How to prevent project failure

A project manager asked me: “My project is in trouble, we are behind schedule. Some team members left the project and the company owner is not happy. I do not want to see my project fail. What can I do in this situation? Please help.”

Answer: Most projects are in trouble when they are behind schedule or overspending on their budgets. They will not complete successful without some efforts and commitments of the project team. However, the person who must regain control and rescue it from failure is the project manager.

As project manager, you must review all tasks to determine exactly where the project is with regard to the actual schedule and budget. You must talk to team members and explain to them that you want to know what progress has been made so far and what has happened. This is NOT the time to blame anyone but you must clearly explain that you want to regain control by knowing where to start a new baseline. That way the team does not feel threaten, loses confident, or panics about missing schedule. It must be clear to the team that there are problems and they must be solved. Many inexperienced project managers often hide their mistakes by blaming someone or something. It will make the matter worst and not solve anything. You must accept the fact that if anything happens in the project, it is the project manager's fault. It does not matter if the schedule is wrong. It does not matter if the budget is not enough. Since project manager plans the project, estimates schedule and budget and manages the team, it is the project manager's responsibility about what happens to the project. Regardless what has happened, you must accept that you make mistake first and willing to correct it. By doing that the team members will feel comfortable that no one will be blame and stay with the project. Sometime the cause of problem is not time or budget but people and skills. Before you can fix this problem, the team must know that you intend this project to be a success and you will do whatever necessary to fix problems. If the team does not feel strongly that it can be fixed, the project certainly will fail.

It is a project manager’s role to remind team members about the project vision and encourages team members to understand the benefits of the completed project, for them as individuals as well as for the company. No project is perfect, every project will have some problems. By solving these problems, the team will learn something new. Experiences do not come from learning from books or taking a course but in actual working on projects and solving project problems. As long as team members agree and commit to complete the project, you can start to solve these problems. Of course, you cannot do it by yourself. Do not be a hero. You must review all problems and determine how to solve them. You must come up with solutions then come to see the company owner and discuss with him about your propose solution. Be honest and clear about what you want to do but let the company owner makes decision. No owner wants to see a project fails so he must help you. If it is a schedule problem, owner must discuss with customer and asks for new schedule. If it is a budget problem then the owner must decide to increase the budget. If it is people or skills then owner may want to see whether you can hire new people or transfer some people in the company to support your project.

Having these supports, you can re-plan your project. You should not use the old project plan as it no longer valid. It is important to re-emphasize the business goals, the vision of the completed project to all the team members and customers. Your new project plan is to plan how to get from where you are now to a completed and successful project. You must ensure that team members know the importance of each task that they must complete as you are beginning to manage the project with new schedule, new budget and additional new team members.

Even it does not mean that you have completely fix all problems. It is possible that some of the factors that cause the problem still exist so do not feel optimistic yet. You must remain calm and focus on getting the project moving forward effectively. You must set weekly review to check progress aggressively. Re-work your work breakdown structure to smaller tasks for easy control and assign these tasks to your team and make sure that each is working accordingly. Do not let anybody feel uncomfortable. You must motivate them by communicate often with more praises. Your positive attitude is needed at this time. Stay on your plan and lead the project team with gratitude and appreciation. Remember that finances and schedule can change during the course of a project but team members are the key factor to make the project succeed or failure. The only way to regain control of a project is to treat everything as an opportunity and remind everyone of the vision of the project, then move forward to that successful completion.

Sources

  • Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University