A lot of organizations kid themselves that project success or failure rests solely in the hands of the project managers. In reality organizations that do projects consistently well have a high level of competency at several levels.
First, executives know how to initiate projects and set a clear strategic framework within which project managers and team members operate. Lack of this framework is the major source of scope creep and it comes from executives who don't know how to play their role.
Second, senior management needs to set priorities and allocate people's time based on those priorities. When there are no priorities or allocation of resources we have chaos and 70 and 80% project failure rates.
Third, subject matter experts and managers need to know how to develop requirements, not in terms of wish lists but in terms of the business value that is needed.
Only when this foundation is in place can project managers and team members achieve consistent project success. Does your organization have all these pieces?
2 comments:
hi.i do find you blog very educative.i am a project manager in healthcare in africa.i've managed several projects in my country which most were successes just for the period that we were on the ground but on a follow up three to four years latter after leaving you find that the project stalled and we are back to square one.how can we prevent such things from happening as this is not good for our financiers since they see the rate of success in previous projects financed before offering any finance?sttnecniv@yahoo.com
I agree with your points. A company should have a pre-defined framework that clearly defines the criteria’s for entry and exit of every associated activity/process. I also think that PM should be involved right from the contract phase. In some worst cases, PM is involved after requirements freeze. In my experience major of the projects are failures due to bad preparation [Planning and surrounding activities]. In many cases plans are only static objects, once written never touched [except schedule plans]. When you refer your project plan after completing project, it looks like Greek as nothing mentioned in it ever implemented or scope defined is total abstract, but project is completed [success or failure].
Regards,
Pavan Kumar Pothuraju, PMP
Post a Comment