Why Projects Fail? Keeping Project Under Control (Part – I)

As many countries are scouting and promoting themselves for ease of doing business, yet organizations are facing enormous competitive environment to maintain leadership position or to survive. It is not only business environment that has changed drastically, it is also regulatory, statutory and legal aspects of doing business are changing significantly. Sometimes we see organizations are fail to realize such changing environment or companies like Enron, Volkswagen alike are caught violating regulatory compliance.

Why Projects Fail and Are You Ready to Keep Project Under Control?

In such competitive scenario, companies cannot afford to let their initiatives/new product launches/campaigns fail. It is far more challenging these days, to complete projects successfully. The complexity of delivering project, demands of stakeholder are keeping project managers on their toes. This raises a question whether project managers and businesses in general are well equipped to keeping project under control and deliver projects successfully. Let’s look at some of the facts that can stop you from successfully delivering project.

• Business requirements – Ambiguous
• Project scope – Lacking clarity
• Project Budget – Limited, not-enough
• Project Resources – Not skilled/inexperienced/Limited
• Project planning – Not detailed/inflexible
• Technologies – Not supporting
• Team Management – Missing, conflicting
• Bringing any new change – difficult
• Management support – Missing, limited
• Communication – Irregular, non-transparent

Let’s Not Skip Our Responsibility – Project Delivery is a Team Effort

If your organization thinks that project manager is the one who will get everything right, then you are wrong. Project Management needs team effort. Project manager, project sponsor, project partner, project team have to work together as a team. It is not in the best interest of a project to Isolate oneself from project responsibilities and expect project manager to do everything right from project charter, project scoping, planning, tracking, monitoring & customer engagement. Project sponsors, partners and customers have to regularly engage with project team – during project delivery lifecycle. Such engagement should be to correct, guide project planning/execution to align a given project with business goals.

Efficiency is Expected, Effectiveness is Important

Let’s face it: being a project manager, you carry the maximum responsibility to deliver a project successfully. Project manager has a prime role to play in project planning, execution, monitoring, to take corrective actions if project is getting derailed.

These days being efficient is expected from everyone but you should ask yourself: are you being effective, are your actions are effective? The impact of what you do, should ensure a project is kept under control. It means

• Have you clearly defined project scope?
• Have you defined project success parameters?
• Are you able to track these parameters?
• If you are not performing as expected, what are you doing to keep project under control?

Have you considered if agile project management approach is suitable for your projects. As we know, not every project is same, not one project management approach can work for every other project.

In the next post we will see questions & tips to keep project under control

Your life can be become easier with the right project management system. ZilicusPM is the right PM tool for you and your team. Get started now.

Additional readings about project management, leadership

• Case Study: What Happens When Project Team Has Dual Reporting
• Avoid These 10 Most Common Mistakes That Leads to Project Failure
• Back2Basics: Ultimate Project Management Guide: Project Planning
• 8 Reasons to Decide Whether Your Organization Needs Project Management Office
• Compare the best project management software 
• All in one project management software
• Guide to selecting best project management software

Do you know ZilicusPM project management software offers comprehensive project planning, project tracking, project collaboration capabilities such as

• Gantt Chart
• Time Tracking
• Budgeting and Cost Management
• Resource Planning and Management
• Issue Tracking
• Risk Management
• Change Management
• Meeting Management
• Stakeholder Management
• Project Portfolio Management
• Project Reporting
• Document Management to help you manage and deliver projects better?

About Zilicus

Zilicus offers the best project portfolio management tool ZilicusPM, with robust project management tools capabilities and easy ways to track project management KPI,

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