Why Projects Fail: Part Three, Wrong Targets

Over the past three years we have conducted extensive research into over 60 projects to discover their delivered value, and what caused the loss in value from that envisaged by the organization. This research found that every project was focused on the wrong targets

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Project Manager's take away

Talk to the organization as to its measures of success for your project. If you're getting "single financial system" type replies, take them through the "Why is that important to you?" questioning process, and from the answers ask them to define what "success" will look like. This defines what they really want from your project.

This does not mean you need to deliver each and every aspect of the definitions of success, but you can now sit down with your Project Sponsor and discuss how much of this new definition of the business's desired outcomes the project will deliver and how much the organization will deliver. But having defined the true measures of success, the right targets, all work within the project and the organization can be focused on achieving these measures of success.

NB The average project has between 8 and 12 such "desired business outcomes" measures of success.

To read Jed's second column, Why Projects Fail: Part Two, Poor Business Requirements, click here

Jed Simms is CIO magazine's weekly project management columnist. Simms, founder of projects and benefits delivery research firm Capability Management, is also the developer of specialized project management and project governance Web site www.project-sponsor.com