November 22, 2017

Statistics on Project Failure


Most Common Causes of Project Failure:

  • Changing priorities within organization – 40%
  • Inaccurate requirements – 38%
  • Change in project objectives – 35%
  • Undefined risks/opportunities – 30%
  • Poor communication – 30%
  • Undefined project goals – 30%
  • Inadequate sponsor support – 29%
  • Inadequate cost estimates – 29%
  • Inaccurate task time estimate – 27%
  • Resource dependency – 25%
  • Poor change management – 25%
  • Inadequate resource forecasting – 23%
  • Inexperienced project manager – 20%
  • Limited resources – 20%
  • Procrastination within team – 13%
  • Task dependency – 11%
  • Other – 9%

source: Project Management Institute: Pulse of the Profession 2015: Capturing the Value of Project Management 2015

November 16, 2017

Controlling Project Stakeholders


Can we? Probably not.

As PMI says in its latest edition of the PMBOK:

"Because project managers rarely, if ever, have the ability to control stakeholders, Control Stakeholder Engagement was renamed to Monitor Stakeholder Engagement." (page 650, PMBOK)

November 09, 2017

What We Focus On


The other day I found myself focusing on some negative events in the news. Looking for inspiration, I stared at my library of books. One book jumped out to me (felt like it literally did!)

"QBQ!", by John G. Miller, is a great book of not-so-common sense. (The full title is Practicing Personal Accountability at Work and Life - QBQ! The Question Behind the Question®, What to Really Ask Yourself to Eliminate Blame, Complaining, and Procrastination.)

Mr. Miller talks about making better choices through changing the questions we ask ourselves and others. His three simple guidelines for creating a QBQ are:

1. Begin with "What" or "How" (not "Why," "When," or "Who").
2. Contain an "I" (not "they," "them," "we," or "you").
3. Focus on action.

As he says, "What can I do?" fits the guidelines perfectly.

So, instead of thinking, "Why are they acting like that?" I started re-focusing on where I was and what I could do.

Hey, sounds like some good things are happening in the world now. Funny how that happens!