One of the trends I’ve noticed over the years has been the growing importance of the Project Management role. When I first started work more than 20 years ago, many projects were lead by a Technical Leader rather than a Project Manager. Today most projects have a dedicated Project Manager.
The change is likely a reflection of the fact that many past failures could be attributed to poor planning and control. While appointing a dedicated Project Manager has clear benefits, we need to be careful...
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Causes of failure
Qantas
The following entry is a record in the “Catalogue of Catastrophe” - a list of failed and troubled projects from around the world.
Qantas - Australian airline
Project name : Jetsmart
Date : Feb 2008 Cost :$40M
Synopsis :
"Jetsmart" engineering parts management system is renamed "Dumbjet" by aircraft engineers because the system is so difficult to use. Failure to engage the engineers who would be the eventual users of the system into the requirements and design processes resulted in a...
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The Cycle of Failure
After the firefights subside and a troubled project finally draws to a close, many organizations hold an inquiry into what went wrong. In theory retrospectives help identify root causes so that subsequent projects can avoid repeating the same mistakes. In practice, despite the reviews, many organizations find they lurch from one troubled project and onto the next.
In many cases this failure to learn can be traced to the narrow perspective from which reviews are usually done. More often than ...
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Why Focus on Failure?
I'm often asked why I focus on the causes of project failure rather than placing a greater emphasis on projects that succeeded? I’ve been asked often enough that I’ve written the following post to allow a broader audience to understand the response.
“Although we tend to seek simple, single factored reasons for success, in most important things, success actually requires avoiding the many possible causes of failure” ... Jared Diamond (Pulitzer prize winner)
Being assigned to a large project...
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