10 reasons why projects fail or common mistakes to avoid

Why projects fail?
July 26, 2014

Project success factors
1. Meet an agreed budget (Cost)
2. Deliver on time (Time)
3. Meet quality requirements (Quality)
4. Meet the project's objectives/requirements (Scope)
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What projects are considered successful?
Long story short – successful project is the one meeting stakeholder’ expectations
5

Reason 1: Insufficient stakeholders management
Common mistakes:
1. Not all the project stakeholders are identified
2. Stakeholders are not analyzed from the perspective of their influence and interest in the
project
3. Failure to view the project through the eyes of the project stakeholders, as the result no
accurate understanding how the project will impact the stakeholders or how they will
react to the project’s results
4. Failure to identify and meet the needs of all stakeholders, allowing one stakeholder
group to dominate the project while completely ignoring the needs of other groups
5. Failure to establish effective communication channels between different stakeholders
6

Stakeholders Management
1. Identify Stakeholders – identifying everyone affected by the work or its outcomes
2. Plan Stakeholder Management – deciding how you will engage with the stakeholders
3. Manage Stakeholder Engagement – communicating with stakeholders and ensuring
appropriate stakeholder engagement
4. Control Stakeholder Engagement – monitoring the overall relationships and adjusting
your strategies and plans as needed
8

Stakeholders influence on the project
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Reason 2: Inefficient communication
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Common mistakes:
1. No time is spent on development of a communication plan
2. No identified and approved escalation boundaries and related rules (when and to whom
to escalate issues)
3. Roles and responsibilities are not identified or are not clearly communicated to all the
stakeholders
4. Priorities of different communication channels are not identified (when to email, to call, to
use Skype, etc.)
5. No records for oral communication (no meeting minutes)
6. National specifics and corporate culture are not taken into account (when to CC
management, whether it is appropriate to CC senior management, whether Manager in
CC is treated as an escalation or you just want to keep other stakeholders informed, etc.)
7. Manager blocks direct effective communication between technical specialists
8. Bad news are glossed over when being presented to customers, managers and
stakeholders
9. Too much meetings, unnecessary people are invited to the meetings
10. Meetings are not effective (no goal set, no agenda, etc.) 11
Common communication mistakes

Reason 3: No sufficient project initiation and planning
phases
Common mistakes:
1. No project initiation and/or planning phases at all
2. Working under constant schedule pressure, not spending enough time and efforts to plan
the project
3. Assuming effort estimates can be directly equated to elapsed task durations without any
buffers or room for non-productive time, unforeseen tasks, etc.
4. Planning is done based on 8 h/day team availability for planned tasks
5. Planning is seen as the project manager’s responsibility rather than a team activity
6. Failure to break a large scale master plan into more manageable pieces that can be
delivered incrementally
7. No milestones and deadlines are set
8. Unclear roles and responsibilities led to confusion and gaps
9. Un-prioritized requirements resulting in team focusing energies on lower priority items
instead of high priority work
10.Change requests are handled informally without analysis and management of their
implication to the project plan 13

Reason 4: Project constraints are not identified
Common mistakes:
1. Project constraints (Scope, Time, Budget, Quality) are not identified and discussed with
the client
2. Project constraints are not taken into consideration during the project initiation and
planning phases
3. Project constraints matrix is not created and not discussed with the stakeholders
14

Reason 5: Poor product requirements
Common mistakes:
1. Product development starts without requirements  It happens!
2. Requirements are not Unitary, Complete, Consistent, Current, Verifiable, Unambiguous,
Traceable, Prioritized
3. Requirements are not tested
4. Lack of formality in the scope definition results in different people having different
understanding of what is in and what is out of scope
5. Open ended requirements (such that end with “etc.”)
6. Failure to fully understand the “big picture” - the operational context in which the product
being produced needs to function once the project is over
7. No or lack involvement of those who will eventually use the product during the
requirements development
8. Individual requirements are never checked against the project’s overall objectives to
ensure each requirement supports the project’s objective
9. The project requirements are written based on the assumptions
16

Why projects fail according to Gartner research
Source: Gartner Survey, Analyst : Lars Mieritz. Published: 1 June 2012 ID:G00231952
19

Reason 6: Inaccurate estimates
Common mistakes:
1. Failure to not involve those who will actually perform the work to the estimating process
2. Forcing the team to provide estimate without a defined scope
3. Forcing the team to cut the estimate in order to secure a contract or make a project more
attractive
4. Estimation is done based on insufficient information or analysis
5. The assumptions used for estimation preparation are not documented, discussed or
validated
6. Big items are estimated, but because they are less visible, the smaller scale activities are
omitted
7. Estimation is done without analysis of the historical data collected from previous similar
projects or phases of the existing project
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Reason 7: No streamlined software development
process
Common mistakes:
1. No methodology is used (as is or tailored to project specifics)
2. The project plan is published but there is no follow up or tracking to allow issues to be
surfaced and addressed early
3. Believing that although the team is behind schedule, they will catch up later
4. Schedule and budget become the driving force
5. Project is tracked based on large work items rather than smaller increments
6. Failure to monitor team performance on a regular basis
7. Believing that a task reported by a team member as 90% done really is 90% done 
8. Believing that because a person was told something once (weeks or months ago), they
will remember what they were asked to do and when they were supposed to do it
9. No recurring review and demonstration of the work done
10. No value increment is added on recurring basis
11. No retrospective of the process and no analysis of its gaps and required improvements
21

How often do PMs use a project management methodology on
successful and failed projects?
Source: KPMG Project Management Survey 2013
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Reason 8: No risk management
Common mistakes:
1. Failure to think ahead and to foresee and address potential problems
2. Risk management is seen as an independent activity rather than an integral part of the
planning process and execution process
3. Risk, problems and issues become confused as a result team isn’t really doing risk
management
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Reason 9: Insufficient quality assurance (not to be
mixed up with software testing)
1. No quality assurance activities are planned, only software testing activities are performed
2. No systematic activities are performed to evaluate quality of the development process used to
produce a product
3. Failure to plan into the project appropriate reviews, tests or checkpoints at which quality can be
verified
4. Quality requirements are never discussed, thereby allowing different people to have different
expectations of what is being produced and the quality standards to be achieved
5. Quality is viewed simply in terms of testing rather than a culture of working
6. The team developing the project’s deliverables sees quality as the responsibility of the Quality
Assurance group rather than a shared responsibility
7. Testing in a test environment that is configured differently from the target production, or
operational environment in which the project’s deliverables will be used
8. Testing with a test data only
9. No proactive measures to prevent bugs from occurring in a product being developed, only
reactive measures to address found issues
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Reason 10: Decision making problems
1. Decision makers and areas of responsibility are not identified
2. Key decisions are made by people who lack the subject matter expertise to be making the
decision
3. Expert advice is not requested when making key project decisions
4. Lack of situational awareness results in ineffective decisions being made
5. Failure to bring closure to a critical decision results in delays, unused time, team demotivation
6. Team avoids the difficult decisions because some stakeholders maybe unhappy with the
outcome
7. Team is not involved into the decision making process (when appropriate)
8. Key decisions are made without identifying or considering alternatives
9. Decision fragments are left unanswered (what to be done, how to be done, when to be done,
who are performers, who IS responsible for the outcome, etc.)
10. Failure to establish clear ownership of decisions and responsible people
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10 reasons why projects fail?
1. Insufficient stakeholders management
2. Inefficient communication
3. No sufficient project initiation and planning phases
4. Project constraints are not identified
5. Poor product requirements
6. Inaccurate estimates
7. No streamlined software development process
8. No risk management
9. Insufficient quality assurance (not to be mixed up with software testing)
10. Decision making problems
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10 rules to make your projects succeed!
1. Identify and manage project stakeholders and their expectations
2. Setup effective communication channels and escalation boundaries, run effective
meetings, always keep records
3. Do spend time on the project initiation and planning phases
4. Identify project constraints with stakeholders and document those, always keep them in
mind through the project length
5. Do no start software development with poor product requirements and not defined scope
6. Learn how to improve accuracy of estimates, collect and analyze historical data and
previous experience
7. Follow software development methodology – tailor the existing one or develop you own.
The process should be defined and streamlined to be controlled!
8. Do risk management, foresee problems and address potential problems
9. Software testing is not enough, do quality assurance activities and make quality a
working culture
10. Make decisions fast and smart
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… and a piece of advice 
1. Any experience, including failures and mistakes, is your chance to learn and self-develop
2. When you enjoy what you are doing you are way more effective and productive
3. Something interesting and challenging can be found in any assignment if you keep being
positive, open-minded and creative
4. Thinking out of the box helps to find good and new solutions
5. When you are working hard and doing your best, people around respect you and
appreciate what you are doing
6. Positive attitude always help to find the right solution
7. People are over process  - respect yourself, your colleagues and clients
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10 reasons why projects fail or common mistakes to avoid

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