647 W2D "Three main reason projects fail" - Essay Example

Reasons Why Projects Fail Three Main Reasons Why Projects Fail Actually, there are three main reasons why projects fail: mismanagement, over constraint and impossibility of success. For a very long time now, I have known of several companies in USA whose projects have completely failed because of such reasons (Kendrick, 2009). Apple Incorporation’s Newton MessagePad which was launched in 1993 failed in 1998 because it was actually an impossible project. Although it was invented to be used as a personal digital assistant, it did not manage to revolutionize the personal computing world as expected.

After selling only 200,000 pieces and recovering a quarter of the money spent on it, it completely failed. I believe that Newton MessagePad was an impossible project since it could not withstand the stiff competition in the market. Besides, it turned to be too expensive, too big and much difficult to use than earlier expected. So, it had to fail and bring such a bid loss to the company. On the other hand, Webvan’s online grocery supply project failed because of mismanagement. Although the project was launched at the beginning of the Dot-Com Bubble, it had to fail.

Having keenly followed the events at this company, I concluded that the internet grocery supply project failed because it was poorly managed. This was evidenced in 1999 when the company hired George Shaheen as its new head. After his appointment, Shaheen did not help in developing the company. Instead, he came up with expansionist policies of building branches in 26 cities without considering market and strengthening the already existing outlets. At the same time, he did not establish an effective communication between the executive management, project managers and team members (Gomez-Mejia et al., 2008). As a result, the project tremendously failed in 2001 only after managing to reach up to 10 cities.

Last, but not least, IBM’s IBM 7030 (Stretch) Project failed in 1964 after it was launched in 1961 because it was over constrained. Although the management of IBM had planned to invent the world’s fastest supercomputer, it could not manage to achieve this goal because the project was seriously challenged. Its experts could not make such a computer because they lacked the required resources and skills. This explains why they were able to build a computer with a speed of only 40 times faster, not 100 times as anticipated.

Hence, the project failed after selling only 9 computers. Had it not been over constrained, the company would have accomplished its goal (Flyvbjerg, 2003). ReferencesFlyvbjerg, B. (2003). Megaprojects and Risk: An Anatomy of Ambition. Cambridge University Press.Gomez-Mejia, L. et al. (2008). Management: People, Performance, Change, 3rd edition. New York, New York USA: McGraw-Hill.Kendrick, T. (2009) Identifying and Managing Project Risk: Essential Tools for Failure-Proofing Your Project 2nd Edition.

New York: AMACOM Publishers.