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How to combat Project Failure?

Photo by David Kovalenko

There is plenty of research that demonstrates that projects across industries and geographies struggle to meet the most basic targets.

Nine out of ten Transport projects
Six out of ten Energy projects
Seven out of ten Dams
Five out of ten technology projects
and Ten out of ten Olympics

Source: “Why do projects fail?”, Project Magazine, Summer 2015 (http://bit.ly/1QpmN1G)

These do not meet their cost targets. Most strikingly, this trend has been constant with no improvement over the past century.

Examples of Major Project Failures

A good example of a major project failure was the NHS National Programme for IT, also known NPFiT.

NPFIT Failure £10bn

Some of the headlines from the project that hit the newspapers were not good reading.

The NHS’ huge NPFIT project, intended to serve 40,000 GPs and 300 hospitals
Most catastrophic IT failure costing £10bn (£3.6bn more than expected)
Only 13 acute trusts out of 169 received the patient administration systems that were agreed under the National Programme
The new systems also caused chaos for many users; a newly-installed IT system lost Parts NHS Trust thousands of patient records, delaying the treatment of urgent cases, costing millions in additional staff
The system of systems that was to provide EHRs was initially designed by a large central team and intended as a complete “big-bang” replacement for the many and varied existing EHR systems

Dyson Electric Car project failure?

The Dyson electric car project was a high profile newsworthy attempt to enter the electric car market by the innovative engineering firm.

The project got as far as a fully functional vehicle that was near ready for production
As costs mounted past the £500m mark, the monumental costs of product launch came into view.
Recognising that to cover the investment and production costs the finished product was likely to have a price higher than the market would bare
James Dyson funded the costs out of his own pocket

What marks a project failure?

Typically there are three dimensions to project success. These are known as the three constraints, Iron Triangle or project triangle:

Time – schedule to complete the tasks of the project
Cost – the budget and financial constraint of the project
Scope – the tasks required to meet the project’s objectives

Quality is the 4th constraint that exists in the centre of the triangle. Quality focuses on the project’s outputs being fit for purpose.

There was research undertaken by the Oxford Global Group into data on over 12,000 projects:

Only 47.5% were On-budget (or better)
Only 7.8% were On-budget and also On-time (or better)
Of those 0.5% were On-budget and On-time and met their benefits (or better)

For me as a project professional, this is a poor state of affairs but a strong indicator as to how prevalent project failure is.

Recognising Project Failure

Knowing there are key factors that influence project failure is a good start to prevention.

In terms of identifying whether or not your project is going adrift you have to keep your senses alert and be on the lookout for symptoms.

On the Time factor then symptoms could be missed milestones, late deliverables, risks around timelines escalating.

On the cost factor there could be symptoms around a lower spend profile than forecast (something not being done when it should to incur the costs) and then the alternative is a higher spend where unforeseen costs appear.

With the scope factor you could face additional activities coming into scope that were previously unknown.

Managing the symptoms early will ensure the project can course correct before significant harm is done.

You can read up on how to address the symptoms of project failure starting the series with the article here.

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Good Practice in preventing Project Failure

So far we have discussed, symptoms, causes, impacts, root causes and now we’re moving onto good practice for preventing project failure.

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Once you have identified the root cause of a problem that is contributing to your project failure, you need to investigate how to resolve it.

You may have multiple choices to tackle it but which is likely to be the best option for you?

There could be an options appraisal of what works best in your situation.

Options for Solutions

Often times we’ll opt for the first solution that comes to us as time is tight and the impact are causing pain.

If we take our leaking pipe example, then the obvious choices ahead of us is to:

Talk to the neighbour about not exercising and damaging our pipe

A good option, and while there is risk with it as the neighbour may not take well to us impacting their lifestyle, there could be another way.

Is there an option that is within our own sphere of influence that does not require the neighbour?

The problem is the break in the pipe, we can fix it but the neighbour’s actions may break it again as that has not gone away.

Imagine if there was a solution that would be sustainable regardlesss of the neighbours actions.

In our leaking pipe scenario then we would look at using a metal pipe instead of the plastic pipe. The neighbour would no longer impact the pipe and the risk of breaking is gone.

Think within your Sphere of Control

Always consider the options that are within your control. Having the ability to implement a solution that you control de-risks the implementation and should ensure a more sustainable resolution in the longer term.

When you come to your next problem and root cause, look for your metal pipe good practice answer to fix things for the long term preventing project failure.

To help you with that, here are some great resources that will guide your project around some roadblocks others have found on the way in preventing project failure.

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Project Failure Root Causes

Project Failure Root Causes are key factors that will save us many days of resource effort throughout the project.

There are causes and then there are Root Causes.

Both types produce symptoms and have their impacts that will affect the smooth running of the project.

The Cause that keeps on giving

As opposed to a ‘cause‘, a root cause is the originator of future causes and the multitude of symptoms and impacts that arise.

All of which will demand effort and time from the project team to investigate, explore and implement workarounds to minimise the impacts of.

Fix the Project Failure Root Causes

By fixing the root cause then you will eradicate not only the cause that is currently in front of you but ALL future causes that could arise from this root cause.

In our core example we talk about the leaking pipe as a cause of the dripping water.

And in that example we see the neighbour in the flat above exercising and causing stress on the pipe below as the root cause.

So in order to resolve the root cause we need to ‘ensure that the pipe doesn’t crack again once repaired’.

Sphere of Control

When it comes to resolving the root cause just fixing the crack in the pipe only fixes a cause.

The neighbour will continue to exercise won’t they?

So what is within our ‘sphere of control’ that we can implement that will stop the pipe from leaking in the future?

To know the answer to this we will need to look into what good practice we can employ to fix the problem for the long term.

Read the example failure scenario of The Leaky Roof.

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Project Failure Impacts

The impacts caused by project failures are the manifestation of the problem. Don’t let project failure impacts fester.

Think of our leaking pipe example and the dripping water drops are the symptoms where as the puddle is the result or impact.

A second order impact from the drips could be the slip caused by the puddle which is the build up of the drips.

As the example above shows, allowing the impacts to be sustained or grow can lead to bad things happening.

Example of Project Failure Impacts

If I bring this to a project setting.

The project missed a delivery date for a deliverable. What are the impacts of this?

There’s more resource effort required to work on the deliverable for longer

Impacts cause more problems

But what was that resource supposed to be moving to work on? Is that next deliverable now compromised and at a higher risk of missing its deadline?

Also, what was dependent on that deliverable being there at the planned time, is there a knock-on effect or cascade to your plan deadlines from this slippage.

All of the above are potential impacts to consider from the first impact of the slippage.

Address Impacts Quickly

All the more reason to pay attention to symptoms early and address the root cause of those symptoms as quickly as you can.

By addressing impacts quickly you can contain the damage and avoid further impacts arising and a cascade affect of problems hitting your project.

Next, read about the causes.

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Project Failure Workarounds

The project workaround is the interim solution that projects put in as a ‘quick-fix’ to address symptoms of project failure.

What is a project workaround?

The workaround is a set of activities that will alleviate the impact of the symptoms and will enable the ‘immediate’ problem to be overcome [temporarily].

If you are of the PMP camp then a workaround would be ‘a solution to an unidentified problem’.

Invariably the workarounds put in are not necessarily efficient or robust primarily due to the speed of the need for their implementation.

Workarounds are usually meant to be temporary which should be relied upon for a short time only.

Evolution of the workaround?

The workaround should be in place only until a more permanent resolution can be found.

Identify the cause or causes of the symptoms. A solution put in place that eradicates the causes and hence resolves the need for any workarounds.

Example of a workaround?

Imagine a leaking pipe. The symptom is the dripping water where the cause is the break in the pipe.

To this a workaround would be a bucket that catches the drips. It will resolve the immediate problem but it has a fixed life as the bucket will overflow.

The problem with Workarounds?

If you end up running with too many workarounds in place you run the risk of workarounds failing when you least need it.

This could cause bigger problems for you to address at a time not of your making

Always aim to reduce the number of workarounds you have to run with to reduce your risk of project failure workarounds causing your project to fail.

The solution to Project Failures Workarounds?

Avoid workarounds being implemented by addressing the root cause. This will remove the symptoms from occurring.

The root cause is what is driving the failure demand and as such is a big draw on your precious project resources.

In the leaking pipe example, the cause of the break will be the root cause you want to address to stop it being able to happen again.

Read about Cause Capturing which is the next step in foiling project failures.