The Virtue of Failed Projects - failing early is dramatically cheaper and better than failing late

The CHAOS Report shows that nearly three quarters of all projects could be considered failures. Failures, in the CHAOS Report, describe projects that were either cancelled before completion or that didn’t meet at least one of the Triple Constraints — they were late, over budget, or didn’t meet all the performance requirements.

Nobody wants to fail. Unfortunately, as the CHAOS Report tells us, most projects do fail, either in whole or in part. No system, no matter how good, can prevent every failure. But a good system can reduce both the frequency and the severity of failure.

The CHAOS Report grouped projects into three “resolution types.” Here are their definitions.

• Failed. The project is cancelled before completion.
• Challenged. The project is completed and operational, but over-budget, over the time estimate, and with fewer features and functions than initially specified.
• Successful. The project is completed on time and on budget, with all features and functions as originally specified.

From a technical point of view, those categories make sense, but from a customer-centered point of view, things look very different indeed.

Let’s focus on failed. That means the project was cancelled before completion. Is that necessarily a bad thing? If you’re attempting a risky project, you may want to look ahead to see if there are any “go/no-go” decision points. Canceling a project before it goes off the rails can save a fortune — and make risks more worth taking. After all, organizational success is built on the idea that we do the things valuable to the organization, not waste money on projects that should never have been started to begin with.

In fact, one of the most important roles of the BKPM is to force early failure. If a project’s wrong-headed, destined to fail, too expensive, not worth the risk, or otherwise problematic, killing the project before it gets underway is arguably a good thing. It saves money, avoids damage to organizational (and individual) reputations, and above all, allows the organization and the customer to discover the right project, and do that instead.

Don’t you want your project manager to tell you when that’s the case? Failure, in this sense, should be considered a victory for everyone concerned. Failing early is dramatically cheaper and better than failing late, after all the money, time, and effort has been sunk.

The Bare Knuckled Project Manager’s (BKPM) role at the beginning of any project is to determine if the goals are clear and doable and the project is strategically alligned, the budget and resources are sufficient, and the implementation team is capable of performing the necessary work. If that’s not the case, either the situation has to change or the project needs to stop then and there until the situation is resolved.

One might argue that the highest order of business for a BKPM is preventing project failure. Whether the project never leaves the docks (stopped before the failure can be damaging) or makes it to the New World (achieves meaningful success even if the success isn’t what was originally defined), by hook or by crook the BKPM can say, “Yes, that was ugly – but we designed it that way.” This is a powerful statement indeed.

When you stack up the cost of hiring an outstanding BKPM against the cost of letting an ill-conceived project burn through money and resources, it’s clear that no matter how much a BKPM costs (and they don’t come cheap), it’s a bargain.

This was excerpted from Bare Knuckled Project Management; how to succeed at every project (Gruebl, Welch & Dobson, Gameplan Press, 2013) available for download - Smashwords or Amazon. 

Feel free to call Jeff Welch or me at Think at 410.235.3600 to learn more about how to use BKPM to succeed in every project.