Are you in a project that constantly fails to meet its objectives within the planned time, budget or scope? Or have you been brought in to to resolve persistent delays, budget overruns, scope creep or low stakeholder satisfaction in a project? What do you do when your project is gridlocked with no clear path to meeting goals or with team members lacking clarity on roles and processes?
Project failure is a risk every project lead faces. According to a Project Management Institute (PMI) study from 2020, 11% of IT projects failed, with many organizations having failure rates as high as 67%.
Troubled projects often stem from poor planning, inadequate communication, and lack of risk management. Unrealistic goals and expectations, along with insufficient stakeholder engagement, further exacerbate these issues. Understanding these root causes is essential for implementing effective remedies.
Why hero-centric approaches in troubled projects eventually fail
Hero-centric project management approaches that overly rely on a few key individuals to shoulder the bulk of critical work and decision-making are fundamentally flawed. While this hero mentality may yield short-term gains, it leads to burnout, knowledge silos, lack of sustainability, and high risk if those heroic players become unavailable. An overdependence on heroics creates an unhealthy situation where projects hinge precariously on a small number of team members.
Instead, a more collaborative, team-based methodology that distributes responsibilities and facilitates knowledge sharing across the team is essential for consistent long-term success without an unsustainable reliance on heroic interventions by a few individuals.
How to rescue troubled projects in a more systematic approach
The root causes of troubled projects can be multi-faceted. It is critical then that a more systematic approach is adopted to getting troubled projects on track to sustained success – integrating priorities, people and practices more seamlessly and holistically. Four practical and critical steps are recommended to accurately identify root causes of project issues and resolving them more sufficiently.
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Analyze project issues from all fronts |
| In the midst of a project crisis, gathering objective and subjective data inputs, such as team interviews, project tracking reports, and data outputs, equips project leaders with information to make responsible decisions about the project’s commitment. Formal failure analysis techniques, like Design Thinking and Root Cause Analysis (RCA) sessions, can identify knowledge gaps and blind spots caused by underperforming processes, helping to avoid repeatable mistakes.
While the perspectives of project teams and stakeholders are critical in issue analysis, it is equally critical to supplement them with project performance metrics and data. If metrics and data are not readily available or are poorly built, project leaders can create fairly simple tables and charts, in the meantime, to provide more holistic insights on what exactly is going on in the project. A good set of both objective and subjective data inputs creates a powerful foundation to building and executive a performance improvement plan for a troubled project. More importantly, gathering and analyzing these data inputs as quickly and sufficiently possible builds a sense of urgency to resolving issues among project teams and stakeholders early on. |
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Clarify and reinforce priorities and goals |
| With a more nuanced understanding of project issues, project leaders can then align the project’s immediate and long-term objectives with the organization’s overarching goals and priorities. This alignment ensures that everyone involved understands the purpose and specific objectives they need to achieve immediately to move to a level of project stability while remaining focused on and motivated with a unified long-term vision of success. Clearly defining (or re-defining) both the immediate and long-term scope, desired outcomes, and goals is a crucial step in implementing a path towards project recovery.
Reinforcing project priorities and goals is recommended only after engaging the team in a collaborative and data-driven project issue analysis. This sequence is intentional so that project teams and stakeholders understand that listening first to their perspectives and insights is important, especially during a project rescue. After all, project leaders need the support and cooperation of all them to successfully troubleshoot the project. |
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Empower teams |
| When inheriting a troubled project, working on the team’s mindset and resolving internal politics is essential. A culture of trust and cooperation must be nurtured. Project leaders need to clearly demonstrate that working together as a team and supporting each other is the only path to turning the project around. After a failed project, symptoms like lack of trust, communication breakdowns, and siloed thinking may be present within the inherited team. Building an integrated structure with a clear purpose and direction energizes teams to deliver success through autonomy, real-time decision-making, and a breadth of skills. | |
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Adopt the agile mindset |
| Whether a troubled project follows a waterfall or an agile process, adopting or strengthening some themes from agile methodologies can help address persistent project issues. Key agile themes like adaptability, collaboration and iterative progress are crucial in a project rescue. Project teams can quickly identify and address issues by consistently focusing on stakeholder feedback. They can ensure continuous improvement and transparency with stand-ups and retrospectives. As delivering incremental results and demonstrating success early on are critical in a project rescue, adopting the agile approach in prioritizing tasks based on value and feasibility is then valuable. This flexibility and responsiveness enable swift course corrections – restoring project momentum more quickly and effectively. |
Conclusion
In summary, rescuing troubled projects involves a shift from hero-centric approaches to data-driven decision making, team empowerment, and goal-based management. By leveraging a more systematic approach, organizations can turn around struggling projects and achieve sustainable success. Consistently adopting agile practices and relentlessly empowering teams not only help in times of crisis but also enhance overall project management capabilities, leading to better outcomes and increased stakeholder satisfaction.