An Emerging Trend of Commitments Missed

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  The team is missing key milestones, going over budgets, and neglecting other commitments.
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  Past and current performance serve as good indicators of future results.
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  If the team continues to struggle with meeting milestones and other obligations, improvement will only happen if some intervention takes place, such as reorganizing, reducing scope, or changing leadership.

The best indicator of future performance is past performance.

Too Many Requirements and Intermediaries

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  Many projects include and consume too many requirements. The quantity of requirements influences the size of the project.
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  Defer or drop requirements that do not align with essential business needs.
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  Prioritize delivering capabilities that include the essential requirements first.
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  Add and refine capabilities and requirements through quick follow-up releases based on real-world use and experience.
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  Avoid relying on knowledge intermediaries for communication. There's a risk of losing knowledge in translation. By going to the right source, requirements come to light quickly and become clear.

Consider the following statistics from industry research:

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  Requirement problems cause over 50% of project rework.
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  The likelihood of project failure and issues rises as project size grows. Projects with budgets over $10 million have a 7% chance of success—achieving the business case.
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  Seventy percent of projects fail because of poor requirements.
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  More than half of requirements go unused.

Fuzzy Outcome and Scope

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  Business outcomes are not clearly defined.
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  The scope is unclear and lacks measurable criteria.
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  The project is not meeting business expectations and commitments.
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  Team members, leaders, and constituents often struggle to deliver a 30-second "elevator speech" that effectively captures the essence of their 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 long-term effects of overworking team members—turnover, increased errors, low morale, health issues, etc.
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  Team members are instructed not to report the actual time spent on work tasks.

Low Morale

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  Team morale is suffering because of poor teamwork and communication. If these issues aren't addressed, expect ongoing unpleasant surprises.
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  The team realizes that the commitments set are not achievable, also known as a "death march."
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  Team members often lack respect for one another. Always treat others professionally, just as you would want to be treated.
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  Disagreement and conflict are swept under the table. Team members take feedback too personally. It's just business. Nothing should be taken personally, and team members should never personalize feedback. Leaders must make tough decisions to ensure project success.

Too Many Changes

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  Too many project changes happen without proper discussion and review.
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  The absence of a formal change process becomes clear early in a project's life cycle. Ineffective scope change management causes project scope to grow unnecessarily, leading to excessive additions and modifications to project plans, budgets, and schedules.
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  As a project approaches deployment, change and stability are conflicting forces. The more change occurs, especially later in a project's lifecycle, the less stable its solution becomes.

No Fact-based Plan

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  The plan is designed to meet unrealistic leadership expectations.
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  Absence of clear project direction.
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  There is no clear and simple project plan and schedule. Have you ever been lost? A lot of time and money is wasted trying to find your way.
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  A plan exists. However, it relies on too many assumptions, isn't measurable, and keeps changing. Eventually, your project might collapse like a house of cards.

Poor Risk, Issue, and Decision Resolution

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  Risks, issues, and decisions continue to accumulate without resolution.
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  Issues are not being surfaced and addressed promptly. Beware of project meetings that fail to discuss problems and risks. Troubles are just around the corner.
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  If things aren’t going well, don’t assume they will get better on their own and without difficulty.
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  Lack of timely reporting, escalation, or active management of risks, issues, and decisions leads to unexpected budget and schedule changes.
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  Inability to make timely decisions, such as failing to respond to issues and warning signs, adds to project costs and delays.
  

No Bad News

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  There is no 'bad news' being shared. All projects face challenges; they encounter issues, problems, and unexpected events at some stage. The goal is to identify these as early as possible so that the right corrective actions can be taken to save money, time, and ultimately, the project.
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  Project managers sometimes postpone or skip project release meetings to gain more time for delivering bad news.
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• Don't be overly optimistic. Every project presents its own challenges and issues. Approach the project with awareness. Notice something, hear something, do something--TAKE ACTION.

Team Turnover

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  Team resource turnover happens when resources are reassigned to other projects or activities, or when team members leave voluntarily due to excessive overtime, lack of support, poor teamwork, or unrealistic commitments and expectations.
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  Address this by mentoring team members' behavior.
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  Replace team leaders with people-oriented leaders who understand that people are key to 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, especially late in a project, saps the productivity of team members.

Poor Leadership Behaviors

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  Leader indifference: Executives, team members, and key stakeholders show little interest in the project. Poor sponsorship, a lack of buy-in and engagement from participants, skipping meetings, not participating in discussions, and an inability to make timely decisions illustrate indifference.
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  A weak or poorly explained business case could be the underlying reason for indifference.
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  Leaders meddle in project minutiae. Get out of the way and let the team succeed!
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  Take swift action to seek critical leadership and constituent involvement.
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  Business acumen is crucial for achieving successful project outcomes.
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  Poor sponsorship, lack of buy-in, and low-quality engagement from constituents undermine projects.

Poor Organization

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  Poor role definition, including the lack of a single point of accountability or responsibility for outcomes, such as having multiple project managers.
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  Inexperience or a lack of skills, such as a weak project manager who struggles to handle conflict effectively, or insufficient staffing from either business or IT.
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  Inexperienced staff learning through trial and error.
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  Lack of commitment, such as IT and partner teams' unwillingness to make commitments on schedule, estimates, etc.
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  Lack of clear and persuasive project benefits.

Lack of Process Discipline

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  Poor management of scope, risk, issues, decisions, requirements, deliverables, agreements or statements of work, and vendors leads to project failures.
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  Commitments are never documented. Remember, you won't receive it unless it's in writing.