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What Are The Root Causes of Project Problems and Failure?

3) Project Organization

Well organized projects have a clear chain of command including a project sponsor, steering team, project manager, core team, team leads, business leads, extended core team and subject-matter experts.  Everyone participating on the project knows whom they report to, how they receive their work instructions and project communications and how they report their project progress and issues.  Well organized projects have standard communication paths, techniques and tools.  Projects with poor organization have poor coordination and communication.  They lack a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities.  Information is disseminated sporadically up and down the project team.  Management is not consistently kept informed of project status, resource needs, issues and risks.  Project activities are not well coordinated between working groups, which can significantly delay the schedule, causing cost overruns and frustration.

The project size, location(s) and complexity should be reviewed before establishing the project organization.  At a minimum, all projects, including the smallest and simplest, should have a project manager who reports to a project sponsor and leads a core team.  The core team can have as few as two members. Larger projects with more resources will have more core team members and a steering team led by the project sponsor.  Members of the steering team are generally higher-level management with a vested interest in either the outcome of the project or are contributing significant resources to the project from their departments.  Each member of the steering team will have a corresponding manager or supervisor on the project core team.  The project manager will generally schedule weekly core-team meetings.  Core team members will generally be ‘leads’ (supervisors) over different areas of the project and will communicate information and direction received in the core-team meetings to their teams.  Core team members will generally meet with their corresponding steering team member on a weekly basis to provide a project update and receive guidance.  The project manager will meet with the project sponsor on a regular basis to provide status updates and escalate issues as needed.  On a periodic basis, the project manager and sponsor will meet with the project steering team to provide a formal project status update and receive guidance on the direction of the project.

By establishing a well-defined project organization, the project manager and sponsor will mitigate the risks of poor coordination and communication and significantly improve the chances of success.

Project situations that display symptoms of a lack of project organization include:

1. The project resources don’t know what they are supposed to do next or don’t realize that other tasks are waiting for the completion of their tasks.
2. The project tasks are delayed because it is not clear who owns the tasks – who is the task lead.
3. The project resources continue to work on the wrong tasks or duplicate the work of other project resources because they do not receive clear guidance, coordination or communication.
4. The project team members aren’t sure the project is active as they have not heard anything about the project in several weeks.
5. The project’s issues aren’t resolved and escalation to management doesn’t work.

The Other Causes of Project Problems and Failure 

(FOOD-PARC)

1) Feasibility, 2) Ownership, 3) Organization,  4) Definition, 5) Planning, 6) Alignment, 7) Resources and 8) Control

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