and agreements that need navigating.
When it is too late and the project relationships, trust and goodwill have broken down then the contract is what gets blamed.
There are many layers to delivering a project, commercial is a key and important aspect with supply-chain and contractual commitments at their core. The success of a project is rarely down to a contract but a rich tapestry involving trust, relationships, resources and skill which may note be written in ink on paper.
Some things do not change
The source research from BCS ‘a study in project failure’ that was used for the reasons provided above have come from a study conducted in 2002.
In writing this article the topics covered and their impact is still relevant and prevalent in projects being delivered today. More recent research shows that project failure for the exact same reasons is occurring in organisations and government projects even today.
