Investigation Methods for Project Team Failure - Literature review Example

Investigation Methods for Project Team Failure Methods to Investigate Project Team Failure Introduction Project management becoming the significant business practice has remained in the contemporary researches. There are several studies which are to understand project management’s core competencies. Meanwhile, there are other studies which talk about PM’s investigation tools-techniques leading to the investigation of the project management team failures. In application to the business, project management provides effective and deliberate monitory and investigation tools. It provides methods and concepts which combine research, analysis and assessment altogether to investigate the causes of the project team failure. This study covering the Project Management subject is about to identify PM’s best investigation methods. The aim is to find out justified techniques, concepts and research methods which can investigate causes of project management’s team failures effectively. Literature Review Project Managers’ Investigation Research Methods and Concepts In projects there are different failures involved like system failure, process failure, and human failure. Such failures lead out to the complete failure of the project. In theorists’ opinion, project team failure is the most significant failure for any project. It is one failure which causes other failures to happen (Mosier, 2008). Likewise, if a project team has shown error, definitely the errors will prevail in other sections of the project- in the system or in the process (Mosier, 2008). Hence, analyzing human failure as the core-center failure is part of the investigation strategy. It is the fundamental thing required in any of the appropriate project investigation plan. Meanwhile, the literature highlights that the fundamental stage of effective investigation begins from treating human failure as the central failure of the project. This is one criterion which can be effective in bringing out the right appropriate investigation (McIlree, 2013). According to the modern literature, a project fails only because there is some human negligence or human obstacle involved (Mosier, 2008). No matter, there are delays of material, breakdown of the machines, missing up of resources or mismanagement of the tools; all is fabricated and mistook by the human element involved in the project. Hence, analyzing team failure in the context of the entire project failure is important (McIlree, 2013). It is important because it sets the links, figure out the relations and in-competencies required to understand the true causes of the failure. When managers do not call team failure as a complete project failure they suffer in investigating their project teams. This is one natural phenomenon which has to be important and relevant for a project team investigator (Becker, 2008). Considering project team failure as the root cause of all other failures, a project manager needs to understand “failure” first. In this, a project manager will have to define failure (Dalal, 2011). Defining failure approach has remained important in the literature and so as in the practical adaptation. It has been seen that over the time project managers have been defining their project team failures. This is to get a clear understanding of failure and also to build grounds for explorative investigation. According to (Dalal, 2011), defining Who, What and Why is what defines a project team failure. Answering the Who (who was primarily responsible), the what (what caused the failure) and why (why it was caused) is all what brings a clear definition of the failure (Dalal, 2011, p.477). Investigating all such clauses give the manager a direction to bring down the investigation. It provides the basis for accessing the causes of a project team failure with a top to bottom approach. Actually, this is how a step by step inquiry extracts the causes of the failure. It dissects all the important areas required to be investigated for knowing the causes of the failure (Dalal, 2011). In a project, team failures can also be investigated on the basis of success criteria. There are several studies which declare success criteria as an ideal diagnosis instrument (Atkinson, 1999). Studies like Oisen suggest that project managers can appropriately investigate their team failures on the basis of initially set success criteria (Atkinson, 1999, p.338). According to the British Standard, “Project management is about the planning, monitoring and control of all aspects of a project and the motivation of all those involved in into achieve the project objectives on time and to the specified cost, quality and performance” (as cited in Atkinson, 1999, p.338). In this definition, a success criteria would be the one having three diagnostic variables, cost, quality and time. If the team has skipped such cost, quality and time variables they are close to failure. Hence, when project managers will compare their team performance they will have cost, time and quality as standards to compare. This will lead to an easy diagnose of where the problem lies (Atkinson, 1999). The problem could be that a team is not able to meet cost or time standards in which they have compromised the quality of the project. This is how an assessment comes forward and helps the project manager to further investigate the causes of the failure (Atkinson, 1999). On further, team failure can be judged on the basis of team coordination or collaboration. If coordination is not there then definitely it is one major cause behind a project team failure. Project managers use team coordination as a measure of success (Carlos, 2013). They use it as a criterion to investigate how the team has been performing and what were their inner team attitudes. If the team stays behind coordination or showed a lack of integration then it is a clear indication of why the team got failed. Hence, this is another measure that can be utilized for investigating team failures and their performance (Carlos, 2013). According to Scott Berkun (a project management specialist), project managers in the modern competitive business environment comes in the role of project trackers (as cited in Carlos, 2013). They are auditors and reporters more than traditional mangers, because they have short deadlines, limited budget and maximum expectations to overcome in the assigned projects. In Scotts’ view a project manager if he or she comes out as project tracker, can easily investigate the causes of a team failure (Cugelman, 2013). Considering team failure as failure of the project, a project tracker uses project team reporting systems. Such systems record clear and definite information about each and every activity of the project. Actually, these systems are scanners of the entire project operation. No matter, where the team has lagged or shown irresponsibility such systems will track and sort out each and every problematic area. This is how project trackers utilizing team reporting systems identify the causes of a project team failure. Reporting systems are common tools of investigation. They investigate the causes of a project team failure on the basis of accuracy, precision, reality and truthfulness (McIlree, 2013). Project Managers’ Investigation Techniques Apart from concepts and research methods, there are several techniques which project managers utilize for effective investigation. These are apprehensive investigation tools bringing direct and close information of how, when, why a team failed in the project (McIlree, 2013). In viewing the modern literature, the PM’s investigation techniques include root cause analysis, project life cycle analysis, fault tree analysis or event tree analysis respectively (Dalal, 2011). Such analytical tools are modernly adapted and accepted among UK project managers, who are found in competitive and challenging work environments. With limited amount of time and with much intensive work pressures, such tools bring quick, deliberate and in-depth information of how a team failed in the project. Actually, such tools draft an overall picture- a sketch of how the project team failed and what were the main causes (Becker, 2008). Root Cause Analysis When teams fail which gives an explanation of a failure event, Root Cause Analysis is one technique which project managers use to investigate the event. RCA is a responsive technique. It is a method used to respond on events more specifically on a team failure event. Revealing the causes of the event with sub-categories, RCA comes out as a failure management technique. It reveals all the causes that make the failure to incur (Byatt, 2011). Meanwhile, the reports generated by a RCA investigation tool can be utilized for future investigation. Likewise, if an RCA is conducted in an earlier period for an earlier team failure, it can be utilized to analyze the future failure impressions. In this way, RCA comes out as a pro-active investigation model used to analyze the upcoming future failure outcomes (Byatt, 2011). Not to repeat the failures, RCA suggest corrective measures. It suggests of where the problem lies and what are the main factors which if removed can improve the status of the project team (Mosier, 2008). RCA is the most accepted and most adapted investigation technique by project managers. The reason is that RCA signifies team failure as a failure of an entire project (Byatt, 2011). It scans each and every aspect required to highlight the team failure event. Extracting information from top to bottom (vertical) and from left to right (horizontal), RCA produces a genuinely investigation report. This report is enough to pass judgment on how the team failed and how it can be improved for the future concern (Byatt, 2011). Project Life Cycle Analysis (Decision Tree Analysis) The second most popular technique of investigation is the Project Life Cycle Analysis technique. This technique adapts the top to bottom approach of investigation, analyzing the genuine setbacks of each and every functioning area of the project (Newell & Grashina, 2004, p.187). Actually, the technique accumulates all the humanly faults of the project. It brings all the faults together to assert that which functions of the team has performed well and which has not causing the real failure (Cugelman, 2013). Analyzing the decision tree (hierarchy of decisions) which is also part of PLCA investigation brings clear and definite information on failure. Analyzing the decisions with respect to descending levels, PLCA investigates all the responsible personnel of the project (Carlos, 2013). It audits all the functioning areas such as technical, design, support and manufacturing to see of where the team went wrong and what actions and decisions brought the failure to happen (Cugelman, 2013). According to several project managers, the purpose of PLCA investigation is to analyze the team actions and team decisions respectively. This is to have a format in which hierarchy level of investigation can be made. Hence, on this basis, PLCA is an unbiased investigation technique. It is a technique that accounts all the responsible people, no matter if they are leaders or managers they are equally investigated in PLCA investigation (Carlos, 2013). This justifies the adaptation of PLCA technique as it rejects all the traditional methods of investigation, giving clear and truthful answers on a project team failure (ALD, 2013). Event and Fault Tree Analysis In the project managers’ view, event tree analysis is another reliable investigation tool. The technique has been used by several project managers operating in different field projects, civil, construction or electrical engineering projects (ALD, 2013). Using the inductive approach the event tree analysis explores the consequences of a project team failure (ALD, 2013). This fundamental analysis leads the tree to recognize the causes of the event. Using mathematical algorithm event tree analysis divides the main failure event into sub-events explanation. This explanation is further utilized to identify which event is more important with respect to the main event occurrence (the team failure). Actually, this indicates that which sub-event is more influential and has more significant affect to cause the final main event (the failure) (ALD, 2013). In projects, sub-team events could be like procurement activity, operational activity or manufacturing activity respectively (Becker, 2008). The event tree analysis investigates each and every stage of an event focusing the team members and their directions (McIlree, 2013). It investigates that how the team has performed in each and every functioning unit. Definitely, when any of the sub-events has shown failure it would be the one bringing the actual project team failure. This is how an event to event analysis leads to an appropriate investigation (ALD, 2013). Project managers mostly from the engineering side utilize event tree analysis as an investigation technique. They know the importance of the technique as it is highly technical and effective in bringing a hand to hand investigation (ALD, 2013). The best part of the technique is that it gives the complete picture of how the failure happened (Becker, 2008). It tells the interrelationship of the events identifying the most relevant event to cause the failure. Project managers also use event tree analysis for future investigation (Kandola, 2010). They use it to identify the future impressions of an event. Sometimes, understanding the future outcome also helps in investigating the present like if a project has shown a certain drop of revenues, definitely it had carried the same trend in the past and so as in the present (Kandola, 2010). This is how event tree analysis uses trends and time for conducting retrospective investigation (ALD, 2013). Conclusion Analyzing the literature and the latest studies on project management, investigation is the most important activity of a project manager. A project manager holding the responsibility of the entire project and its valuable resources also holds the responsibility of investigating its teammates and their failures. If a team has brought some failure, then project manager should come up with right investigating to account the team failure. Utilizing the most adapted tools and methods, a project manager can bring adequate investigation. Addressing team failures, there are several tools that assist in project manager’s investigation. Tools like Root Cause Analysis, Decision Tree Analysis or Event tree analysis are best in investigating a project team failure. All such techniques have distinctive importance like Root Cause Analysis brings direct and detailed investigation. Similarly, decision tree analysis or event tree analysis brings unbiased and inductive level of investigation. Apart from all, a project manager should also adapt modern concepts in investigation. Concepts like using the Who, What and Why approach can assist in defining the team failure. After the failure has been defined, the next is to apply the justified investigation models. List of References ALD, 2013. Failure Analysis Methods, Tools and Services. [Online] Available from: [Accessed 28 March 2013]. Atkinson, R., 1999. Project Management: : cost, time and quality, two best guesses and a phenomenon. International Journal of Project Management, 17(6), pp.337-42. Becker, J., 2008. Legitimising the Project Manager Role. Research Report. London: ProjectSmart. Byatt, G., 2011. Root Cause Analysis and Corrective Action for Project Managers. [Online] Available from: [Accessed 28 March 2013]. Carlos, T., 2013. Reasons Why Projects Fail. Research Report. London: ProjectSmart. Cugelman, B., 2013. Lifecycle Project Management Approach. [Online] AlterSpark Available from: [Accessed 28 March 2013]. Dalal, A., 2011. The 12 Pillars of Project Excellence: A Lean Approach to Improving Project Results. Boca Raton: CRC Press. Kandola, H., 2010. Project Managers: The Enemy Within? Research Report. London: ProjectSmart. McIlree, R., 2013. Project Managers, Trackers and Hybrids. Research Report. London: ProjectSmart. Mosier, J., 2008. The Top Five Project Management Traits to Master "the How". Research Report. London: ProjectSmart. Newell, M. & Grashina, M., 2004. The Project Management Question and Answer Book. New York: AMACOM. Read More