Introduction:
The project failure rate is still higher than success. As a project manager, you might have experienced project failure and you are not alone. Everyone has their own project failure definition. For some, a project is a failed, if it failed to meet the deadline, exceed the allocated budget, failed to meet stakeholders’ expectations, incomplete and below standard quality, project deliverable doesn’t meet the requirements/scope of work. It is important to understand the common reasons why projects fail.

Why does project fail?
Some of the projects fail outright and many of projects fail during later part of the project execution for the same common reasons. I have tried my best to compile a list of reasons “What are the common reasons for Projects to fail?” either from my own experience or from other project managers.

In Poorly run projects, problems can go undetected until the project fails.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the common reasons by categories why projects fail.

1.  Scope management:
PMBOK® defines Project Scope as the “The work that needs to be accomplished to deliver a product, service, or result with the specified features and functions.” A detailed set of deliverables and/or features and derived from a project’s requirements based on the business case of a project.

• Inaccurate requirements
• Scope Creep and/or Gold Plating
• Poorly Understood Business Case
• Not Delivering What the Business Needs
• Solving the wrong problem
• Too many assumptions

2.  Project Leadership:
Project leadership is the act of leading a team, developing interpersonal relationship, motivating, tracking progress and managing expectations towards the successful completion of a project and stay within scope, schedule and budget and much more than that.

• Lack of Effective Project Leadership
  • Inexperienced Project Manager
  • Poor Communication
  • Undefined project goals
  • Unrealistic Project team expectations
• Lack of Monitoring KPIs
• Changing priorities within Organization
• Poor Changement Management Process
• Lack of underestimating Project’s impact with BAU

3.  Stakeholder Management:
A stakeholder is anyone who is affected by the project. Some are supportive and some are opposed to the project. It is the project manager’s responsibility to manage and influence key stakeholders’ expectations.

• Lack of Interest and/or participation from Stakeholders
• Inadequate Project Sponsor Support
• Inadequate Stakeholder Analysis including expectations
• No Routine follow ups, communications, reporting and meetings

4.  Risks, Assumptions, Issues and Dependencies (RAID):
A risk is a possible future issue i.e. something that may go wrong. An assumption is a factor that is assumed to be true for project success. An issue is a risk that has occurred, is current, and must be addressed. A dependency occurs when an output from one task is needed as a mandatory input for another task(s).

• Lack of RAID register
• Not Paying Attention to Warning Signs
• Not managing assumptions and dependencies
• Undefined Risks

5.  Estimates, Schedule and Deadlines:
Estimating a project can be a tough task. In order to create a workable estimate, one needs to know about organization maturity level, team expertise, team experience level, deliverables, tasks, and process. You should also have to be comfortable asking questions to figure out the things that you (and maybe even your potential client or customer) do not know.

• Setting Unrealistic Deadlines and Estimates
• Not thoroughly discomposed WBS
• Not managing task dependencies
• Not accurate tasks level / work effort estimation
• Not clearly defined milestones and deliverables

6.  Resources and Demand management:
Resources’ can be anything from people, materials and equipment, to knowledge and time. These resources are limited and using them as efficiently as possible is critical to a business’s bottom line. Resource demand planning requires detailed WBS and timeline for different types of resource requirement at different times.

• Lack of Resource requirement planning
• Resource dependencies and resource leveling
• Inadequate resource forecast
• Lack of Resource demand planning

7.  Project team composition / structure:
A Project Team is a group of individuals who belong to different departments, functional areas or groups. Project Team members are assigned to the specific activities and deliverables of the same project for a fixed period of time and will be disbanded once the project has been completed.

The project team comprises of the project manager, technical and functional SMEs along with all the project stakeholders who are responsible for the project implementation and success. Project team members may be co-located or at remote locations.

• Inappropriate Project team composition
• Significant technical debt
• Lack of Staff knowledge and experience
• Procrastination within the team
• Not Using the Right Technologies

8.  Budget constraint:
Project budget is a financial and personnel disposal limits that are needed for the project. Projects often have a large number of costs associated with them, such as labor costs, material procurement costs, software and operating costs. Initially, the project budget allows the project manager to determine how much the project is likely to cost. Throughout the course of the project, it lets the project manager to check and monitor whether or not the project is sticking to its budget.

• Inadequate Cost estimation
• fixed cost contracts with fixed timeline
• No Management reserve available
• Trying to Make the Project Inexpensive