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GDPM 590: Applied Project Project Proposal (“Why do projects fail?”)

Name: Ranjit Solanki ( 656571759) Submitted To: Ivan Rincon Due Date: 5th June 2020

1. Title of project “Why do projects fail?”

2. Statement of purpose The research will seek to find what are the various causes that can lead to failure of the projects. The following questions will be answered in the research: 

What elements of project management should be implemented to reduce project failure?



What are the top reasons of project failure?



What are the strategies and tactics used in the project life cycle? As projects failure rate is high, it is crucial to understand the value of project management and only 58% of organisations really understand the importance of project management. (PMI) (Tavrizyan, "15 Project Management Stats You Can't Ignore [2019 update]", 2019). The research will revolve around how important it is to understand project management in detail which can prevent projects to fail.

3. Background The research related to the causes of project failure has been of extreme interest to the researchers and the practitioners. There are various research that exist in the developing body of literature dealing with the failure of the projects, which provides help to project managers to evaluate the projects, if not objectively, at least systematically. The research focuses on the criteria of evaluating the project failure, even though it is difficult to define what is covered under a failed project. Furthermore, research focuses on the advancement of a set of indicators or identifiable conditions which can help in identifying and addressing problems in a project. There

can be various factors that can contribute to the project failure. Sometimes, the project can be terminated prior to its completion. The changes in legal, political, technological, social, or economic environment can contribute to the collapse of the project. In some cases, the external emergency can force the withdrawal of the funds from the project. in such scenario, it is inappropriate to tell whether the project failed or not. The concepts of project failure, important success factors, project life cycle and type of project will be discussed in the research. The projects also fail as they cannot survive in unbalanced ecosystems. Poor project management practices and planning can also destroy the project. The paper will explain the practices needed to reduce the possibility of project failure.

4. Significance: Failure is an inevitable part of any project process, what makes a difference is the degree of failure. Failure in task does not lead to failure in project as there are ways to reallocate resources. Whereas, a systemic collapse will crash the project. Project managers can learn much more from failed projects rather than, successful ones. The planning of the project is a post-mortem, especially when a project derail and burns. Various lessons can be learned by project managers from those ashes. The research will discuss how important it is to understand the causes of project failure in detail. Harvard has written an article on the fact that good projects can fail. Corresponding to the article, projects go above budget by 27 percent of their projected cost. Also, one in six projects noticed a financial plan overrun of 200 percent. (Matta & Ashkenas, "Why Good Projects Fail Anyway", 2020). A lack of clear objectives is the highly widespread factor (37%) behind project breakdown, according to management leaders. ("Figure 2f from: Irimia R, Gottschling M (2016) Taxonomic revision of Rochefortia Sw. (Ehretiaceae, Boraginales).

Biodiversity Data Journal 4: e7720. Furthermore, 55 percent of project managers cited budget overrun as a reason for project failure. (Betz, "27+ Impressive Project Management Statistics in 2019") . There

is

different

definition

of

project

failure

for

different

people.

For some, a project is a failed venture if it fails to reach the time limit or reaches the budget allocated. Although some may argue that a failed project is one that fails to meet the standards of the stakeholders. Regardless of how you view project failure, it is crucial to recognise the reasons for project failure. Despite of the fact that there are various processes and project management software available, still there is a high rate of project getting failed. It is crucial to look closer into the common reasons why project fail and how we can avoid it. The reasons can include lack of resources, scope creep, lack of interest from stakeholders, poor planning, overbudgeting and so on. It is very crucial to have a clearly defined project scope in order, to reduce the chances of project failure as it will be very difficult to deal with the cope creep for the project managers and the project team. Every year lot of money is wasted on failed projects. The concern is the bigger the project is, the higher will be the chances of it getting failed, which will result in more wastage of money and resources. Forbes magazine has also discussed about the high rate of projects being failed recently. When a project fail, not only the cost of labour and resources are wasted but also the opportunity cost is lost. The opportunity cost is the tangible benefit of all the things which you could accomplished if you never embarked on a failed project. bonfire.com. The study will help the project managers, project team and businesses in reducing the chances of project failure and in understanding the good project management practices.

5. Description of project: The research design that will be used are mainly internet based and library research. The most obvious benefit of using internet research is that it is cost and time effective. The library research is reliable as they are thoroughly evaluated before being published. In the research more of internet-based material is used than the library.

6. Preliminary Literature review: The preliminary literature review shows that the past studies are focused on understanding the causes of failure which are poor project planning, lack of Resources, scope creep, poor project handling, lack of Interest from Stakeholders, not paying attention to warning signs, setting unrealistic deadlines and so on. There is lack of detailed understanding of the practices required to reduce the chances of project being failed. The causes of project failure in the study provided it is seen that there is lack of detailed understanding of the causes of project failure in detail furthermore, the research just resolves on the causes not on the solution. According to this research, even though it is difficult to define exactly what constitutes a failed project, in examining a variety of failed projects, there appear to be some common aspects that suggest certain characteristics are strongly related to perceived project failure. This research explains the causes of project failure for just information technology projects not other projects. (Matta & Ashkenas, "Why Good Projects Fail Anyway", 2020). According to Harvard business review article “why good projects fail anyway”, The problem is, the traditional approach to project management shifts the project teams’ focus away from the result toward

developing recommendations, new technologies, and partial solutions. The study will discuss about the new practices and strategies to deal with external forces and various other factors that can reduce the probability of project being failed.

7. Data analysis plan: Data collection involves these methods for exploring the causes of project failure: 

Site interviews: interviews will be conducted with the project managers to discuss the causes of project failure and what they do to overcome that.

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Observation: researcher will observe the projects personally and will collect information. The researcher will visit participants at site and conduct 1-2 short observations with each participant.

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Closed ended surveys: such surveys will be conducted by researcher from various project firms to collect information. It will include questions with pre-defined answer options the respondent must choose from.



Data will also be collected from various journals, articles and research papers. The research will include descriptive method of statistics as it will analyse the data so that it can describe, show and summarize data in a meaningful way.

8. Bibliography Betz, J. (n.d.). 27 Impressive Project Management Statistics in 2019. Retrieved from https://learn.g2.com/project-management-statistics Figure 2f from: Irimia R, Gottschling M (2016) Taxonomic revision of Rochefortia Sw. (Ehretiaceae,

Boraginales).

Biodiversity

Data

Journal

https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.4.e7720. (n.d.). doi: 10.3897/bdj.4.e7720.figure2f.

4:

e7720.

Matta, N. F., & Ashkenas, R. (2020, February 7). Why Good Projects Fail Anyway. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2003/09/why-good-projects-fail-anyway Tavrizyan, K. (2019, June 15). 15 Project Management Stats You Can't Ignore [2019 update]. Retrieved

from

https://medium.com/crowdbotics/hips-dont-lie-15-project-management-stats-

you-can-t-ignore-6f655060ef30...