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 [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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Why do projects fail?

October 15, 2007
This entry is part 4 of 6 in the series Failing projects

There must be a good reason why all these projects fail.  There is; in fact, there are many factors that contribute to project failure.  The UK Office of Government Commerce did a study that shows the main reasons that projects fail are: lack of clear executive leadership (the ‘missing’ Sponsor) poor processes for identifying and [...]

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Project governance for Parliament

October 22, 2007
This entry is part 5 of 6 in the series Failing projects

The construction of the new Scottish Parliament building is a good example of how things can go so wrong on a project. The innovative design was in its early stages when the procurement process started. Architects were bidding to deliver something within a specification of 20,740 m² and £50m. At this point, there were no [...]

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Changing the perception of ‘failed’ projects

October 29, 2007
This entry is part 6 of 6 in the series Failing projects

I have written before about the fact that some projects are stopped for good reasons. Businesses need to be very transparent when that happens to ensure all relevant parties understand why and, crucially, agree that it is the right thing to do. Communication within the organisation needs to be carefully managed so that all the [...]

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