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EARLY IDENTIFICATION OF FAILING PROJECTS

The signs of projects failing usually emerge before teams acknowledge that problems exist.
The organisational dynamics of many major firms, commonly driven by a directive management style, have led to bad news not readily travelling up to senior management.  This often leads to a form of organisational denial around change projects that are not going to plan.

A study a few years ago concluded that of the successful projects reviewed, 100% had a good technical solution, while surprisingly over 90% of failed projects also had a good technical solution.  It is rarely the technology that is the problem, however, challenging. To provide some help for senior managers, we’ve compiled a list of some of the symptoms we’ve come across that may be indicators of projects that would be classed as failing. 

Here are some of the symptoms that we have observed when addressing problem projects: 

Vision, Scope and Value
VISION NOT COMMUNICATED OUT AND/OR SHARED WITH THE TEAM ON A REGULAR BASIS
- All projects should have a vision of the change they are designed to achieve.  It is rare that this is not articulated at the outset, however, on of the common failings is not to keep re-iterating the vision to the team.  It may seem like over kill at times but without it you'd be surprised how quickly team members forget why they're there and consequently lose motivation
SCOPE NOT WELL DEFINED
- how common this is, either because the analysis was not rigorous enough at the outset and articulated, or due to changes to scope without adequate change control
IS THE PRINCIPLE BUSINESS SPONSOR ACTIVELY INVOLVED?
- If the principle sponsor is not actively engaged, a key part of the governance process, the project will fail - he/she needs to be able to go in to bat for the team when problems are encountered.

Project Plan Viability
LACK OF PLAN
- it is not common but we have come across projects without a plan, more often we encounter projects that produce a plan that is not usable
PLAN LACKS GRANULARITY
- one of the more common features we find is a set of milestones without any detail as to how these are to be achieved
PLAN NOT REGULARLY UPDATED
 - project plans should be living documents, when it is not getting regularly updated it may that the project manager is trying to shoehorn reality into a plan that no longer reflects reality
PLAN DOESN"T REFLECT REALITY
- this can be for other reasons, including a plan that is driven by business or management directed delivery dates rather than as a result of detailed planning

Governance/Reporting
STEERING COMMITTEE
- does it exist? Is it composed of senior stakeholders that have the power to remove obstacles? Are they engaged on a frequent enough basis? We're amazed at how many steering committees meet monthly - this may be appropriate but if the project is in it's early stages, moving rapidly or at a critical stage it may be necessary to meet more frequently. If they can't make time, how important is the project?
LACK OF STATUS REPORTING
- stakeholders and team members need to identify progress, as well as what the issues and risks are being faced. Lack of status reporting is a sign that these are not being dealt with
STATUS REPORTS NOT CHANGING
- same issues, risks, etc, appearing week to week is an indicator of lack of progress and a team that is not proactive in dealing with obstacles they face
STATUS REPORTS ALWAYS GREEN - it could, of course, mean that all is going well, however, it may also be a sign that the project manager is frightened of flagging bad news and therefore issues are not being dealt with
SHORT NOTICE OF CHANGE/SLIPPAGE - so the vendor you've signed with or the development team you've got working on a core piece of the project has a key delivery  and they let you know that they're not going to make the date - the day before (or even on the day!) - a sure sign they are not measuring their progress.  The same is true of project managers not flagging failure to deliver until the last minute.

Team
MORALE PROBLEMS
-  including murmuring or dissent over ability to meet deliverables.  Just be aware that if the team feel that they can't deliver on time it won't get delivered on time, no amount of direction from management will change this.  Understanding why and changing their belief is the only way to get it done.
BLAME CULTURE
- a sure sign that there is no personal ownership within the project team
LACK OF IDENTIFIABLE ROLE DEFINITION
- while it may be great when everyone is pulling for each other, and high performing teams will work across demarcation boundaries, it's more often a sign that the project lacks clear ownership for deliverables

Meetings
DAILY ISSUES MEETINGS - while there may, very occasionally, be a need to meet frequently to address issues, one of the things we have found regularly in most of the failing projects we have come across is the existence of daily issues meetings.  There are usually other symptoms but they are a waste of time and are an inefficient way of dealing with the issues faced.
UNFOCUSED MEETINGS, LACK OF AGENDAS - this is often true of many meetings we encounter - the first thing you should be able to identify before you even attend a meeting is why it's being held.  In many corporate environments meetings are seen as where work is done, yet how often have attendees prepared and how often do they reflect on what was achieved in the meeting?

While this is helpful, an expert short analysis (usually completed in around two weeks and with a fixed price) will identify what issues your projects are facing and how to address them in the most effective way.

on court performance specialises in working with teams and individuals in the context of change to continualy enhance performance