Training Precedes Project Integrity
January 14th, 2003 by HalHank Winters, gantthead.com, penned two articles on The Top 10 Reasons Projects Fail (Part One). He identified the top reason as Inadequately trained and/or inexperienced project managers. Surprise…people took exception to that! Read his follow-up in Part Two.
I think Winters is right. Only I will be more specific: projects fail due to neglect. That neglect results in projects drifting out of integrity. Who neglects? Certainly it is the project manager, but why stop there? Most team members are in the position to notice the inconsistency of words and deeds. If they notice, then where are they speaking about it (because we know they are speaking about it)?
- The meeting after the meeting?
- The conversation in the hallway?
- The side comment in an email message?
- The conversation with the trusted colleague?
These conversations move the project further out of integrity.
We need everyone in a position to notice to take action. This is where I agree with Winters. It is due to poor training that our projects managers and their teams are not noticing the inconsistencies and taking appropriate action. We need to set this as a standard on our projects:
We will do those things we say we will do, or we will take action to rectify the situation whenever we stray.
Let's use the up-coming Project Integrity Day to learn how to take action.
BTW, Tom Mochal at Builder.com offers a different perspective in Project failures are less common than you think. Both authors reference the same Standish Group's findings. In their 1998 report, The Standish Group cited the success rate for that year was only 26 percent. Mochal contends because project schedules and budgets are set arbitrarily and scope changes we need to give ourselves some slack when declaring success or failure. Still, projects do fail and Winters' Top Ten list is a great way to understand why.
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January 15th, 2003 at 2:15 pm
Thanks Joe. :+:
January 15th, 2003 at 4:16 pm
I have a fundamental difference with Hank Winters on project management training for IT, and what is important for achieving project success. Virtually all the training he points to advocates scope definition, front end specifications, and specification tracking. This approach does not recognize, let alone address, the basic problem with software projects – that is, early, detailed specification is the wrong approach for any but the most routine development. Premature specification in software development leads to excess features, customer dissatisfaction and brittle systems that resist future change.
In my opinion, the standard mantra about how to train project managers is precisely what leads to a large number of software project failures.
Mary Poppendieck
January 15th, 2003 at 4:44 pm
Mary, I couldn’t have said it better. :+: However we both agree with his conclusion on poorly trained project managers. We’d just teach a different approach.
January 28th, 2003 at 4:01 am
Buck,
Please send me an email. I’d like to discuss this further with you.
Thanks