Why Projects Fail, Part 1

At JCA, we do project work for nonprofit organizations.  We’ve been doing it for more than 20 years for hundreds of nonprofit organizations.  I’ve been doing this work personally with JCA for the last 11 years.  I’ve been involved in a lot of projects, both as a participant and a leader.  I’ve seen success and I’ve seen failure (is that a James Taylor song?).  Every project teaches me something about how to make them succeed, but I must admit, I’ve learned more from the failures than from the successes.  As our COO Steve Birnbaum says, “A barrel of ‘attaboys!’ don’t add up to one ’aw crap.’”

Talking about why projects fail is nothing new.  There are many articles and blogs on the topic, most of which say the same basic thing, and I encourage you to read them.  Most of them are right, and I may repeat a few of those things here.  My goal is to share with you, over the course of this three-part series, what I’ve learned running projects at nonprofits across the country.  There are so many reasons a project might fail, and it’s never the same one for all, but here are some things to think about.

What is project failure?
Failure is such an ugly word.  I hate to use it.  I thought about using something less pejorative.  My thesaurus options included: bomb, collapse, defeat, downfall, fiasco, nose-dive…none of those are much better.  How about faux pas?  Nah.  Let’s be honest and call it what it is: failure.  So, what is it?  If you can answer yes to one or more of the following questions, you might have a failed project.

• Did it take much longer than it was supposed to?
• Did it cost a lot more than it was supposed to?
• Did it not meet the stated project objectives?
• Do the stakeholders think it failed?

Why do projects fail?
There are lots of reasons projects fail, big and little.  But, in my experience, you can boil it down to a few basic reasons.

Because they are hard
The one thing I rarely read about when it comes to project failure is acknowledging that projects are hard.  Projects are hard, and the bigger they are the harder they are.  Let’s use a new fundraising CRM system implementation as an example.  What the organization is getting ready to do is to completely replace its core business tool.  Every single thing the organization does will be affected.  This system is the sole repository for the life blood of the organization.  A project like this asks its staff to learn completely new business processes.  I am no expert in psychology, but based on my experience, teaching old dogs new tricks doesn’t come to most people intuitively.  Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot to be excited about in a new project.  After doing this for 11 years, I still get excited when we are starting a new project.  But know that you are getting ready to do something that is unusual and has as many psychological implications as it does technical.  It’s okay that projects are hard.  It’s not okay if you weren’t expecting them to be hard.

Project management violates social norms
Most of the articles I’ve read about why projects fail say that the plan was not good enough.  Amen!  I couldn’t agree more!  If you don’t do the planning right, you will fail.  But that seems obvious, no?  That’s like saying “the reason you gained weight is because you ate too much and you didn’t exercise.”  We already knew that and yet, still, most of us don’t do it.  If it were as simple as pointing out that people don’t plan enough, all projects would succeed.  But that is not the case.

So why don’t people plan enough? To explain this, I’ll need a bit more time than we have for today. Stay tuned for Why Projects Fail, Part 2.

Steve Beshuk is Director of Strategic Initiatives at Jacobson Consulting Applications, Inc. (JCA)
JCA provides strategic consulting to the world’s leading nonprofits.