Warning Signs that Your Project May Be in Declining Health

All projects encounter challenges. Many become troubled. Some ultimately will fail. And others become headline-worthy fiascos.

A key to successful project outcomes is identifying challenges or trouble early and taking corrective action before your budget, schedule, quality, and credibility are negatively impacted.

Before you can recover from trouble, face and accept reality. The first step to recovery is to accept that your project has a problem. Recognize, accept, and swiftly deal with it.

An Emerging Trend of Commitments Missed

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The team is missing key milestones, exceeding budgets, and neglecting other commitments.
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Past and current performance is a good indicator of future performance.
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If the team struggles with meeting milestones and other obligations, it will not improve unless some intervention occurs, e.g., reorganizing, reducing scope, changing leadership, etc.

The best indicator of future performance is past performance.

Too Many Requirements and Intermediaries

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Many projects commit to and consume too many requirements. The number of requirements drives project size.
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Requirements not aligned with vital business needs.
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Focus on delivering capabilities comprised of the vital few requirements first.
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Add and refine capabilities and requirements based on actual use and experience.
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Avoid using knowledge intermediaries to communicate requirements. There's a risk that knowledge may be lost in translation. If you go to the right source, requirements quickly surface and become known.

Consider the following statistics from industry research:

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Requirement problems cause 50+% percent of project rework.
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The probability of project failure and trouble increases with project size. Projects with budgets exceeding $10 million have a 7% chance of success--achieve business case.
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Seventy percent of projects fail due to poor requirements.
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Fifty+ percent of requirements go unused.

Fuzzy Outcome and Scope

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Business outcomes aren't explicit.
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The scope isn't crystal clear and lacks quantifiable measures.
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The project is falling short of business expectations and commitments.
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Team members, leaders, and constituents struggle with a 30-second "elevator speech" describing the essence of your project.

Team Incurring Excessive Overtime

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Team members work a lot of overtime, which may or may not help save a project.
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Remember the longer-term impact of grinding team members—turnover, increased errors, low morale, health issues, etc.
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Team members are told not to report the actual time incurred on work tasks.

Low Morale

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Team morale is low due to a lack of teamwork and poor communication. If this isn't corrected, be ready for continuous unpleasant surprises.
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The team realizes the commitments established are not attainable, aka a "death march."
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Team members don't show any respect for each other. Always treat others professionally, like you would want others to treat you.
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Disagreement and conflict swept under the table. Team members take feedback too personally. It's business. Nothing should get personal, and team members should never take anything personally. Leaders must make tough decisions to salvage project success.

Too Many Changes

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Too many project changes occur without proper discussion and vetting.
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The lack of a formal change process is evident early in a project's life cycle. Poor scope change management bloats project size, resulting in many unnecessary additions and changes to project plans, budgets, and schedules.
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As a project nears deployment, change and stability are opposing forces. The more change happens, particularly late in a project's life, the less stable its solution will be.

No Fact-based Plan

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The plan is molded to unattainable leadership expectations.
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Lack of clear project direction.
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A concise and understandable project plan and schedule are lacking. Have you ever been lost? Lots of time and money is spent trying to find the way.
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A plan exists. However, it's based on too many assumptions, isn't measurable, and is constantly changing. At some point, your project may collapse like a house of cards.

Poor Risk, Issue, and Decision Resolution

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Risks, issues, and decisions keep piling up without resolution.
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Issues are not being surfaced and resolved promptly. Beware of project meetings that do not discuss problems and risks. Troubles are right around the corner.
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If things aren’t going well, don’t assume they will improve without intervention and pain.
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No timely reporting, escalation, or active management of risks, issues, and decisions results in surprise budget and schedule changes.
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Inability to make timely decisions, e.g., failure to respond to issues, warning signs, etc., adds to project cost and schedule.

No Bad News

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No “bad news” is being communicated. All projects have bad news. They encounter challenges, problems, and unforeseen circumstances at some point. The objective is to identify those as early as possible so the proper correction options can be implemented to save money, time, and, ultimately, the project.
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Project managers sometimes delay or skip project release meetings to buy more time for packaging lousy news.
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Don’t be over-optimistic. Every project has its challenges and problems. Participate in the project with open eyes. See something, hear something, DO SOMETHING.

Team Turnover

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Turnover of team resources occurs when resources are pulled to work on other projects or activities or team members leave on their own accord due to excessive overtime, disregard for team members, poor teamwork, and unattainable commitments and expectations.
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Fix this by mentoring team members' behavior.
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Replace team leaders with people-oriented team leaders who recognize that people are a primary determinant of project success.
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The unresolved or underlying conflict between teams or individuals dooms most projects.
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Onboarding new people saps the productivity of team members.

Poor Leadership Behaviors

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Leader indifference: Executives, team members, and key stakeholders do not seem interested in the project. Poor sponsorship, a lack of buy-in and engagement from constituents, skipping meetings, not engaging in discussions, and an inability to make timely decisions demonstrate indifference.
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A poor or poorly communicated business case could be the root cause of indifference.
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Leaders meddle in project minutia. Get out of the way and let the team achieve!
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Take immediate action to solicit critical leadership and constituent engagement.
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Business acumen is essential to achieve successful project outcomes.
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Poor sponsorship and lack of buy-in and quality engagement from constituents destroy projects.

Poor Organization

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Poor role definition, including lack of a single point of accountability or responsibility for outcomes, e.g., multiple project managers.
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Inexperience or a lack of skills, e.g., a weak project manager who doesn't address conflict or a lack of proper staffing from business or IT.
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Inexperienced staff learning by trial and error.
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Lack of commitment, e.g., IT and partner teams unwillingness to make commitments on schedule, estimates, etc.
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Lack of clear and compelling project benefits.

Lack of Process Discipline

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Poor scope management, risk management, issue management, decision management, requirements management, deliverable management, agreement or statement of work management, and vendor management enable project fiascos.
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Commitments are never put in writing. Remember, you won't get it if it's not in writing.