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Some projects fail because totally unanticipated events occur that no one could have foreseen — Force Majeure events, hurricanes and earthquakes. This article is not about those projects. Those projects are so rare that an experienced Project Manager can spend an entire career doing hundreds of projects and never encounter one. No statistics are available but personal experience tells me we are talking about less than 1/2% of all IT projects suffer failure due to a totally un-preventable event. And, as we all know, the IT project failure rate is much higher, by some estimates 50% to 90% fail. (The wide percentage range quoted is interesting. I believe it has to do with the definition of “failure.” If a six-month IT project is a month late or 10% over budget, is it a failure? Some would say yes, some would say no.) This article is about Projects going south for preventable reasons. For the most part, the cause of preventable project failure stems from projects not being set up correctly. That's right, IT projects fail because the foundation is faulty - they are not setup to succeed. People authorizing projects are doing so without giving projects a firm foundation from which to start. Let's get right to it; what do I mean by project foundation? To this PM's way of thinking, if you nail these three areas, the probability of project success is greatly enhanced: * Scope * Resources * Project Management Skills Scope Is it absolutely clear why this project is being authorized? What problems will be eliminated; what enhancements will be delivered? What metrics will be used to measure project success? The answers to these questions and others like them must be determined before the project begins. The Scope Statement puts bounds around the project. It defines what work to include and what to leave out. If a task does not support the Scope Statement, then it doesn't belong in the project, period. I can't make this point strongly enough, if a requested task is not covered by the Scope, then, the PM is not authorized to spend resources on it. Another equally important facet of Scope is ongoing Scope management. If a project is to succeed, there needs to be a Scope Management Plan. One of the key elements of the Scope Management Plan defines how change orders will be handled. Change orders are inevitable; you must plan on how to manage them. Books have been written on this subject but for this article, let's leave it by saying the lack of change order management is a significant cause of project failure. Lack of change order control results in “Scope Creep” or “creeping elegance” which can be a deadly project disease. (End part one of two) Jim Stedt is a partner at The Business SoftSkills Company (GetSoftSkillsNow.Com) located in Santa Ana, California. They provide job readiness and workforce success videos for education, business, prisons and individual use. Training is available online, on DVD, or through an affiliate program. These products are the most complete and concise soft skills training packages now available for the price of an average college textbook.
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