Information technology projects are notorious for their higher failure rate. According to a report by CIO magazine, 55 percent of businesses had an IT project failure last year and the primary reason (as per 74% of respondents) was a lack of resources to meet project demands.
If we explore a little deeper, there are numerous reasons as to why technology projects fail. According to IMB System Magazine, there are five areas influencing the project failure or success: project management 54%, business 21%, people 14%, methodology 8% and technicality only 3%. This clearly indicates the importance of project management.
However, every scenario is different; nevertheless, there are general configurations that tend to develop when projects do not get the desired results. Here are ten of the more common reasons why software projects fail.
1. Poor Planning and Direction
As we’ve already noted above that 54% of IT projects fail because of a certain managerial issue. It indicates that IT project managers need to work on their skills to plan and execute things according to the plan.
Every project requires a guideline that contains rules, processes, and tools for project planning and management, supported by a software tool. Incompetency of the management to produce such guideline leads to failure.
A vital part of planning is to allocate right people right tasks and make perfect assignments to each member with defined goals and responsibilities. The inability of the project managers to identify clear paths and goals for their team results in failure of their project.
2. The Team Lacks Required Skills
If you are doing a job that you don’t know how to do, failure is the ultimate destination. One key reason behind the failure of software projects is that your team lacks the required skills. To prevent certain situations, utilize a mentoring approach for less-experienced team members.
Always prefer to recruit skilled personnel through internal and external routes like jobs systems. A good outcome will not come without sufficiently skilled people. If you have a new team, learn to be agile with them by encouraging learning and feedback.
3. Projects Constraints are Not Identified
Project constraints like scope, time, budget and quality are not identified and discussed with the client. This leads to project constraints not taken into consideration during initiation and planning phases. As a result, the project fails to meet client expectations and also causes extra burden on the company’s kitty.
In addition, when project constraints are not identified, the organization will be unable to delegate tasks to its team, resulting in faulty products. Therefore, it should be the first job of a project manager to identify the scope, limitation, and constraints of the assignment. Here are 11 project scoping questions that every manager should ask during the planning process. They will not only determine the right scope of the project but also lead to better performance.
4. Insufficient Communication
Communication has a key role to play when it comes to project success or failure. It happens when roles and responsibilities are not clearly communicated to the team. As a result, team members don’t know when and how to perform a particular task. It also leads to certain behavioral issues like blame game and politics.
This requires the creation of a dedicated communication channel, which your team members have to employ for task updates. When your team members don’t know, whether to email, Skype, call, or use Trello, confusion is the ultimate result.
Furthermore, it also targets the point of too many meetings or no meetings at all. Too many meetings irritate the team members and while inculcating different changes, they might deviate from the path, resulting in creating faulty products. Conversely, no meetings mean no guidance and no monitoring of the project team.
Another element of the same is client communication. If you are doing a project for the client, it is integral to keep the client updated about all the progress. Even if there are certain bottlenecks, problems, and complexities, their timely communication will kill all communication gaps and lead to the excellent customer experience.
5. Insufficient Quality Assurance
Now this is where the technicality comes in. Software projects often fail when no quality assurance activities are planned and no systematic activities are performed to evaluate the quality of development process or ultimate output. This is because managers often fail to project appropriate reviews tests or checkpoints where quality can be verified.
Most of the engineers are reactive in bug fixing as they do not plan any proactive measures to prevent bugs from occurring in a product under-process. Furthermore, the team developing project deliverables views quality as the responsibility of the QA rather than a shared responsibility.
6. Lack of Management Support
Project failure results when the participation of an executive sponsor in key operational working sessions is not meeting the required levels, thus, the team is unable to establish priorities.
Executives just meet the team to kick-start the project but they are not there when the team members need them. Their involvement is not targeted for specific status meetings to monitor project progress, particularly in meetings where go/no-go decisions must be solicited. In this process, the team gets deviated from its goals.
The best way to handle this problem is to hold timely feedback and interactive sessions. The project director should ensure that all milestones are being achieved and the resources required are available to the team.
7. Lack of Desired Tools & Methodology
A great number of unsuccessful project results from missing methodology and framework, which leads to inaccuracy and wasted time. There are numerous project management frameworks and methodologies (like Agile) and they can support efficient delivery.
A framework not only divides the project into different milestones and tasks but also specifies deliverables and responsibilities. In addition, by using some reliable management and development tools, you can enhance the team’s productivity. By tools, we do not mean engineering tools only: They also include project management tools, to-do lists, time management, and progress tracking tools.
8. There is No Risk Management Program
Managers lack the ability to think ahead, foresee and address potential problems. These managers see risk management as an independent activity rather than the integral part of the planning process. As a result, they are not able to evaluate the potential problems and drawbacks of the activity and an error-free product cannot be developed.
A smart manager would always have a Plan B and Plan C in place, in case his Plan A fails to deliver. In this regards, experience, expertise, and technologies should be assembled together to map out a strategic risk management program.
Conclusion
Improving the success rate of In projects is possible by putting significantly more focus on the best practices to manage projects. It can be a daunting task in sight but with accurate planning, goal setting, delegating and communicating, people and tools, you can bring in ideal results.
