You don’t have to look far to find project failures. While many circumstances contribute to project failure, a few common circumstances often are the culprits that make good projects go bad. Here are the most prevalent management failures that lead to failed projects:

A lack of proper management. Projects without professionally trained —and supported— project managers are like sailboats without a rudder. Eventually they will crash. The only question is what they will hit before sinking. Proper project management is mandatory.

Poor stakeholder management. Generating deliverables that don’t meet the expectations of stakeholders usually results in project failure. Disenchanted stakeholders rarely use deliverables they didn’t want or expect, no matter how good they may be. Making sure stakeholders buy into the products you’re producing is vital to delivering successful projects.

Throwing good money after bad. One of my favorite phrases is, “Fail early, it’s cheaper.” Nowhere is this more accurate than with projects. Once a project becomes troubled, cancellation may be the best outcome, because it saves money, time and, in the long run, can enhance your reputation. Justifying spending more money to validate the money you have spent so far is foolish. Look at where the project is today, and the time and money it will take to generate business value. If the money it takes to recover the project stands up to the scrutiny of a business case, then continue. If not, cancellation is the best alternative.

Avoiding the perception of failure while you are already seen as failing. Managers rarely understand that failed projects that take forever to “go away” do more reputational damage than one cancelled to minimize corporate impacts. Project cancellation is a proactive alternative to failure. When things go bad, understand the root cause and stop the project. Then, perform better project definition, risk management or other alternatives to start a new project with an increased chance for success.

For more about project management, check out my Project Management Foundations course.

Senior level project management is more than competence. The myriad responsibilities that come with this role require broader skills.

Razor-sharp business focus. Senior PMs understand and manage their project priority against other active initiatives in the portfolio. Senior PMs clearly articulate this information to negotiate with stakeholders. They also keenly leverage their sponsor’s strengths to successfully launch and guide their projects.  Senior project managers also deeply understand their project’s products and how they’ll impact their stakeholders.

An easy manner with all stakeholder types. Senior project managers readily deal with all kinds and levels of stakeholders, even the ones who don’t share the same agenda.  They advise senior leaders to influence their decision making.  They also work well with entry level team members because they generate trust through straightforward communications. Senior PMs can manage stakeholders because they fully understand the status and role each stakeholder plays in their projects.

Delegation and coaching to support their projects and team members. As larger, more complex projects require more management, the Senior PM delegates – especially technical items – to team members with specialized skills. They also rely on others to directly manage the project, including the coordination of status reporting, detection and resolution of project issues, and handling some customer interactions. The Senior PM takes time to understand other’s capabilities, so they know when to intervene to get tasks accomplished. The best senior PMs use coaching to develop team members. Skillful coaching allows the Senior PM to support and enhance the skills of others and get the best out of their teams.

Change Perspective.  Senior project managers determine the degree of organizational change their stakeholders can handle. This involves both the short-term impacts and how the project’s deliverables fit into the business’s strategic direction. Senior PMs design their projects to successfully deliver change with both sound business processes and technical deliverables. 

Change from a business perspective requires the Senior PM to understand the actions of competitors, new demands from customers, and other changes in the marketplace that require the business to respond. They also understand the capabilities of their business team members, so the project’s new tools and processes are understandable to business stakeholders and can be readily deployed. 

Mastery of risk management. Senior project managers cope with risks that aren’t in their direct sphere of influence. They utilize risk response plans that are tailored not just to the outcome of a risk event, but also the multiple causes that can trigger it. For example, purchased components may not show up in time. The lesser experienced project manager will order extra product from another vendor to mitigate the risk. That’s a good response strategy…unless delivery drivers are on strike. Senior PMs anticipate and accommodate the different events that can turn risks into issues.

For more about being a project manager, check out the courses in the Become a Project Manager learning path.

A big part of project success is meeting business objectives. Project quality is the degree to which a project meets its objectives. Here are five tips to ensure the quality of your project outcomes.

• Don’t jump to the solution too quickly. The foundation of delivering quality is ensuring that your project solves the problem or supports the desired opportunity. To ensure that you deliver a quality solution, take the time to research the current tools, processes, strengths, and weaknesses in your business area.
• Unfortunately, projects are often launched with a particular solution in mind. For example, if your organization runs a project to implement a new finance system when lack of financial control is due to poor control processes, the project is a waste of time and money. Do your homework to identify the problem and root cause before launching a project.
• Build customer engagement from the project start. You need input from the right people to deliver a solution that supports the stakeholders’ needs—not only knowledgeable people, but people from each affected stakeholder group. Include those people as you gather requirements and don’t assume you understand the stakeholders’ needs. Otherwise, your project deliverables could go unused, when the unsatisfied stakeholders declare them unfit for the business.
• Don’t shortcut testing. Testing is often scheduled at the end of the project. As deadlines loom, testing is often reduced to keep delivery schedules on track. Although that approach may deliver on time, the probability of product issues is high. To ensure quality project outcomes, make testing time sacred and include testing activities throughout your project lifecycle.  For example, reviews of paper deliverables, engineering models, mock business walkthroughs, and software prototypes will save you save time and money in the long run.
• Focus on business processes. Two process-related activities are crucial, yet often overlooked. First, be sure to capture as-is processes, so your project doesn’t overlook business activities it needs to accommodate.  Second, update to-be business processes as deliverables are built and changes accommodated. If you don’t, staff training won’t cover the changes, which could lead to misunderstandings about what your product can and cannot do. To achieve business outcomes,  implement standard project activities to capture and document as-is and to-be business processes. As the team produces deliverables, it should also create and document the corresponding new or altered business processes.
• Take human factors into account. Peter M. Senge said, “People don’t resist change. They resist being changed.” The perceived quality of your deliverables depends on your ability to bring your stakeholders along on your project’s change journey. Involve your stakeholders early, keep them informed as you progress, especially as changes are made. By doing so, you will increase your chances of your outcomes satisfying the business objectives.

For more about project quality, check out Daniel Stanton’s Project Management Foundations: Quality course.

Contingency funds come in handy for mitigating project risk and handling unexpected issues. How much contingency funding do you need? And how do you manage it?  Here are some tips:

Consider the cost of risk responses. After creating your risk management plan, estimate how much money you need to address the project’s high-probability risks. If the project has few risks, you might do this for medium-probability risks, too. The total cost for addressing risks is your initial estimate for contingency funding. Then, work with your sponsor to adjust and recommend contingency funding for the project based on the overall level of risk present in the project. (For example, a project might have few medium to high probability risks, but scads of low probability ones. In that case, you might add contingency to cover low probability risk that do come to fruition.)

Align contingency funds with the project business case. Organizations usually have required payback times, cost savings or profit improvement targets that must be met for a project to be approved. Calculate the impact of contingency funding on those financial targets. Ideally, the project will still satisfy business case criteria after the addition of contingency funds to the budget. However, increased costs for handling risks or other unexpected costs may mean the project doesn’t satisfy those business criteria. If the contingency funds needed jeopardize the project’s business case, revisit the project approach and costs, or reconsider whether to pursue the project. 

Determine who can release contingency funds. Before the project gets going, decide when contingency funds will be released, who authorizes them, and in what circumstances they will be released. Traditionally, the sponsor releases contingency funds. However, giving the project manager access to these funds when specific risks occur can increase efficiency and reduce the impact to the project. Document the decisions you make regarding how contingency funding will be released, so you don’t encounter roadblocks accessing the funds.

Track and return funds to contingency when possible. Keep track of the contingency funds already spent and still available in your contingency budget. If parts of your project end up costing less than planned, you might recategorize those unspent project funds to replenish your contingency budget. 

For more about contingency, check out my Project Management Foundations course.