Top 4 Reasons Why Projects Fail

Projects fail for many reasons but through our successes and failures we thought it would be helpful to share our thoughts with a brief list.

1. Lack of Communication

Effective communication is valuable in the workplace for so many reasons. It creates a healthy environment for employees, helping them to work efficiently but it also creates a strong relationship internally and with clients.

The problem with internal team communication is that some employees don’t talk openly with each other, while working on the same project. Everybody wants to complete the project on time and wants to deal with as few issues as possible. When an issue arises, sometimes, it remains unsaid until it’s too late.

When communicating with clients, management is not always transparent with the client. They sometimes say that everything is going great so that the client doesn’t become concerned. When things get out of control, the client is faced with an even bigger failure.

2. Resisting Change

It seems that most people resist change. Being a good project manager means resisting to the resistance to change. There are many tools that help development teams work easier and more effective. Many PMs are resistant to change, and some are not interested in tools that will help their team be more efficient.

3. Not Reviewing Daily

Plans, progress and timelines must be regularly reviewed and updated. Not measuring this will cause headaches in the future and playing catchup along with you & your team working longer hours.

There are many ways in which you can find out the current project status via phone calls, emailing or 1:1 discussion with each team member apart of the project. The most effective is having a project status meeting because it gives everyone an overall understanding of the progress.

4. Unrealistic Expectations

No one wants to set unrealistic expectations, but it happens more than you would think. Clients will always want their project delivered yesterday which is the typical comment when asking. With that said, you never want to disappoint clients so scaling to the project team needed is recommended but sometimes not possible depending on the request.

Most would get excited about the new project, but it is recommended to not commit to a due date until you & your team fully understand exactly what the client needs and what you’re expected to deliver.

Want to talk about your next project? Email matt@emprise1.com or visit http://www.emprise1.com/contact