98.8%! Is project failure acceptable & inevitable?

Paul Summers

The Standish Group

• 98.8% project failure – April 2014 when measured against six criteria as follows:

• Cost• Time• Value• Scope• Customer satisfaction • Strategic objectives

The Standish Group success criteria

• Failure when the project is cancelled before completion,

• Success is delivery on time, in budget and with all features,

• Challenged is anything in between these two outcomes,

Top five reasons for failure

• Lack of user input; • Incomplete requirements and

specifications;• Changing requirements and

specifications; • Lack of executive support;• Technology incompetence

Flyvbjerg

• Underestimated costs and overestimated benefits

• Use of deception and lying• Grouped as forecasting errors• The common denominator?

• Not the project manager’s fault!

Nelson’s retrospectives

• Poor estimating or scheduling; • Ineffective stakeholder

management; • Insufficient risk management• Insufficient planning; • Short changed quality assurance;

The big issue?

• No one considers WHY?• Why is planning poor? • What are the conditions which are

causing ineffective engagement with stakeholders?

• Why does the system promote forecasting errors?

Project manager’s lens• The reasons for failure are being viewed through

the lens of an inappropriate albeit widespread definition of projects; an output delivered against targets of cost and time. The project manager’s perspective.

• “A project is a temporary organisation that is created for the purpose of delivering one or more business products according to an agreed Business case.” (Office of Government Commerce, 2009)

• “A project is a temporary endeavour undertaken to produce a unique product, service or result.” Project Management Institute (PMI,2008)

Project boundary

Change the lens

• If the lens is altered to delivering beneficial change then the lists of reasons become symptoms of a limiting worldview caused by pursuing these targets.

• “The Standish Group believes that organizations should forget the triple constraints and focus on the value of their project portfolio, not individual projects.”

• The business manager’s perspective

Business lens• Projects are defined as a temporary

endeavour comprising activities with resource constraints with the purpose of realising benefits.

• Projects are investments and should be managed as such.

• Projects are not just outputs, we must consider the totality of the project

Conclusion

• Too much of project failure and success is viewed from the perspective of the project manager

• Projects need a systemic view to include the achievement of benefits

• Project definitions need to broaden to include benefits

References• Flyvbjerg, B. (2013). Quality control and due diligence in project

management: Getting decisions right by taking the outside view. International Journal of Project Management, 31(5), 760-774. doi: 10.1016/j.ijproman.2012.10.007

• Flyvbjerg, B. (2014). What You Should Know About Megaprojects and Why: An Overview. Project Management Journal, 45(2), 6-19. doi: 10.1002/pmj.21409

• Flyvbjerg, B., Bruzelius, N., & Rothengatter, W. (2003). Megaprojects and risk An anatomy of ambition (1st ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Flyvbjerg, B., & Budzier, A. (2011). Why Your IT Project May Be Riskier Than You Think. Harvard Business Review, 1 - 4.

• Flyvbjerg, B., Garbuio, M., & Lovallo, D. (2009). Delusion and Deception in Large Infrastructure Projects: Two Models for Explaining and Preventing Executive Disaster. California Mangement Review, 51(2), 170-193. doi: 10.1225/CMR423

• Nelson, R. R. (2005). Project retrospectives: evaluating project success, failure, and everything in between. MIS Quarterly Executive, 4(3 September), 361 - 372.

• Nelson, R. R. (2007). IT Project Management: Infamous Failures, Classic Mistakes, and Best Practctices. MIS Quarterly Executive, 6(2 June).

• The Standish Group. (1995). The CHAOS report.• The Standish Group. (1996). Unfinished Voyages A Follow-Up to The

CHAOS Report. http://www.umflint.edu/~weli/courses/bus381/assignment/vo.pdf

• The Standish Group. (1999). CHAOS 1999.• The Standish Group. (2009). CHAOS Summary 2009. Retrieved 14 June,

2011, from http://www.standishgroup.com/newsroom/chaos_2009.php• The Standish Group. (2013). The CHAOS manifesto 2013.• The Standish Group. (2014a, 1 April 2014). Definition of Project Success.

Retrieved from http://blog.standishgroup.com/news• The Standish Group. (2014b). SURF. Retrieved 6 May, 2014, from

http://blog.standishgroup.com/surf