From the category archives:

Failing projects

Success criteria: how do you define success?

October 1, 2007

This entry is part 3 of 6 in the series Failing projects

Success criteria are the standards by which the project will be judged to have been successful in the eyes of the stakeholders. It is these that must be tracked to be able to answer the question of whether your project has delivered any benefits. There are 2 types of success criteria: Project: things related to [...]

Restructuring failing projects

September 27, 2007

You don’t just have to read me harping on all the time about failing projects and what to do about them. Have a look at John Enstone’s article about how to restructure and turn them around.

Taking the guess out of success

September 24, 2007

This entry is part 2 of 6 in the series Failing projects

Organisations don’t define failure. We don’t document how we will know if a project has failed – what failure looks like – because thinking about failing is not a good way to motivate the project team when the work has only just started. The absence of a formal definition of failure makes it uncomfortably easy [...]

Defining failure

September 17, 2007

This entry is part 1 of 6 in the series Failing projects

It’s easy to find examples of high-profile projects that fail. The ones that hit the papers are often public sector projects because their audits and budgets are more open to scrutiny. Here are some: Following an internal review, Multiplex, the Australian development company responsible for the reconstruction of the Wembley Stadium, became aware that costs [...]

Being on TV

September 10, 2007

Back in February I wrote about researching failing projects for a TV programme called ‘Failing projects: the real picture’. Well, filming was at the Channel 4 Studios in Horseferry Road, London in May, and the programme came out recently. I’ll see if I can get a few clips to post here, but the make-up and [...]

Art, science and failing projects

August 2, 2007

I’ve just started to read Thomas F. Shubnell’s new book The The Art of Installation and The Science of Implementation, which, according to the press release, “offers a practical and informative approach to achieve and sustain project management success”. As failing projects are one of my particular research interests, I’m very keen to find out [...]

IT projects need soft skills

July 19, 2007

This research by CIO Connect won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has had the slightest involvement in projects. Yes, IT projects fail without the element of business and people change. It amazes me that people still think in terms of ‘IT projects’ at all. Even a ‘pure’ IT project like an infrastructure upgrade [...]

A bald dog can teach us new tricks

May 7, 2007

I’ve been tracking down examples for project failure, mainly in the UK, and Tom “Bald Dog” Varjan contacted me with some reasons why he thinks projects are unsuccessful. His points are really interesting, so I thought I’d share them with you. Tom’s business cards introduce him as “Bald Dog, Organisational Provocateur,” so I’m sure that [...]

Stop! I want to get off!

April 16, 2007

I’ve been looking at projects that fail, and am in two minds about whether to include projects that get stopped. If it’s stopped, has it failed? Or was closing it down the right response, so the business has successfully avoided the cost of completing something that wasn’t worth it? Research commissioned by Microsoft shows that [...]

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