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.
