The principal aim of this article is to identify and explore multiple dimensions of project failures during the entire life of project execution.

Many projects fail. The only way that companies can get better at performing projects is by learning from projects they have carried out. There are small things that can decide the fate of the project.

These all in project management practice and research has been to see it as a threat and as something that should, if possible, be neutralized, reduced and followed.

Question – “Did the project deliver the results and quality we expected?“

Answers to this question could be different from a different perspective. There is no single method or organizational structure that can be used to manage projects to success.

Project failure can happen in any organization.

There are many reasons why projects (both simple and complex) fail; the number of reasons can be infinite and can fit into a different phase of SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle), initiation through go live.

Sometimes it’s out of the control of a project manager and/or the team members. Sometimes failure is controllable. Failed projects and people involved with the failure have some things in common.

From an outside view, it could be that all reason will roll up to the manager’s responsibility and accountability however from my perspective it should be a collective responsibility.

Here are some of the common reasons why the project fails.

1. Incompetent Project Manager

The first possible cause of project failure is the manager. A manager who helps steer the project in a timely fashion and provides sound, inspiring leadership can go a long way toward bringing about a successful project.

Reasons like “an incompetent manager” “project manager unwilling to make decisions,” “problems ignored”, “poor management by the leader,” “loss of control by the manager,” and “the failure of the manager to delegate”, “working as only as coordinator” are the most important reason given for project failure.

2. Less Involvement of Project Managers

This is always a topic of debate for managers: Should they just focus on pure management activities such as reporting, cost and issue tracking, or should they also dive into ground-level review and design?

There is no correct answer. Even the biggest project depends on the success of the smallest components. Every detail contains a seed that can mean the difference between success and failure.

On relatively inexperienced teams, managers must be involved in the details for key activities. This will help them have better control of the effort as well as provide the true status of the project to stakeholders.

3. Unavailability to Skilled Resources

Every project has some resource estimations before starting the project and even every vendor submits key personnel details and profiles as part of the bidding process to acquire the project.

However, the picture is always opposite once the project is awarded. Initial resource estimations and loading sheet handed over to project managers as part of sales hand over process

but I have seen that managers always struggle for the right skilled resources hence it is necessary that the leadership team should understand the criticality and provide planned/skilled resources on time to avoid project delay or failure.

4. Lack of Proper Planning

Project managers should have clear outcomes visibility and should involve himself./herself right from sales hand over as this phase is critical for project success.

If you don’t have a clear focus at the earliest stage of the process/project, you are making things harder on yourself. This would lead to inappropriate estimations and half-cooked planning.

5. Lack of Management Support/Leadership Alignment

It is important to ensure that senior management remains fully engaged throughout the project life cycle. The involvement e.g. through project update sessions imply that they are willing to take appropriate actions to address issues raised by the project team, mitigate the project risks, provide leadership, thus contributing to the project’s success.

6. Missing Communication

The communication plan plays a very substantial role in project success or failure. The plan should contain stakeholder details I.e name, role, contact no. and email, project team details, escalation matrix and other dependent groups.

Information distribution details (stakeholder, information detail, distribution methods, format and frequency) should be clearly defined in the plan. To save your project from failure, the project manager needs to establish a clear communication channel.

Effective communication within any organization is important to keep all your team members on the same page, avoid confusion and keep them motivated.

By communicating with your team, managers can develop an environment of trust, proactively kill conflicts, which would bring the best out of your team and eventually lead to the successful delivery of the project.

7. Ignoring Change Management Process

Take a second before your project starts to undergo significant changes, or even before you look for a technology solution. It’s critical to define your change management process steps.

A firm understanding of change management principles will serve as a strong backbone for any change management plan. Change is inevitable, irrespective of the size of your project.

Whether good or bad, it must be managed well to ensure the project continues without disruption. Every project must have a change control process, and every change request, however small, must go through it.

The change’s impact should be documented, approved and presented to key stakeholders so that everyone understands its effect on quality, cost and schedule. The focal point of any leader tasked with change must be to align their team with the vision.

Communication is a crucial component in ensuring every team member is on the same page.

8. No-Risk Management Process

Many projects fail because there is no risk management process as an integral part of the management process.

Then guess what – a perfectly predictable situation arises which no one knows how to react to.

It was in the risk log but no risk response was created so the predictable outcome is a less than an optimal project.

9. Inadequate 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 the development process or ultimate deliverables.

This is because managers often fail to project appropriate reviews tests or checkpoints where quality can be verified. Code review is part of this (as defined in #20).

10. Missing Management Tools/Framework

Successful projects are based on a methodology or framework that includes management tools. The right approach can help managers to stay on top of it and by using some reliable management tools;

managers can enhance the team’s productivity, can increase accuracy and save time by automating activities like task tracking and managing dependencies.

A great number of unsuccessful project results from missing methodology and framework, which leads to inaccuracy and wasted time. There are numerous management frameworks and methodologies (like Agile, Iterative) and they can support efficient delivery.

11. Company/Culture

The company or culture should not be supported by the political environment. It should support competency, skill, professionalism and transparency.

If it isn’t, team members will not be motivated to do their best. Basically, everyone involved must participate in their part of the project to successfully complete it.

Any actions which project managers take to move project execution from the political arena into an objective and analytical one will improve the project’s success. This involves managing and retaining the most highly skilled and productive people. Knowledge is money.

It is the job of managers to manage and motivate so that project efforts will experience a zone of optimal performance throughout its life.

12. Inappropriate Prioritization

While some work best on a small number of requirements, others are better suited to very complex projects with many decision-makers.

But regardless of when it is done before a requirement can be prioritized, managers must consider why the requirement is most important from a business standpoint and what would be the impact of this on the overall system whether the new requirement would add value to the overall system or it will be overhead.

Managers should lead prioritization exercises along with all relevant stakeholders.

There are a number of possible business considerations, including value, cost, risk, and improve customer experience, stakeholder agreement and urgency variables.

13. Inaccurate Stakeholder Analysis

Stakeholder Analysis is the first step and an important process that successful managers use to win support from others. Managing stakeholders helps them to ensure that their projects succeed where others might fail.

There are three steps to follow in Stakeholder Analysis. First, identify who your stakeholders are. Next, work out their power, influence and interest, so that you know who you should focus on.

Finally, develop a good understanding of the most important stakeholders based on the Power/Interest grid, so that you know how they are likely to respond, and how you can win their support which can lead to project success.

14. Use of Unfamiliar Tools

Tools are definitely needed for project execution and success but unfamiliar tools may lead to chances of failure as well. Sometimes, it can cause many severe problems during the project life cycle as the team has to deal with the learning curve of new tools along with usual project tasks and duties.

Managers should ensure that tools are not enforced on team members, just to utilize for the fulfillment of audit compliance unless tools adding some products and save some efforts.

15. Change – Always saying “Yes’ to the Customer

Many behaviours can cause a project to fail, but accepting whatever the client says is sure to spell doom. Initially, a stakeholder might appreciate your flexibility – but that will be overshadowed later by the impact of possible schedule slippage and unmet objectives.

Change is a major cause of project failure. Project specifications can be changed for several reasons: initial planning was not complete or thorough; Senior-level management changed the scope of the work; the client (if not upper-level management) changed the scope of the work; this isn’t to say that you should always tell customers “no.” If you do that, they’ll feel their concerns are not being addressed. Before you commit to something, perform due diligence and analyze the pros and cons of your decision.

16. Bonding between Team Members

It is the prime responsibility of managers to unite the team members to achieve a common goal. The stages a team generally goes through are: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning.

As a manager, a good understanding of these stages would help in guiding a team from infancy to maturity which creates needed bonding.

Things can easily go from good to bad very quickly if there is no unity between your team members. Consider a scenario in which all team members are moving in different directions.

Could you expect a positive result to come out of this situation? There could be many reasons from personality differences to conflicting interests. All of them contribute towards taking you one step closer to project failure.

17. Unrealistic Expectations

At the beginning of a project, it’s important to set realistic expectations for every member or stakeholders who are a part of the project. If it kicks off without setting goals for individual team members, they are most likely to lose clarity and focus somewhere in the middle.

Managers must have one on one session with individual team members and help them understand their role. If goals are set before the project is in full swing, the members would have a roadmap to follow that prevents them from derailing it.

18. Talking Through Problems

Condensing bad news internally for long enough will only seed the explosion later on. It’s is fine to do for a limited period, but you will need to take some time to pull it out, examine it, feel it, and study it so you can find a way to re-channel it or transmute it into another kind of energy.

Quite often we face the dilemma of whether or not to deliver bad news to stakeholders. And too often we forget this truth: Clients have a vested interest in the success of it.

They have every right to know any development impacting the outcome of the initiative. You will end up having this heavy thing on your chest that will never move.

You will never understand what it is about. The problem is that we believe that sharing problems will make us weak and that stakeholders will start to judge us for our short-comings. Maybe they do.

But stakeholders having higher interest who genuinely care about the project and you very well know these people, will come out and help.

Sharing helps you feel less burdened because you now have fewer things on your mind. This will also allow you more space to put new thoughts, planning things better.

19. Guesstimates – Efforts

A “guess estimate,” also referred to as a “gut feel,” is based on personal intuition and past experience. But even the most strongly held conviction could be faulty. An inaccurate estimate can leave a project team slogging day and night to meet a deadline.

The project might finally be delivered on time-but with a huge effort overrun. If time is pressing, use the Function Point technique, Function Points are units of measure for functional size as defined within the IFPUG Functional Size Measurement (FSM) Method and it is the major global functional sizing methodology.

The manager is responsible for the accurate and re-estimation post-sales handover. If efforts guesstimated or not correctly estimated with the appropriate tool then it definitely impacts one of all three critical project parameters- Cost, Scope, schedule.

20. Avoiding Code Reviews

Assuming that testing will catch bugs or that defects are fixed faster when you know where code is breaking. You’ll only end up increasing the risk of schedule slippage as the inflow of defects rises during testing and the turnaround time for code fixes increases.

Code review helps produce a stable, quality deliverable. Its focus is not only to catch code defects but also to look at critical dimensions that may not get caught during testing, such as code optimization and requirement coverage.

21. Skipping Prototyping

Defects can result from a misunderstanding of requirements and a misinterpretation of stated requirements. Even if requirements are well-documented, they must be validated for correct understanding.

Only by a visual walkthrough can users spot the differences in what they expect and what’s being built. Feedback must be planned at various stages throughout a project to reduce risks.

These feedback loops will help you spot gaps early and provide enough time for correction. A sketch, wireframe, mockup, and prototype are all unique ways to visually display the requirements of your project with varying levels of detail.

Understanding that level of polished output each of these presentations will keep expectations aligned and communication clear between all the stakeholders.

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What are IT managed services?

“Managed services” is a term used to describe the new model of IT management, which has replaced the traditional IT support. In Managed Services, Managed Service Provider (a team of people having expertise in networks, computers and other IT needs) handles the risk and responsibility associated with managing your IT systems. It brings a level of expertise and experience to the business that can take care of the entire IT needs of your company.

What are the benefits of managed IT services?

Managed IT services provide multiple benefits that can lead to increased performance, reliability and security of your company without exceeding the costs of hiring a full-time staff. The most important advantage of hiring a network monitoring service provider is that it prevents expensive network disasters by taking proactive maintenance steps. A planned approach to provide data back-up, system security and disaster recovery is taken so that your business runs smoothly and reliably for your clients. As the IT service provider has deep knowledge of the products, tools and software, it can provide better and quicker technology solutions. Hiring a network maintenance service provider is a cost-effective way to manage your business IT requirements.

By outsourcing IT support, you can focus on increasing the productivity and efficiency of your business, rather than wasting time and money on solving IT problems.

What are the services offered by a managed IT service provider?

The technical staff at the network provider performs remote maintenance and support to your computer network. They provide 24×7 world-class IT service and network availability to ensure your network keeps running at maximum speed and performance. They maintain the virus protection system, regularly monitor the back-ups and software patches are updated and maintained. They also take preventive and proactive maintenance steps to keep your network as stable as possible and to maximize optimal network stability. The highly efficient technical staff can handle any IT problems as they arise. Other services include routine desktop management, firewall management, updating software installation, spyware detection and elimination and hardware and software auditing.

It is important to find a managed service provider that understands your company’s IT requirements and helps your company achieve its goals. Research several companies and look beyond savvy marketing to find the right company that helps you grow your business. Review each company on the basis of their services offered in the contract, customer service, availability and reputation.

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Benefits of Disaster Recovery – In any business, especially in an IT firm, data is one of the key elements used in running daily operations.

There are several ways in which a firm can store and protect its data. In the past, disaster preparation would often require IT staff to travel to off-premise data centers and/or copy corporate data onto tapes. However, advances in technology and computing platforms have enabled the creation of better and more scalable data storage mechanisms.

These have paved the way for complete Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) solution that can be used instead of internal IT teams.

When data is breached or hacked into, uncontrollable losses will occur. To prevent this, many companies opt to have in place disaster response measures and even dedicated teams for managing such situations.

Today, you’ll find two main categories of computing: cloud computing and hardware server-based computing.

This includes the use of DRaaS or traditional backup methods to protect and store data. With current technology, DRaaS offers several advantages over traditional backup and disaster recovery methods.

DRaaS is quite reliable and helps address many challenges, including mobility, portability and high performance, among other features.

Traditional disaster recovery does not offer the capabilities that DRaaS can today. In the following section, we’ll look at some of the reasons why you should shift away from other methods and instead rely on DRaaS for disaster recovery.

Fewer Necessary Resources

DRaaS recovery data is stored in the cloud, which reduces the on-premises hardware requirements. Traditional disaster recovery services generally need expensive on-premises hardware and are complex to implement and manage.

DRaaS can be used for a group of critical servers or just a single server, something that may not be economically viable using traditional DR. This means companies can resume limited operations much more quickly.

Cyberattack mitigation

Cyberattacks pose one of the biggest threats to businesses. Earlier this year, the “WannaCry” ransomware attack made headlines when it took over 300,000 computers in 150 countries.

Cyberattacks also come in the form of email phishing scams, whereby scammers trick unwary employees to give out confidential information, and data hacks, whereby cybercriminals gain access to the company’s network and exploit sensitive data.

With DRaaS, you can mitigate these security incidents and prevent a disaster situation.

In this type of event, you just invoke your DR plan to bring your applications live in the cloud using the most recent, clean copy of your data.

When you have cleaned your production systems from the attack, you can replicate your cloud versions back to your data centre.

That beats negotiating with an attacker for your data back!

Lower Cumulative Costs

Most businesses do not have a good disaster recovery plan because they are concerned about the expenses.

In general, backup and disaster recovery can be expensive if you choose methods that necessitate the purchase of hardware.

For example, if you want to back up all your data in private servers physically, you must invest in the same number of servers as you have now.

DRaaS is a solution provided by a third-party. Therefore, the hardware and software used for your disaster recovery strategy are owned by the service provider. Your initial investment will be small.

Easier testing.

Failover testing is now as simple as pointing and clicking, which takes a lot of effort (and risk) out of testing. And, as I have made clear, if it isn’t tested regularly, it isn’t reliable.

DRaaS comes with a lot of really good tools for monitoring and protecting critical and sensitive information-and provides auditors with an easily verifiable “paper” trail.

Flexibility

Compared to more traditional methods of backup, DRaaS is much more flexible. The various DRaaS services offer clients more options on how to handle different business systems.

Any enterprise using DRaaS solutions can select from a variety of recovery scopes, depending on the type of disaster.

These can include server failure, human-caused disasters, loss of power or building access, data hampering, and much more.

Rapid and Immediate Recovery

Your company can never be sure when a disaster might occur. If one does happen, how much downtime is acceptable?

Each second the power is out or your servers fail means huge losses for your organization. With a DRaaS solution in place, you do not have to worry about this: if a disaster strikes, you will be able to restore normal operations within minutes.

Reliable Security

Security in DRaaS is commonly misunderstood, so choose your provider wisely. For example, it’s important to ensure that the provider is compliant with all the relevant regulatory bodies.

In addition to making sure the data center itself is physically secure, you should also verify that data is encrypted in-flight and at rest. DRaaS providers should implement automatic systems to monitor the health of your data.

For peace of mind, they should also be able to provide you with reports for any specified period.

Streamlines In-House IT Needs

Many small to medium-sized businesses do not have the IT expertise to manage disaster recovery solutions.

Managing processes like data recovery or disaster prevention require knowledge of the business process and a specific IT skillset.

DRaaS allows businesses to leverage the expertise of the consultants providing a more effective way to implement a disaster recovery solution for your business.

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Technology can help SMBs streamline their processes, improve employee productivity, and maintain a competitive edge. But technology comes with its share of challenges, especially as mobile devices continue to take over and computing needs rapidly change.

That’s where managed services come in. Defined as specialized IT support delivered according to a clearly described service-level agreement over a fixed period of time for a low and predictable cost, managed services are the safest bet in today’s tech environment. Especially when compared with reactive or break-fix IT services.

Stability and Expertise

Predictable IT costs. Managed services convert variable IT costs tied to the break-fix or reactive mode of support into the stable costs of proactive support. This allows business owners to budget effectively and pay what they can afford on a set schedule rather than getting hit with unexpected bills when tech problems arise.

Legitimate training. On top of hiring and training an IT staff, the cost of ongoing education and certification can break a small business owner’s bank. And if you’re not well versed in the IT world, how can you ensure an IT employee is actually qualified? Don’t let undertrained tech “experts” fool you into thinking they can solve all of your problems.

Real-world experience. And while certifications are important, so is experience. Leading managed service providers encounter very few problems they haven’t seen before, while an in-house IT employee often remains narrowly focused on a small set of problems. You’d rather an experienced doctor solve your physical ailments, right? The same goes for an IT support team.

Reduced Risk, Leveled Playing Field

A safe bet. Since market trends, government regulations, financial conditions, and technologies all change quickly, every business investment carries a certain amount of risk. Working with a trusted MSP that can assume and manage much of this risk for you is a major advantage that comes with specific industry knowledge and years of experience.

A real competitive edge. Most small to medium-sized businesses can’t afford to match the strong in-house support services that larger companies enjoy. Working with an MSP, however, gives small companies enterprise-level solutions by providing the kind of access and expertise that large companies enjoy. Managed cost structures and economies of scale-like that can give your company a major advantage.

Compliance that counts. Is your firewall capable of fending off attacks? Do you audit your workstations and servers regularly? Has your company implemented PCI security standards and worked to maintain those standards? Small to medium-sized businesses have more ways than ever to handle commerce via credit and debit cards, e-commerce, wire transfers, and more. But with this increased transaction sphere comes a stronger need for due diligence. Employing a managed services provider allows your business to minimize the risks associated with maintaining client data and other sensitive information, the misuse of which can cause serious harm to your business.

Break-Fix: High Cost, Low Value

“Hey, Margaret!” Many small firms deal with IT this way: relying on a non-IT employee to handle day-to-day IT problems. Margaret never asked for this role — it just evolved in her direction. But the impact of her being asked to fix co-workers’ urgent issues is not often calculated; nor is the likelihood that her lack of formal IT knowledge can lead to more expensive repair bills in the future.

“I got a guy.” Small companies that have recognized the flaw in the “Hey Margaret!” support strategy attempt to solve the problem by engaging an experienced technical support specialist on a part-time, fixed hourly rate basis. Yet the “I got a guy” guy may maintain upwards of a dozen part-time clients in order to make a decent living, and he may not always be available when a business owner absolutely needs him. In this scenario, the company does get a more technically competent solution. But it’s also at the mercy of an independent operator with competing demands for his time and attention.

“Call in the Geek Squad!” Since the business owner usually only sees the “I got a guy” guy when there is a problem, mayhem ensues when frantic calls go unanswered. Then, the business owner has no choice but to open the yellow pages and look for help, often settling for the first company that can respond to the immediate need. While these techies may indeed provide relief for failed hard drives and other desktop issues, they often do not have the skills to support complex networks or understand a business’ specific needs.

“Hire an IT person — pronto!” When the lack of immediate availability becomes an issue (or when the “I got a guy ” and the “Geek Squad” fail resolve to an issue), the business owner finally decides to hire an in-house resource that can respond to user complaints. The new hire is immediately handed a long list of issues to resolve. Unfortunately for both the internal IT resource and the company, the list never gets shorter and the internal IT support is forever in “react” mode, responding to the most severe problem and seldom getting ahead.

Managed Services: Low Cost, High Value

Proactive approach = resolution before crisis. Monitoring and maintenance software can identify problems before they affect employee productivity. And everyone can rest easier knowing that resolution occurs before situations turn into “white-hot” emergencies.

Uniform application of the optimal resource. The lowest-cost, most highly credentialed resources are applied to recognized issues first, while bigger problems are escalated to higher-skilled resources in a fluid and seamless manner so that resolution can be quickly achieved.

Fast response regardless of priority. With multiple levels of on-site and remote IT support available, problems can be addressed simultaneously rather than in sequential order. The proactive approach also ensures the ultimate in responsiveness: resolving issues while they’re still disguised and before they’re detected by the end-user. The immediate impact is improved productivity; the longer-term impact is a more tech-literate staff that’s better able to leverage the company’s technology investment.

The Final Word

None of the issues faced by small to medium-sized businesses — relentless competition, technological complexity, the never-ending need to do more with less — are going to disappear anytime soon. So the value of a high-quality, low-cost solution to these issues will only grow. That’s why CMIT Solutions has spent years tailoring a variety of managed services that can help boost efficiency and productivity for your business.

The break/fix approach to IT support has not only failed to meet the needs of SMBs, but it has also damaged the relationship between technicians and the small businesses they serve. Small businesses feel vulnerable because they don’t understand their technicians’ jargon-heavy language, heavy workload, and unpredictable costs. Meanwhile, technicians feel overworked and under-appreciated, locked in a loop of repetitive, high-stress tasks as they run from one crisis to the next, unable to work on more satisfying projects that could offer lasting value to the business.

Only a radical change in IT support philosophy and delivery can make the break/fix model obsolete and deliver greater efficiency and productivity to SMBs at a lower, more predictable cost. Technology is integral to the success of a small to medium-sized business, and CMIT Solutions understands that.

Via: Cmitsolutions.com managed services vs break-fix