Even With The Greatest Attempts, Projects Can Fail. Projects

In order to manage the project and the team successfully a communication plan should be set to ease the flow of information among the project team members as indicated by A. & C. Black “in your role as team leader it is your responsibility to get everyone pulling in the same direction “and this can happen when you set some elements like free flow of information, open communication, frequent feedback, meetings and building up a listening culture. (A & C Black 2007) Below is sample of communications styles and frequency should be used throughout the project.

In an organization, it is of utmost importance to have clear communication channels between the various departments that are functioning. In the absence of proper communication, there will be lack of clarity in thought and action. Once a project is taken up, managers across both the teams involved need to communicate adequately the strategies to be followed, the implementation and the possible issues that could arise in the future in order to ensure that the deliverables are met within the timelines.

There are multiple reasons why projects fail. Memorial Health System undertook a major investment by spending millions of dollars to implement an enterprise-wide clinician provider order entry (CPOE) system. In order to avoid losing money and the confidence of its stakeholders, leadership and the CIO may have had the opportunity to choose a different approach. There are least five indicators that a project might be ready to fail including failure to engage stakeholders, poor project leadership, unclear goals and vision, inability to track and manage a project, and inadequate planning.

The very successful project manager will be cool under pressure situation, will not panic and will solve the problems with great solution calmly.

Despite efforts to improve the ways of project management, the success rate has not significantly changed over a period of time. In that case there is a need to understand why projects fail. The underlying reason behind is the tendency of humans to react to a particular situation that would bring an entire shift in the work being carried out.

In many studies and reports, project successes tend to be measured against the prescribed schedule, cost and performance. In reality, project success measurement should be against projects constraints and the operational readiness status of the business environment. The combination of the two will assist in efficiently using the product or service as intended.

• • • • • • clearly defined goals excellent communication management involvement definitive timelines Project management skills S.M.A.R.T Objectives.

Effective project manager have the good competencies in human resource management. They normally demonstrate a good ability to gain cooperation, resolve the conflicts and influence others (Boyatzis, 1982; goodings, 1999, Potter, 2001). Normally in the team of a project, it consist of two subordinate; those who are already in the company and those who have abilities that help on the project that are working on and are temporary attached. It is very normal that these teams and different working style and will have conflicts. A good leader will make constant team building and discussion to resolve this. This is also another competencies related to the leader which are the team-building skills.

Failure of IT projects has plagued the IT industry since the introduction of automated systems into

There are many causes of project failure and every failed project will have its own set of issues. Sometimes it is a single trigger event that leads to failure, but more often than not, it is a complex entwined set of problems that combine and cumulatively result in failure. In case of Avon, though implementation of SMT model was a the next logic step which would give a tremendous boost to its direct marketing structure, there were some pretty drastic errors made which led to catastrophic failure of the project. The prime causes of failure in case of Avon were:

The research on project management has been studied for decades. Many scholars and managers put great efforts into finding out what can influence project success. Through their continuing work and precious experiences, what factors dominate the success of projects is well documented in literature. The use of these guide texts can help project managers to deal with difficult tasks. Moreover, it is unanimous consensus that project critical success factors are necessary for management team to achieve project objectives and ensure success. If they are well considered and addressed, then it is more likely that a project would have more successful outcomes. On the other hand, if these factors are not rigorously taken into account,

Meredith (2006) mentioned that selecting a project manager is one of the two most important decision concerning the project. He mentioned the project manager should have credibility and sensitivity. However, in other books mentioned that PM not only should have credibility and sensitivity but also vision, courage, integrity, and discipline

• To what extent, the role of the control mechanism involved in IT projects failures?

In order to achieve their business objective, project management and the used methodology are key factor which will be responsible for the success or failure of this project.

In some situation, a system too large to build without an overall plan that coordinates the people working on it. According to Sharon Florentine, senior writer of CIO.com, 50 percent of businesses experience IT project fail in 2012. The most common reason, responded by 74 percent of interviewees, is a lack of resources to meet project demands [4]. Three years later, the failure number increased that 55 percent of businesses surveyed experienced an IT project failure within last 12 months [5].