An Analysis of the Causes of Project Failure and Management Approaches

This report examines the multifaceted causes of project failure, drawing on both theoretical frameworks and practical evidence. It delves into the critical aspects of project management, including the significance of preparation, leadership, communication, and resource allocation. The study highlights how inadequate planning, poor leadership, communication gaps, and resource overload contribute to project failures. The research emphasizes the importance of stakeholder involvement and the need for proactive strategies to mitigate these risks, ultimately aiming to improve project outcomes. The report analyzes the viewpoints of various authors and provides actionable insights for project managers to enhance their effectiveness and ensure project success. It also analyzes the impact of communication gaps and the significance of having a centralized location for communication, alongside the importance of managing the workload of resources. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for effective management and stakeholder engagement to achieve desired project outcomes.

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CAUSES OF PROJECT FAILURE
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Causes of project failure
Abstract
Critical and system thinking refers to a certain framework which is intended to unite the
means through which different individuals approach a topic. The aspect of projects and how they
fail is an area that a large number of individuals visualize in significantly diverse way and thus
for that reason, the framework can help integrate the ideas and approach of different authors and
make them easy to understand generally. The objective of this study is to analyze that the
perceived causes of the project failure vary depending on the assessment of failure. The study
will be drawn from theory and evidence, and it will also look into the implications of project
failure in the practice of project management. The results of the study reveal that the biggest
areas of concern in project failure relate to the management team, meeting the set deadlines,
keeping up within the budget and also meeting the quality requirements. The study analyzes
what different authors consider to be the cause of projects fail. This research is very important in
that it will assist the project managers to avoid any factors that are said to be the cause of the
project failure and they will thus be in a position to come up with strategies for increasing
effectiveness and preventing the project failures.
Introduction
Many of the projects especially the complex ones usually fail in the long term due to the
failure to live up to the promises made and they thus end up producing outcomes that are
disappointing at the time of completion. Kerzner, (2017), explain that some projects fail as a
result of the exceeding of the set budgets while others do not meet the deadline or even both.
When projects managers fail to deliver as expected, they usually have a poor reputation. Basu,

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(2016) on the other hand provides information that technology industries are the ones who have
the worst record because their failures tend to exceed more that 50% in all the projects that they
undertake. Some of the organizations usually make commitments that they are not able to fulfill
on the projects that they undertake and they even go to the extent of failing to determine the
value that they get in return from the investment undertaken. It is thus important for the
organizations and their project managers to take measures to ensure that they step up their game
in the project management so that they can be in a position to undertake strategies and measures
of curbing the failure of their projects. Project managers should thus ensure that they carefully
evaluate a project before undertaking it by examining the hurdles and other road-blocks that may
present challenges so that they can have a clear understanding of the challenges that lay ahead of
them in the project and come up with the necessary ways of mitigating them (Basu, 2016).
Causes of projects failure
In their source, Montequin, Cousillas, and Villanueva, (2016), explain that one of the
major causes of project failure is poor preparation. This refers to the situation where the project
manager and his or her team are not adequately prepared to undertake the project. For a project
to be successful, the project manager and his or her team need to get a clear picture of what they
are going to do before the initiation of the project. In this, they need to know what the project is
all about, what its success looks like and ensure that they stay focused. Failure to have a clear
focus right from the beginning usually make the things hard, and some of the vital things such as
examining the challenges that they may experience in the project and developing ways of
mitigating them may be overlooked thus affecting the project after it has already started.

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Cause of failure in projects the project managers should thus ensure that they have a
meeting with all the stakeholders that are involved so that they can discuss on the quality of the
product, the cost and also the time. This is imperative in that it assists the project managers to
know the right way for the execution of the tasks so that they can meet the expectations of the
people involved. The stakeholders that are involved in a certain project usually contribute to the
failure of the project if they do not participate in the preparation phase. They should thus be part
of this by offering the necessary resources that are needed to start the project so that they can be
in a position to make it successful by avoiding the shortage of the supplies required. When the
stakeholders do not take part in the preparation phase and do not participate in the reviews, they
end up showing less interest and are finally disengaged. This result to the lack of unity and the
collaboration in the project support and hence failure since there are no necessary people
required to offer the guidance needed to see the project through until its success. It is thus
important for the project managers to ensure that they have in place a consistent methodology for
use in the planning and the execution of the projects before announcing the date of releasing the
project (Discenza, & Forman, 2007).
The second cause of the failure in the projects is inadequate leadership (Shauchenka,
2013). This does not only focus on the project managers but also on the other leaders at all the
management levels that are bestowed with the responsibility of ensuring the success of the
project. The management or the leaders at all the levels should ensure that they offer support to
the project manager so that he can be in a position to follow through on all the expectations that
he has placed on them. Lack of the necessary support from the various management levels can
lead to the failure of the project due to the difficulties in the project development (Kerzner,
2017). This causes the project to be caught up in the priorities and failure to collaborate in the

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organization and this makes it hard for all the people involved in a project to work towards a
common goal. The project managers should thus ensure that they communicate effectively with
all the team members so that he can lead in the execution of the desired results and ensure that
the expected performance has been delivered.
The third cause of the project failure is the existence of gaps in communication.
According to Montequin, Cousillas, and Villanueva, (2016), many of the project teams usually
use the emails as the means of communication on the various tasks and issue in the project. As a
result of this, the communication on the project thus resides in the email box of the individual
team members and the case that a new member joins in the project, there is usually no
centralized way that the new member can be in a position to access the history of the project. The
executive managers thus usually rely on the emails sent to them either weekly or monthly by the
project managers, and thus most of the information about the project is left in the hand of the
project managers which they at times tends to hold hostage.
When the project managers send the email to the team members, their feedback may not
reach all the members of the team especially if they fail to click the reply to all option and thus
some of the members end up not receiving the message. Lastly, in the communication gaps,
some of the team members complain about the volumes of emails sent and the burden that they
have on sorting them out so that they can get the most relevant ones. This thus results in the
wastage of time since they could be working on more important and pressing issues instead of
sifting through the emails. To solve this problem, there is a need for project managers to offer a
centralized location for communication. Posting information in a central location so that in case
new members join the team, they can be in a position to quickly review the progress can catch up
with the rest of the team members.

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The other cause of the project failure is the lack of visibility into the resource workload.
Due to the lack of the prioritization in the projects, the resources are usually overloaded. This
occurs in the case where the executive managers do not have a clear visibility of the activities in
the project and also the tasks. They thus end up delegating the task of resources allocated to the
project managers and in the case that the priorities in the project are not established correctly, the
company ends up undertaking very many projects at a time. As a result of this, the team
members tend to have more work than the time available for the completion of the work. The
project managers thus need to let the executive managers know the work load that they have so
that they can avoid getting in trouble (Chitkara, 1998).
The impact of this is that the team members may opt out of the job and go search for
work somewhere especially because they are overworked so that they can meet the deadlines and
ensure the completion of their tasks, the project and also meet the objectives. Over planning by
the executive managers can lead to the complexity of the schedules which causes the problems
associated with the lack of visibility later (Chapman, 2013). It is thus important to ensure that
adequate planning is done right from the start so that the management can get a better view to
avoid overworking the employees and losing its actual progress which makes it appear messy
and difficult to bring back on the right track.
Clarification on critical and system thinking in understanding project failures
As demonstrated in the paper, the ideas and approaches that different authors have
regarding project failures is significantly different. Despite this reason, however, a large number
of these individuals make similar conclusions concerning the topic and have agreed in many

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instances. By reading and understanding the author’s provision, an individual can easily
understand the aspect of project failure and its causes.
Conclusion
For a project to achieve its desired results, all the stakeholders that are involved in it
should be well managed and motivated so that the efforts of the project can experience phases of
optimal performance up to the last stage. From the research findings the authors have a common
stand that most projects usually fail due to the poor preparation and planning, inadequate
leadership, lack of visibility in the resource overload and the gaps existing in the communication
between the team members. In this, it is clear that if the stakeholders in the team do not carry out
an adequate evaluation before starting the project and involve all the stakeholders, the project is
likely to fail. This is because they are not able to have a clear understanding of where they are
heading to, and some of the stakeholders may even opt out if they are not participants in the
project. Measures thus need to be taken to ensure that the team members are fully prepared right
before undertaking any project.

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References
Basu, R. (2016). Managing Projects in Research and Development. Florence: Taylor and
Francis.
Chapman, R. (2013). The rules of project risk management : implementation guidelines for
major projects. Farnham, Surrey: Gower Publishing Limited.
Chitkara, K. (1998). Construction project management : planning, scheduling and controlling.
New Delhi, India: Tata McGraw-Hill Pub.
Discenza, R. & Forman, J. B. (2007). Seven causes of project failure: how to recognize them and
how to initiate project recovery. Paper presented at PMI® Global Congress 2007—North
America, Atlanta, GA. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.
Kerzner, H. (2017). Project management : a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and
controlling. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Montequin, V., Cousillas, V. & Villanueva, A. (2016). Success Factors and Failure Causes in
Projects: Analysis of Cluster Patterns Using Self-organizing Maps: Procedia Computer
Science. Retrieved from
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050916323481
Montequin, V., Cousillas, V. & Villanueva, A. (2016). Analysis of the Success Factors and
Failure Causes in Information & Communication Technology (ICT) Projects in Spain.
Procedia Technology. Retrieved from
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212017314002801
Shauchenka, U. (2013). Why projects fail. Uladzislau Shauchenka.

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