Causes Of Project Failure - Free Samples to Students

Question: Discuss about theCauses Of Project Failure Answer: Causes of project failure Critical and system thinking refers to a certain framework which is intended to unite the means through which different individuals approach a topic. The aspect of projects and how they fail is an area that a large number of individuals visualize in significantly diverse way and thus for that reason, the framework can help integrate the ideas and approach of different authors and make them easy to understand generally. The objective of this study is to analyze that the perceived causes of the project failure vary depending on the assessment of failure. The study will be drawn from theory and evidence, and it will also look into the implications of project failure in the practice of project management. The results of the study reveal that the biggest areas of concern in project failure relate to the management team, meeting the set deadlines, keeping up within the budget and also meeting the quality requirements. The study analyzes what different authors consider to be the cause of pr ojects fail. This research is very important in that it will assist the project managers to avoid any factors that are said to be the cause of the project failure and they will thus be in a position to come up with strategies for increasing effectiveness and preventing the project failures. Introduction Many of the projects especially the complex ones usually fail in the long term due to the failure to live up to the promises made and they thus end up producing outcomes that are disappointing at the time of completion. Kerzner, (2017), explain that some projects fail as a result of the exceeding of the set budgets while others do not meet the deadline or even both. When projects managers fail to deliver as expected, they usually have a poor reputation. Basu, (2016) on the other hand provides information that technology industries are the ones who have the worst record because their failures tend to exceed more that 50% in all the projects that they undertake. Some of the organizations usually make commitments that they are not able to fulfill on the projects that they undertake and they even go to the extent of failing to determine the value that they get in return from the investment undertaken. It is thus important for the organizations and their project managers to take measures to ensure that they step up their game in the project management so that they can be in a position to undertake strategies and measures of curbing the failure of their projects. Project managers should thus ensure that they carefully evaluate a project before undertaking it by examining the hurdles and other road-blocks that may present challenges so that they can have a clear understanding of the challenges that lay ahead of them in the project and come up with the necessary ways of mitigating them (Basu, 2016). Causes of projects failure In their source, Montequin, Cousillas, and Villanueva, (2016), explain that one of the major causes of project failure is poor preparation. This refers to the situation where the project manager and his or her team are not adequately prepared to undertake the project. For a project to be successful, the project manager and his or her team need to get a clear picture of what they are going to do before the initiation of the project. In this, they need to know what the project is all about, what its success looks like and ensure that they stay focused. Failure to have a clear focus right from the beginning usually make the things hard, and some of the vital things such as examining the challenges that they may experience in the project and developing ways of mitigating them may be overlooked thus affecting the project after it has already started. Cause of failure in projects the project managers should thus ensure that they have a meeting with all the stakeholders that are involved so that they can discuss on the quality of the product, the cost and also the time. This is imperative in that it assists the project managers to know the right way for the execution of the tasks so that they can meet the expectations of the people involved. The stakeholders that are involved in a certain project usually contribute to the failure of the project if they do not participate in the preparation phase. They should thus be part of this by offering the necessary resources that are needed to start the project so that they can be in a position to make it successful by avoiding the shortage of the supplies required. When the stakeholders do not take part in the preparation phase and do not participate in the reviews, they end up showing less interest and are finally disengaged. This result to the lack of unity and the collaboration in the pro ject support and hence failure since there are no necessary people required to offer the guidance needed to see the project through until its success. It is thus important for the project managers to ensure that they have in place a consistent methodology for use in the planning and the execution of the projects before announcing the date of releasing the project (Discenza, Forman, 2007). The second cause of the failure in the projects is inadequate leadership (Shauchenka, 2013). This does not only focus on the project managers but also on the other leaders at all the management levels that are bestowed with the responsibility of ensuring the success of the project. The management or the leaders at all the levels should ensure that they offer support to the project manager so that he can be in a position to follow through on all the expectations that he has placed on them. Lack of the necessary support from the various management levels can lead to the failure of the project due to the difficulties in the project development (Kerzner, 2017). This causes the project to be caught up in the priorities and failure to collaborate in the organization and this makes it hard for all the people involved in a project to work towards a common goal. The project managers should thus ensure that they communicate effectively with all the team members so that he can lead in the execu tion of the desired results and ensure that the expected performance has been delivered. The third cause of the project failure is the existence of gaps in communication. According to Montequin, Cousillas, and Villanueva, (2016), many of the project teams usually use the emails as the means of communication on the various tasks and issue in the project. As a result of this, the communication on the project thus resides in the email box of the individual team members and the case that a new member joins in the project, there is usually no centralized way that the new member can be in a position to access the history of the project. The executive managers thus usually rely on the emails sent to them either weekly or monthly by the project managers, and thus most of the information about the project is left in the hand of the project managers which they at times tends to hold hostage. When the project managers send the email to the team members, their feedback may not reach all the members of the team especially if they fail to click the reply to all option and thus some of the members end up not receiving the message. Lastly, in the communication gaps, some of the team members complain about the volumes of emails sent and the burden that they have on sorting them out so that they can get the most relevant ones. This thus results in the wastage of time since they could be working on more important and pressing issues instead of sifting through the emails. To solve this problem, there is a need for project managers to offer a centralized location for communication. Posting information in a central location so that in case new members join the team, they can be in a position to quickly review the progress can catch up with the rest of the team members. The other cause of the project failure is the lack of visibility into the resource workload. Due to the lack of the prioritization in the projects, the resources are usually overloaded. This occurs in the case where the executive managers do not have a clear visibility of the activities in the project and also the tasks. They thus end up delegating the task of resources allocated to the project managers and in the case that the priorities in the project are not established correctly, the company ends up undertaking very many projects at a time. As a result of this, the team members tend to have more work than the time available for the completion of the work. The project managers thus need to let the executive managers know the work load that they have so that they can avoid getting in trouble (Chitkara, 1998). The impact of this is that the team members may opt out of the job and go search for work somewhere especially because they are overworked so that they can meet the deadlines and ensure the completion of their tasks, the project and also meet the objectives. Over planning by the executive managers can lead to the complexity of the schedules which causes the problems associated with the lack of visibility later (Chapman, 2013). It is thus important to ensure that adequate planning is done right from the start so that the management can get a better view to avoid overworking the employees and losing its actual progress which makes it appear messy and difficult to bring back on the right track. Clarification on critical and system thinking in understanding project failures As demonstrated in the paper, the ideas and approaches that different authors have regarding project failures is significantly different. Despite this reason, however, a large number of these individuals make similar conclusions concerning the topic and have agreed in many instances. By reading and understanding the authors provision, an individual can easily understand the aspect of project failure and its causes. Conclusion For a project to achieve its desired results, all the stakeholders that are involved in it should be well managed and motivated so that the efforts of the project can experience phases of optimal performance up to the last stage. From the research findings the authors have a common stand that most projects usually fail due to the poor preparation and planning, inadequate leadership, lack of visibility in the resource overload and the gaps existing in the communication between the team members. In this, it is clear that if the stakeholders in the team do not carry out an adequate evaluation before starting the project and involve all the stakeholders, the project is likely to fail. This is because they are not able to have a clear understanding of where they are heading to, and some of the stakeholders may even opt out if they are not participants in the project. Measures thus need to be taken to ensure that the team members are fully prepared right before undertaking any project. References Basu, R. (2016). Managing Projects in Research and Development. Florence: Taylor and Francis. Chapman, R. (2013). The rules of project risk management : implementation guidelines for major projects. Farnham, Surrey: Gower Publishing Limited. Chitkara, K. (1998). Construction project management: planning, scheduling and controlling. New Delhi, India: Tata McGraw-Hill Pub. Discenza, R. Forman, J. B. (2007). Seven causes of project failure: how to recognize them and how to initiate project recovery. Paper presented at PMI Global Congress 2007North America, Atlanta, GA. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute. Kerzner, H. (2017). Project management : a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley Sons, Inc. Montequin, V., Cousillas, V. Villanueva, A. (2016). Success Factors and Failure Causes in Projects: Analysis of Cluster Patterns Using Self-organizing Maps: Procedia Computer Science. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050916323481 Montequin, V., Cousillas, V. Villanueva, A. (2016). Analysis of the Success Factors and Failure Causes in Information Communication Technology (ICT) Projects in Spain. Procedia Technology. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212017314002801 Shauchenka, U. (2013). Why projects fail. Uladzislau Shauchenka.