Project management helps organizations complete projects within budget, on time and achieve their original goals and business intentions. Organizations that invest in the best project management practices waste less money and complete more of their strategic initiatives.
According to a 2014 PwC study, only 2.5% of companies are successful with all of their projects. Even if a project achieves a certain goal, if the goal is not clearly defined or changes over time, the project team may have difficulty achieving it.
The main causes of failure:
The project development strategy is inadequate
With so many moving parts in a project, a breakdown or failure of one or more parts can lead to failure of the project as a whole. Whatever the cause, the unfortunate reality is that an overly ambitious timetable can lead to the failure of a project if it is not delivered on time, leading to significant disruption to the operation of the organisation.
Budget overruns can be due to a higher than predicted workload, having to cut costs in order to win business, projects going over budget or being a significant failure risk if the investor can not provide additional funds.
Changing focus too often
Changing a project’s objectives is responsible for 36% of failed projects, but changing the plan does not have to lead to failure. Although it is difficult to completely derail an initiative, there is reason to believe that change management projects have a failure rate of 70%.
According to a survey by KPMG, an incredible 70% of organizations have suffered at least one project failure in the previous 12 months and 50% said their projects had not accomplished what they set out to do. The Chaos Report group found that only 29% of implementations of IT projects were successful, while 19% were considered complete failures. These failures speak volumes and clearly demonstrate that there is a huge risk involved that needs to be taken very seriously. Product-driven development teams with a high sense of ownership, as well as managers experienced in running truly agile IT projects, are what you should pay special attention to when choosing a Tech Partner.
Poor project management
Agile projects can be run in parallel to support major organizational changes. They ensure that the necessary management and communication of processes, behaviors and operations are implemented promptly, which reinforces the achievement of the goals of the desired change. WISE change management projects ensure that changes in processes and behavior become a “new business as usual” as quickly as possible.
Too many features are implemented
If the project is implemented on time and on budget, but the end-users do not accept the system and do not exploit it, the project is deemed to have failed. More features also means more room for potential bugs and thus, more time will be needed for proper testing. We cannot stress enough how important it is not to forget about user feedback.
Executives need to understand the economic case for implementation and commit to it. If the IT team knows it has full support from its leadership, it is more likely to invest in the success of their project.
Technical quality is overemphasized
Managing every part of a project from A to Z is a real challenge and requires a lot of work, rigor and commitment. It is a worthwhile investment if the project is a success in the end, but despite the efforts of the teams, many projects fail within the first year due to too much focus on technical quality which leads to additional costs and other potential setbacks. Sometimes, it’s better to simply get the job done than to keep pushing for perfection, especially when the time to market is a main focus of the project/MVP.
Poor choice of technology
On the other hand, we’ve seen many cases of the wrong platform being chosen, sometimes due to the decision being rushed or not considered thoroughly enough, which makes achieving the goal very difficult. This can result in an obligatory refactoring of the whole product, or other major issues in the legacy, which will both ultimately result in a technical debt that could be avoided. Starting from scratch, having to deal with poor documentation or receiving the project from another team usually means trouble for the new development team and additional costs for the client, not to mention being a waste of time.
“70% of users abandon an app because it takes too long to load.”
The market research is not conducted
Invest in early assessment to verify infrastructure requirements and leverage platforms that provide the adaptability and scalability benefits needed to implement successful project-driven business initiatives.
“29% of users will immediately abandon an app if they don’t find it valuable.”
The development team is unprofessional
Statistics on the failure of construction projects show that 50% of developers (61% in the US) saw their projects fail and had no confidence that project planning was under control. Project management statistics also show that organizations that overlook the PM process reported errors in at least half of their projects in 2018.
For 11% of the failed projects, the hesitation of team members goes hand-in-hand with poor project management. 68% of companies have marginal projects, rather than direct failures or successes, because of their approach to corporate analysis. Statistics on the failure of software projects show that the lack of coordination between business and project objectives is the reason why half of all strategic initiatives fail.
Summary
The success of digital projects in many industries is central to competition and IT executives must bridge the gap between successful projects and the use of sustainable technologies.
Budget overruns caused by poor overall preparation, a lack of market and user research, and poor technological choices all result in companies needing to start from scratch, as well as trying to cut costs in other areas. These are some of the main reasons why so many IT projects fail.
We cannot stress enough how important it is to focus on early-stage assessments and verify infrastructure requirements that offer the adaptability necessary to deploy successful, future-proof products that drive business initiatives forward.
