Completing a project postmortem can help teams avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. In this post I will review a project I was part of in the role of developer, and a sort of co-project manager.
For more than 50 years project manager and project success has typically been defined by the common image of the Iron Triangle. The three corners of the triangle include budget, schedule and quality. Yet these are not the only way to measure project success (Atkinson, 1999). I project that I worked on a few years ago was a success by these three common criteria. However, it was widely viewed as a failure by upper management. The main reason is that even though we met the schedule, kept within approved budget limits, and produced a product the customers loved; it did not result in the long-term revenue that management was looking for.
For more than 50 years project manager and project success has typically been defined by the common image of the Iron Triangle. The three corners of the triangle include budget, schedule and quality. Yet these are not the only way to measure project success (Atkinson, 1999). I project that I worked on a few years ago was a success by these three common criteria. However, it was widely viewed as a failure by upper management. The main reason is that even though we met the schedule, kept within approved budget limits, and produced a product the customers loved; it did not result in the long-term revenue that management was looking for.
By including long-term revenue in the success criteria,
management stakeholders virtually guaranteed the project would be a failure. An
extensive project plan included the assessment that these revenue goals would
not be met. It was clear to most of the team (including the project manager) from
the outset, that the stakeholders responsible for the marketing, sales, and
business plan of the project, were not sufficiently motivated, or adequately
skilled for the task. These specific risks were not included in the project
plan for political reasons.
This type of organizational culture is a frequent cause of
project management problems and projects being viewed as failures (Atkinson, 1999).
This project was actually Phase 2 of a longer-term strategy. Because of problems
during Phase 1, the project management team was far more proactive and on top
of things during Phase 2. The problem however, was that overall corporate and
management culture did not change. The project management team lacked the
authority and the trust of management stakeholders that would enable them to do
their jobs properly. In my opinion however, even a perfect project manager
could not have made this project a success in the eyes of management
stakeholders, as many of those stakeholders simply did not want the project to
succeed. There are probably a variety of reasons for this including fear of
change, and possibly the self-sabotage of failure avoidance, by setting
impossible goals (Ormrod, Schunk, & Gredler, 2009). Of the
organizational biases outlined by Barry Shore (2008), I feel that conservatism
and groupthink were the main factors at play, although sunk costs certainly
were a factor in some decisions.
Sometimes all a PM can do in those circumstances is try to
document everything well enough that they are saddled with as little blame as
possible. Perhaps a knowledgeable enough project manager could have found a senior
manager willing to fight to make the long-term sales the primary measure of
success. If this had been done, it might have been possible to force the rest
of the stakeholders to include having a business plan, customer support team,
and marketing plan, as part of the overall Project Plan and Charter (Brownlee,
2009). As it was, the Charter only covered development aspects. Lacking these
other elements, the project was dead on delivery.
References:
Atkinson, R. (1999). Project management: cost, time and
quality, two best guesses and a phenomenon, it’s time to accept other success
criteria. International Journal of
Project Management, 17(6), 337–342.
Brownlee, D. (2009, Dec 23). The project manager's guide to dealing with difficult sponsors.
ProjectSmart [Web site]. Retrieved from https://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-project-managers-guide-to-dealing-with-difficult-sponsors.php
Ormrod, J., Schunk, D., & Gredler, M.
(2009). Learning theories and
instruction (Laureate custom edition). New York: Pearson.
Shore, B. (2008). Systematic biases and culture in project
failures. Project Management Journal, 39(4),
5–16. https://doi.org/10.1002/pmj.20082
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