Top 10 Reasons for Project Failure and How to Avoid them Easily

Have you ever faced your project failure? You may know the feeling if you are a project manager or you have worked for a project that is not successful. This type of unwanted situation happens for multiple mistakes. 

Each year, around the world lots of organizations or companies face astronomical project failure rates. Often they waste millions of dollars per unsuccessful project. Thus most enterprises hire an expensive consultant to recover that failed project. 

Below we have listed the top 10 reasons for project failure. Also, we have shared our insight and possible solutions. If you read till the bottom of the article you will find some reputed industries who have failed for the same reasons as beneath. 

10 Common Reasons for Project Failure You Must Know

Before starting, we want to ensure that all the reasons are listed after observing different types of projects. Each of them has a real investigation. You may relate to any of it if you have such kind of experience in your life. So, read the points very carefully.

1. Poor Project Planning

Your success rate in a project largely depends on the planning of the project. The project manager has to take responsibility to create effective and strong planning. 

Generally, project planning is used to classify distinct parts such as human resources, technical team, advertisement, management of the team, etc. 

You need a precise vision of what you are doing, how to execute each task and what should be the final look of the project. Therefore, poor project planning leads to project failure and your all efforts go to the drain. Perhaps, you may also fail to meet the expectations of your company as well as the customers.  

2. Miserable Budget Planning

Before starting any project, the project manager should estimate all the costs and determine the source from where she /he will get the fund. It's a crucial duty of him/her to complete the project successfully.

A project that is 10% less or over the budget is doing well. But, if your budget overrun like 40-50% then you should be aware of it.

So, how can you keep the cost estimation between 10% over or less? Well, you have to Keen, do weekly oversight, review every sector of the specific project, re-analyzing, or re-planning. And most importantly, you must educate the team.

3. Deficiency of Resources or Requirements

There must be some requirements for running a project. The presence of the exact quantity of resources is important here as well as the quality.

In that case, the project manager has to define how much human resources he/ she needs to accomplish the aim. Suppose that, the project needs an experienced web developer. And, after recruiting a new employee, the person can not take responsibility properly then the project can fail. So, the project will face difficulties in the long run. 

On the other hand, besides resources, you must ensure an accurate amount of requirements. It could be gadgets, furniture, or anything else to operate a project smoothly. 

4. Using the Unpracticed Tools or Techniques

Another important requirement of a project is good tools and techniques. Most of the project managers or team leaders use unpractised techniques at the starting point. So, the team members have to manage along with the regular project responsibilities.

In that case, the project may not launch at the preferred time and do not get the expected response. Therefore, team members must use the right project management tool and spend some time with it before starting the project.

5. Weak Project Management

Suppose you have a project with decent staff, proper planning, an accurate amount of resources, specific scheduling, and other supports but till you have failed. So there is a chance that you haven't managed all the sectors precisely.

Again this failure will be upon a project manager because this person is called in a company to run the project successfully. After having all the requirements and resources as required, the only reason to fail is poor project management. 

6. Bad Controlling and Monitoring

Two of the most important responsibility of a project manager are monitoring and controlling the whole process. The proper governance according to the plan can lead to the success of a project. The lack of monitoring or controlling can lead the situations as below- 

• Not completing between the estimated time
• Degraded the quality of the delivered task
• Company development will decrease
• Customer dissatisfaction

7. User Engagement Deficiency

If a project is aiming to develop any product then it must engage with the users or buyers. The project manager has to look after the people who will establish a business by using the product. 

During the project life-cycle, the customer should be joined. Their feedbacks are helpful to increase the success ratio. The main motto of a project must be satisfying the consumers fully. 

8. Inexperienced Project Supervisor

The main objective of every project manager is to complete the project successfully. No one wants to place a bad reputation in the career record. But, the failure project always points to the project manager. 

Before starting a project the capability of the project manager should be testified. Make sure that the selected person has enough knowledge about how a project can win and stay at the top of the market.

9. Insufficient Communication

The manager needs to be transparent with his/ her entire team. Whether it is a project or personal life sufficient communication plays a vital role. Without this element, your whole process may lead to a murky area.

Research of the Project Management Institute says, “Ineffective communication hurt successful project execution”

The outcome of a project should be imagined by a project manager. So, the manager can lead the team according to the goal with lots of communication.

10. Shortage of Team Planning Session

A project manager may be a super expert in every sector but for establishing a project the project team members should also participate while planning. Everyone must build a bond while working together. And, that's possible if the team planning session is held rapidly. 

The planning session can lead to some successful ideas regarding the project. All these need to be monitored by the project manager. 

Project Failure in World Famous Organizations

Here is the fun part of this article. Right now, we will introduce some famous companies around the world who had failed for their wrong or poor project management.

Sony Betamax

In the mid-1970s, Sony launched a cassette recording device known as Betamax. Unfortunately, it missed the market share to JVC’s VHS technology. But they didn't quit and continue making Betamax tapes until 2016. After a certain time, people got relevant to this device but till then most of us didn't know that it is producing regularly. 

What Can We Learn

Sony has struggled to establish its product because it hadn't any proper planning for the project. Betamax could be a successful project if Sony ran multiple campaigns all around the tech world. 

New Coke

In 1985, Coca-Cola unveiled New Coke after testing a new recipe on 200,000 people. They found a number of customers are loving this new test. Doesn't it sound like a great move? But unfortunately, most of the people didn't like to move from old-fashioned Coca-Cola. This company lost $4 million in development and $30 million in the back-stocked product that they couldn't sell.   

What Can We Learn

Here we can see they had done some insights. But, the question is, were they reliable and authentic? Before re-launching anything you have to do more customer insights than a new one. So you should gather accurate and realistic information according to the project. 

Polaroid Instant Home Movies

In 1977, a video recorder came, named Polavision. This device could record videos and take some minutes to develop and people could watch it immediately. Yes, it sounds silly for today's world but for that time it was a great innovation.

The feature of the video recorder sounds so cool! But the result was bitter. You could only record two-and-a-half minutes, lack of sound, and couldn't watch on regular TV. Thus the project lasted for two years only.  

What Can We Learn

There is no doubt that Polavision was a revolutionary product. But it failed when it couldn't develop marketing requirements. Before starting you have to gather as much knowledge of the current marketplace. 

How Can You Reduce Project Failure Ratio

Project management is a huge duty and at the same time managers have to monitor every team member. In this technological world, you can take help from different Project managing software. What if the software is powered by WordPress, isn't it easy to monitoring then? 

Well, introducing a smart manager for your every project. WordPress Project Manager is a simple yet powerful open-source Project Management. Project Management is the key to triumphantly and efficiently handle every task that requires to be completed in a project. You can be more productive after using this WordPress plugin.

Minimizing the Project Failure Rate Taking Necessary Steps

In our life failure may happen sometimes. You have to learn from those unpleasant events. And never repeat the same mistake twice. Prepare yourself fitly to avoid project failure. Don't bother yourself if you have the bitter experience of project failure.

As a project manager keep learning from your previous mistakes and also check our listed points before starting a new project.

We will suggest you use a user-friendly interface and web-based task management which enables the team member to do the task effectively and timely. In a nutshell, the project manager can overview and provide different tasks to several members within just a few clicks. Therefore, the WP Project Manager can be a great option as a solution to your every problem.