Examining the Causes of Project Failure

Introduction

Thompson (2012) says that projects fail because of a myriad of reasons such as lax schedule projections and cost oversight, scope creep, insufficient definition of requirements and poor management of the particular projects, among other reasons. In this paper, the causes of project failure will be examined.

Poor Management

Many researchers have looked at poor management as a major cause of project failure, for instance, Linberg (1999) looked at projects that had failed badly and found that leadership, especially those that followed excessively pushy approach concerning deadlines or that overpromised on the things that could be accomplished by their team in a certain limited timeframe, were the main causes of their failure. These were seen as the main behaviours portrayed by poor project managers and were considered by Linberg (1999) and Pinto and Mintel (1990) as the principle cause of numerous tactical failures, for instance, insufficient staffing and unregulated scope creep. According to Linberg (1999), overpromising a client on what can be accomplished to keep the customer eventually creates untenable failure circumstances which puts the business in worse positions as compared to keeping the objectives and goals of the organisation more measured and reasonable. According to this individual, a project is either cancelled or completed. In this regard, a project can be successfully completed but it can be considered a failure when the developed product causes discontent among customers or dos not meet the expected quality. On the other hand, a project can be formally cancelled but be highly successful if significant learning happens from the failed project where the lessons are borrowed and used in future projects to ensure their success. Moreover, some artefacts from the failed project can also be used directly on future projects.

Linberg (1999) asked the participants in his study what they perceived as the least and most successful projects. The main takeaways from the respondents on what they considered successful projects include projects that were technical, those that worked as intended and that involved small but highly performing teams. From the study, the respondents emphasised that it is critical for the managers of a project to always contain their scope creed and remain calm during crises and setbacks. Additionally, the researchers found out from the respondents that for a project to be successful, it is important for the schedule and timeframe for the deliverables to be set in a way that provides project managers with ample time to complete their tasks. On the other hand, concerning project failure, Linberg (1999) and Pinto and Mintel (1990) note that market research and poor management play a common role in the failure of many projects.

Pinto and Mantel (1990) on their research about Engineering Management Transaction issues, they talked about the challenges in the operationalization of project failure. They consider that there are different definitions regarding what failed projects entail. The main reason behind the individuals’ work was to examine the underlying patterns which result in project failure based on three distinct contingency variables including: how projects are defined, the specific type of the project being evaluated and the stage or phase of the life cycle of the particular projects when it is being assessed. About one hundred and thirty project managers were involved in their survey. The findings of their survey were then applied to either reject or accept the hypotheses posited by the authors at the start of their study concerning the causes of project failure. The researchers assumed that perceived causes of the failure of projects vary and to expect some specific causes depend on the outcome methods used to evaluate performance. Additionally, they hypothesised that perceived causes of the failure of projects vary based on whether the particular project is in the tactical or strategic stage of the life cycle. Pinto and Mantel (1990) operationalized the projects’ life cycle using a simple rubric where a strategic stage is about the conceptualisation, initial planning as well as the development of a project, while tactical phase included the real work of implementing the project of getting it done. Lastly, the researchers claimed that the perceived causes of failure usually differ base on the type of project being assessed (Research and development or construction).

Lack of a Distinct and Clear Mission

Several studies have associated organisations with clearly defined missions with successful projects, for instance, Pinto and Mantel (1990) confirmed from the diverse participants or project management professionals who responded during the survey that projects fail because of many different reasons such as the absence of a distinct or clear mission and client acceptance to much serious or operational challenges such as inadequate personnel or technological support. According to Pinto and Mantel (1990), projects fail both because of many reasons and from insufficient mission planning as well as from client acceptance which often happen in the early stages of the projects, while many other failures are linked to operational activities which happen later in the implementation stage. While this literature was carried out with substantial scientific seriousness in its quantitative assessment of the collected survey data, its hypotheses were broad and vague as it is rare to find anybody that will disagree with the notion or perception that many projects fail because of “many reason”. However, they fully demonstrate that projects fail because of varying reasons and at different stages of their life cycles, especially due to a lack of a clear mission.

Lack of Support by the Top Leadership/Poor Leadership

On another note, Kappelman, McKeeman and Zhang (2006) examined the early signs of project failure, particularly information technology projects and how to come up with preventative measures to curb such failures. The individuals conducted a review of various literatures to find out the early signs of project failure. These individuals interviewed some 138 professionals of project management and asked them to rank some of the things they considered warning signs of failure with the help of a one to seven Likert Scale. With one representing the least important factor and seven the most important item, the individuals collected and ranked the items accordingly. Similar to the findings of Pinto and Mantel (1990) and Linberg (1999), the researchers identified leadership failure as a major factor that influences the performance of projects. The main factor considered highly influential concerning causing a project’s failure as highlighted by the participants was the lack of support by the top management towards the project being implemented.

An additional factor related to project failure as discovered by Kappelman, McKeeman and Zhang (2006) was the presence of project managers who do not lead their team effectively and who do not communicate well with customers or clients. While looking at system analysis and scope creep failures, the researchers found reliability, performance, scope and reliability requirements to be the other critical factors. They also found the analysis of information systems and proper project scoping to be important factors in ensuring project success. According to the researchers, the most critical factors that impact the performance of projects include a mix of procedural and leadership issues. They claim that most failures are managerial and most project managers who took part in the study felt strongly that successful projects are those which had good leadership, proper analysis and documentation.

Other researchers including Nixon, Harrington and Parker (2012) looked at leadership as a major factor that may lead to the failure of projects. They did a meta-analysis of an interdisciplinary team of professors from Australia, examining their leadership attributes which played a significant role in either unsuccessful or successful projects. In their study of the leadership feature which could be linked to project failure, the researchers found about five commonalities to poor project leadership including the lack of social skills, a lack of empathy and motivation, as well as, the lack of self-regulation.

Lack of Commitment by the Project Managers

On a similar note, Cule et al. (2001) talked about the methods of preventing project failure. They evaluated different strategies used in heading off project failure. They assessed project risk using a prism of some distinct categories including task and self (internal risk), the environment and client (external risk). Rather than trying to mitigate each risk factor which can led to project failure, the researcher’s approach was to categorise a myriad risk which can be experienced during a project’s implementation. The notion was that every category stands for potential risks which have a similar cause. For instance, risk factors like lack of commitment by top project managers and the failure to properly identify stakeholders. The main idea was that because all the factors share a common cause, a project manager will nurture client relationship in a manner where specific risk factors can be avoided. Cule et al. (2001) claim that the environment in which project management is conducted is very dynamic and it prevents the development of a universal guide which can help prevent project failure.

Lack of Teamwork

According to Natovich (2003), the lack of teamwork and the failure in such situations starts with the de-escalating involvement and commitment of the involved parties to the entered agreement. This researcher does not put the blame on one party for the breakdown or deterioration in cooperation but says that both or all parties might contribute to this scenario leading to the start of scope creeping the contract past the agreement. To solve this issue, the researcher suggests an overhaul of the top leadership and the proper use of resources and money. The research by Natovich (2003) is a convincing narrative concerning the interference of outside vendors or experts on a project’s success regardless of its limited scope as it is based on a single company.

Failure Due to Outsiders

Natovich (2003) also claim that occasionally, project failure happens because of working together with outside vendors rather than conducting in-house implementation or development. This individual grouped the main risks into three categories of factors which cause project failure associated with outside participants being brought in as part of solving the challenges. The first category included lack of trust and adversarial relationships between the client and the outsider. The second factor is outsider manager’s lack of commitment and lastly, is the difficulty or challenge linked to breaking contractual agreement or engagement. The researcher came up with conclusions that as is common in many massive projects involving multimillion of dollars, and involving many parties, it is likely for disagreements to occur after a contractual agreement has been signed. Additionally, such projects might face lack of teamwork or cooperation and incur heavy losses.

Failure due to Psychological Effects on Employees

Shepherd, Patzelt and Wolfe (2011) applied psychological concepts of coping with loss as well as organisational theories to understand how firms deal and cope with the consequences of failed projects. The researchers realised that individuals treat failure and loss of projects they work on similarly as they would treat personal failure- by using a biased view- associating success to their characteristics or behaviour while blaming failures on outside environmental factors they cannot control. Shepherd, Patzelt and Wolfe (2014) identified some psychological-coping-orientations linked to project failure including oscillation, restoration and loss (where the individual experiencing loss moves between grieving their loss and restoring mental acuity to the current activities). These researchers say that overall, project failure usually have some psychological effects on employees.

Poor Budget Planning

Conboy (2010) says that projects can fail because of poor planning of the budget. This individual shows in his survey of budgetary controls in projects that, cost can overrun and start serious panic in large firms, which can then result in failure of those projects, especially when the management tries to control the costs. This work demonstrates that, even organisations with tightly regulated budgetary controls where every cost is carefully approved by the management, can experience catastrophic project failures due to occasional unexpected poor planning of their budgets.

The Impact of Politics

Warne and Hart (1996) claim that politics is part of all jobs and that it should be understood that company or organisational politics can result in project failure. The individuals profiled a single project in a public sector. The scope requirement of the project and its eventual size showed enmity between various stakeholders as, even though the project was important, it is the manner in which the project tried to transform the process that lead the government departments to work against the project’s completion. The stakeholders linked to the project agreed that it the project could be implemented only if their departments would be spared from any restructuring that would be caused by the project. Therefore, the politics by the stakeholders in different departments within the organisation can result to a failure in the implementation of a project.

Other Factors

Verner et al. (2008) also explored the factors which are linked to project failure and the ones not often implicated in project failure. They reviewed at least fifty projects and analysed the commonalities in every factor, especially those which occurred frequently. In their study, they discovered some common factors such as changing data of delivery of the projects (93%), underestimated scope of the project with a frequency of 81%, ignored risks not managed or assessed followed with a frequency of 76%, unrewarded staff not recognised for their long working hours also followed with 73%. Another factor of importance was delivery decisions made with insufficient information and unpleasant staff experience during the work on a project both followed with a 73% frequency. The researchers claim that these factors are linked to project failure as they are associated with employee morale when completing their duties during the implementation of a project, whether or not they are appreciated or motivated.

Other researchers are Al-Ahmad et al. (2009) who explored the notion of the root causes of failure of information technology projects. In a similar way to the findings of Cule et al. (2001), they tried to find different blame factors which are attributed to the failure of projects and summed them up into some root causes. The authors found six unique root causes linked to the failure of information technology projects. The factors include size factors, complexity, technology, top management, organisational and project management. Despite being relevant literature, which sheds some light on the area of study, its contents are thin and the meta-analysis lacks methodological rigor.

Conclusion

The above researches have demonstrated that there are various distinct factors which can lead to the failure of projects. These include factors such as organisational politics, poor planning of the project’s budget, poor management, and the failures by the Human Resource Management. Additionally, besides the mentioned factors, the above literature has shown that scope creep among other preventable factors ranging from internal and external factors such as outside professionals can lead to project failure, particularly a lack of commitment and breaking contractual agreements or deals. In a summary, these factors can be pointed out as unrealistic completion dates and problems associated with the top management, particularly those uninterested in the project’s success among other factors.

References

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