Project Management Failures - Essay Example

Project Management Failures Department Project management- as a managerial discipline that involves accuracy in planning, motivating, organizing, and controlling available resources with the immense intention of attaining/ achieving some specified goals’ i.e. of an organization, company, institution e.t.c.- has become very fundamental in the twenty-first century due to the World’s growing population, and projects that people partake. Consequently, Project Management has become one of the most important studies of interest for the developing countries. It has become a key reason for the success of a number of projects and strategy to be implemented by companies and organizations to avoid failures. However, poor or laxity in the implementation of any of the strategies, as will be illustrated in the development, has led to unimaginable project failures. Projects usually have well defined strategies defining their beginnings and ends. However, a key challenge facing project management is to have all of its strategies achieved effectively and efficiently while honoring the initially conceived constraints of organizational scope, quality, budget and time. The purpose for this paper is hence to identify, analyze, and recommend the most suitable solutions to the causes/ reasons which have been identified to be behind Project Management failures. Besides, this paper will also cover the Triple Constraints elements and their influences on the same (project failure). Project failures 1. Introduction Any project is considered as a failure in case it has not achieved or delivered as per its requirements/ in line with its expectations. Success is attainable in a project when it has delivered promptly with regards to cost, quality and time factors together with the benefits as on the business case (Carly L., 2004).. Project management constraints diagram shown below: Also formulated as: Cost * Schedule = Quality A project of limited/ restricted time allocation will require increased resources assigned to its or else, have its quality/ scope reduced. The three factors demonstrated in the figure above are referred to as the triple constraints of a project, and therefore each and every project has the challenge of making it work and being successful within time, cost and quality specified. Quality (scope), cost (resources) and time (schedule) are elements in the project management that work in tandem with each other (Project Management Institute, 2004). A balance between these elements must be ensured for the subsequent success in project planning, resourcing and execution. i. Time Time or schedule, in a project management, is analyzed to every single detail with regards to the amount of time that is of requirement to complete every component of a project. Strategies for ensuring this is to first analyze the whole project, then break down the composing elements into time required to complete each, and finally work out the estimated duration of the whole project. It therefore means that poor time allocation will directly influence the end result of any project. Limited amount of time will lead to limited work done hence not achieving the desired requirements of level of success in any project that requires quality time allocations (Wright J. N., 1997). ii. Quality Quality is also known as scope. The scope of any project/ scope of any work are a clear and specific statement detailing particulars of the agreement made on how a project is to be performed or its intended achievements. Quality/scope spells out functions, features, data, and content to be included in the project (desired final results of a project). iii. Cost Cost or resources, as another element of Triple Constraint, are all about what need to be applied or assigned to any successful project in terms of effort and money. Such resources can be in the form of manpower or labor, materials required for the job, risk management resources and assessment for security purposes (Wright J. N., 1997). Projects are likely to fail in most instances if management controls are not well coordinated. Following are the reasons that may result into any projects’ failures: 1.1. Poor project planning and direction Enhancing project planning and direction is a very key factor in ensuring project’s success. For instance, successful Information Technology projects require plans made up of rule, processes and tools that enable project planning and management in support of software tools. During such processes still, Four Ps (pilot, phase, parallel and plunge) have to be implemented. To this aspect of poor project planning or lack of solid project planning, users’ inputs and organizational support must be guaranteed at all levels of the project management. In the event of planning for a project, it is advisable to note that each and every project is impacted by risks, assumptions on resource usage e.t.c., and hence implementation of Critical Chain management tool to take more control over the identified buffers. 1.2. Insufficient communication Effective communication provides project management guidelines. Objective status reports, recurrent communication with sponsors and any business user, and general involvement of external components i.e. hardware vendors for the IT projects are very necessary for smooth running of the projects. In every project management strategy, simple actions such as organizing agendas, minutes, action items and information-push emails are important. Agendas, for instance, propels the project manager who is running the ongoing meeting to organize time and supply preliminary items. Additionally, the thinking and preparation that are involved in the creation of the agenda are also necessary. In order to solve this, insufficient resources i.e. funding and personnel, together with business politics must be dealt with appropriately. For the case of insufficient resources, all project requirements must be put in place before the commencement of any activities. This would help eliminate drawbacks that may arise in the course of implementing the strategies. Business politics must also be avoided at all cost for they may derail the motivation of members involved towards ensuring achievement of the project’s aim and objectives. In most instances, business politics are experienced on projects with no proper communication and members’ involvements on the ongoing targets of the projects. 1.3. Ineffective Quality Controls A quality control can be defined as a system of checks and balances for the purpose of ensuring that the project’s deliverables conform to the customer’s expectations. All projects therefore must initiate systems to track every project management nonconformance and take appropriate actions when the trend is realized to be outside the norm. 1.4. Centralized proactive management initiatives to combat project risk This factor can be attributed to by the enterprise management of budget resources and the managerial provision of universal templates and documentation of the ongoing projects. Any project management team has the mandate to therefore see into it that any intended action is discussed by all the necessary departments to alienate confusions and poor implementations of the strategies. 1.5. Wrong requirements addressed. Projects based on a misconception or projects initiated to deliver wrong things/ items are considered as a failed project even though the delivery may be within the allocated budget, timely, and of quality desired. This means that the outcome is contrary to the expectations, an indication of poor project requirements analysis before commencing on the project. 1.6. Poor implementation Competent project delivery ensures high quality of its implementation. For a good delivery one has to manage risks, issues, and scope of the project; manage the team involved in the project; and communicate with the relevant stakeholder. Even though this cannot be applied at all stages in a project, it provides a firm basis upon which a project can be initiated. 1.7. Loose of focus on the project’s benefits Each and every project operates along identified benefits which it has to try and achieve. While stipulating the benefit statements, it is advisable that they are made very clear, concise and quantifiable for correct appropriation and focus on the intended goals. In the case of business projects, business case documentations have to be drafted to analyze the project in terms of cost, and benefits to be delivered (Turner J.R., Andersen E.S., Grude K.V. and Haug T., 1987). A strategy of adopting the benefits management approach, which ensures that the project at hand is able to provide clear benefits, against the view of the project being completed within some specified time and resources limitations (Lynch R., 2002). Hence, while a project’s success is on timely delivery and within a restricted budget allocation, the success of this benefits management technique is to ensure that whatever the initiatives only the expected results are delivered and not contrary. Implementation of the benefits management approach comes in four phases: i. Phase one: Defining and Developing benefits During this project initialization, the project management has to convene meetings with all stakeholders to figure out benefit requirements and their intended outcomes, and reasons why; creation of benefit statements; decisions on the cause of actions for the maximization of project’s benefits; and extension of the cost benefit analysis to include even the tangible and intangible benefits identified. ii. Phase two: Developing benefit plan This is still at the project initiation stages. The team had to observe the whole project plan, ensure that appropriate supporting activities are included through the use of Gantt charts to complete and track the expected benefits schedule; watch for any gaps in the benefits and any other benefits; identify personnel to be accountable and responsible for the delivery of supporting activities; establish benefit metrics and their measures; determine benefit reporting schemes; and inclusion of a benefits management summary within the business case for any project. iii. Phase Three: Monitoring benefits during the project implementation process The management of the project will be tasked to regularly monitor process in efforts to deliver expected benefits; modify benefits plan in case of project plan alterations; create a communication link between individuals concerned to ensure routine discussion and consideration of the intended benefits; give necessary support to the project team, and apply benefit statements as motivation tool for the workers; and finally be on the lookout for the benefits creep. iv. Phase Four: Completing the project and reviewing the benefits. At this last phase, the necessary tasks will involve identification of the benefits achieved, and looking for any gaps and missed opportunities if any; monitoring workers’ needs to make sure that they continues to enjoy their benefits as had been agreed upon. During this time, the management can take the initiative of setting up a system to use in communicating future needs; and recording successful areas and those that still need to be improved, for the purpose of continuous learning experiences in the organizations concerned. In summary of benefits management, therefore, all the hard work and organization’s investments into the project are ensured to be of greatest possible business return. It is important to note that projects do change over their lifecycles, and each change however small is capable of shifting goals. This calls for the need to focus on the project’s benefits. 1.8. Overruns of the set schedules and costs Effective projects must have accurately set project costs and schedules, and prioritization together with project portfolio management. In the case of erroneous estimations i.e. lower cost estimation, the project may result into a halt. Project scheduling and costing must hence be done by qualified persons or teams, and their plan to be followed strictly by the departmental teams and managers during the implementation (Mullins L., 2002). 1.9. Environmental changes Business’ needs changes affect the overall project’s aim and objectives. Such changes always cause the business case to become outdated before an on-going project is fully completed. This therefore calls for a review of the original requirements and goals partway through the project to make precise decisions on the next action to be taken, calling for a possible change of the scope or cancellation of the whole project for situations of advanced changes (Lock D., 1987). If working in an environment of very frequent changes, the management is advised to: 1.9.1. Make timely decisions This step is necessary whenever there is a foreseen incidence of the project not being able to deliver the revised recommendations. Timely decisions means immediate solutions set up to solve the situations at hand. 1.9.2. Manage expectations A cancellation of a project guarantees no automatic failure for the project, depending on how one manages the involvements of the project’s main components in the crucial decision making process (Turner J.R., Andersen E.S., Grude K.V. and Haug T., 1987). Expectations management is a key in eliminating any possible instances of scope creep in the project implementation stages. Change control processes and end user expectations must be met as they are the fundamentals of taking or doing any project. Clarification of the real requirements and performance of the right impact analysis would help manage expectations (Maylor H., 2003). 1.9.3. Consideration of smaller projects Taking into account impacts of the whole project’s failure, the project may be delivered in phases to call for any corrections or recommendations to ensure accuracy, precision and good quality in time of delivery. 1.10. Impossibility in the delivery of expectations Projects that have targets that are not achievable are termed as impossible tasks. Companies’ and organizations’ committees have to ensure that they come up with a business case that has accurate and thoughtful project requirements explained into details, and the requirements explored explicitly to ensure that they are achievable as per the plan and budget. To help avoid this, reviews of other similar projects is encouraged so that the planning committee is reminded of the major items for the projects’ successful completion (Stewart K., 1997). In the case of delivering new systems (i.e. in Information Technology), a review of hardware and intended user interface requirements is a must. During this review process, any major risks should be counter reacted by sufficient contingency resources, i.e. budget, resource persons, and time allocation, to proficiently manage the identified risks. 1.11. Ignoring of project warning signs Project implementation teams should always be cautious and keen on any warning indicators while running projects. This is because some projects may require immediate attention, failure of which may result to an eventual cancellation of the whole project. However, ignoring of project warnings may as well result because of inadequate testing processes as well as poor decision made by the individuals concerned. This therefore means that during the management of the project, the project manager must monitor all the ongoing activities and possible destructions from causing any complacency to the project (Harris D., 2004). The project managers must hence be in control of the project and be aware of any activities that may be presenting/ indicating any risk of project failures. References Harris D. (2004). Integrated Management Study System (2005 edition), CIMA Publishing. Lynch R. (2002). Corporate Strategy (3rd Ed) FT/Prentice Hall. Maylor H. (2003). Project Management (3rd Ed). FT/Prentice Hall. Mullins L. (2002). Management and Organizational Behavior (6 Ed). FT/Prentice Hall. Wright JN. (1997) Time and budget: the twin imperatives of a project sponsor. Internet J Project Management; 15:181±6. Lock D. (1987). Project Management Handbook. Alders hot, UK: Gower. Turner J.R., Andersen E.S., Grude K.V. and Haug T. (1987). Goal directed project management. London, UK: Kogan Page. Stewart K. (1997). Project management: delivering the project. MBA Dissertation, Edinburgh Business School, Edinburgh, March 1997. Carly L. (2004). Project Management Primer. Bureau of Reclamation. Project Management Institute. (2004). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: PMBOK® Guide, 3rdEdition. Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, Project Management Institute. Read More