Five Steps To avoid Project failure

In a competitive business world today, Project failure happens more frequently than we normally think. Some failure leads to analysis and learning, others initiate a blame wave in the organization. The failure is expensive; it costs time, energy, money and customer confidence. Too many failures can derail the growth engine from the track for ever.

One can avoid failure by following five simple steps:

1. Understand the customer:
It is said Customer is the king. Whenever we go to a king, we have to look at his long term success. King may be in hurry some times. Consultative selling demands to understand what the king is looking for, looking at his explicit and implicit requirements; provides a suitable solution. One should look at long term proposition and customer success. It is important to understand the Critical success Factors (CSF) of the engagement. Once you understand the CSF’s, work out your strategy to address all CSF’s. Sometimes, people get tempted to see money on the table and try to take what customer has budgeted even though the solution may be much lower than what is available on the table. This does not help in long run. If you want customer confidence, better be truthful to his purpose and long term goal, and help him realize his long term goals. You will emerge victorious and forge an everlasting relationship.

2. Manage Requirement effectively:
A solid Requirement elicitation is like constructing a solid foundation for a building. A tall building cannot stand unless the foundation is very strong. Many times we compromise on requirement capturing phase. Domain knowledge, skills in unearthing requirements and differentiating explicit and implicit requirements are important skills to be invested in requirement capturing phase. One may follow any suitable practice. It is important to capture, understand, communicate and validate requirements with customer. Any compromise at this stage costs heavily and contributes towards project failure.

3. Communicate Clearly:
Marriages break due to lack of communication. So is the project. It is important to identify stakeholders in any project and work out communication plan. The progress, challenges and successes should be communicated transparently. Communication helps in building confidence in project team, helps in identifying potential problem at an early stage and come up with appropriate solution. Communicate, communicate and communicate…

4. Manage by doing basics right:
I have done many project reviews. Whenever I get complicated answers for my questions, I assume that the guy has not understood the issues. He is shooting in dark. If you do the basics right, you will succeed. The basics have to be very simple and to be understood by each stake holders. Jargon complicates and basic solves. Just to give an example if you could set up simple processes for unit testing, code review, design and requirement review you are bound to succeed. Do not look for compliance, look for basic steps, are they being followed? Ask how reviews are done? If you get simple steps, you are done. Success will greet you.

5. Manage Team Skills:
Software Projects are resource intensive. They need skilled resources. In an ever growing market, getting resources with particular skill set is a herculean task. I have rarely seen a perfect fit for all required skills and team skills in any project. Therefore, it is important to follow a simple step of doing a skill gap and plan for bridging the gap. This helps immensely. You can’t have perfect situation. Work with what you have and deliver the best.

If these five simple steps are followed, the project failure can be avoided. It is simple, it works.