Why Projects Fail: A Root Cause

January 5th, 2012Project Management 1 Comment

December 2011 from Project Times – “…In a recent webinar, Joseph Grenny hypothesized that the root cause underlying these and other problems in projects is failure to effectively hold crucial conversations.  It is the Abilene Paradox in action, where silence or avoiding difficult confrontations robs the project team and its organization of the ability to either avoid the causes of failures or to catch the causes early in their life to turn the project around or end it when that is appropriate…”

180 View – Interesting perspective but I don’t think it’s possible to have a root cause for project failures. There are as many causes to failure as there are different kinds of people. However encouraging the project team to express their concerns is a very good idea. More than that, I would encourage project managers to seek out the naysayers and ask them for their opinion about the risks, probability, impact and most importantly what should be done about the risks.

One Response to “Why Projects Fail: A Root Cause”

  1. January 5th, 2012 at 4:35 pm
    Malcolm Roach Says:

    My thoughts are that the root cause of most project faiures is due to a lack of appropriate and timely communication. I think that this really is at the heart of the point that the Project Times is trying to make. With proper communication almost any problem will come to the surface and after that it is pretty much a lack of political will or discipline that affects the ability to successfully resolve the issue.

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