1. The Project Lacks Defined Goals And Milestones
Clearly defined goals boost team performance, according to a Leiden University study. And setting milestones helps your team know they’re making progress and keeps motivation from waning, especially when the project takes months or years.
Fix it:
- Many organizations create company-wide and team-specific OKRs, and the same framework can be applied to your project, such as:
Objective: Increase email campaign engagement to support sales initiatives
- Key result 1: A/B test all email subject lines to increase open rate by 10%.
- Key result 2: Invest $1,000 in paid email advertising to boost subscriber count by 10,000 by Q2.
- Key result 3: Spend 20 hours researching and analyzing top-performing CTAs to increase CTR by 5%.
2. There’s No Real Accountability
Gartner analyzed more than 50 IT projects and found that complexity without accountability often leads to project failure.
Increasing the volume and scope of upward reporting will only place more burden on the project and will be unlikely to improve the likelihood of success.
The fix is not to increase oversight. This is also known as micromanaging, and it’s a productivity killer.
Fix it:
- Increase accountability by assigning an owner to each part of the project. By allowing each owner to control the decisions they make, you’re telling them you trust them. You can build accountability in projects managed in KanBan, such as Trello, by adding members to a card or by assigning them tasks within checklists on a card.
- Allowing people to control the decisions and take the responsibilities instead of telling them what to do.
3. Something Went Wrong In The Planning Phase
A proper planning could decrease risk of insufficient resources, poor estimates, and scope changes, those are some of the top contributors to project failure.
- Inaccurate estimates
- Scope creep
- Insufficient resources
Fix it:
- You should consult with experts if possible. Ensure nothing gets missed by creating a visual way to track tasks, project objectives, necessary resources, and timelines. This will make it easier for team members and stakeholders to review and give feedback on the project before you begin the execution.
4. Your Process Can’t Adjust Quickly To Change
Even if you conduct excellent planning, no one can predict the future—and you certainly can’t control everything. How can you adjust to change without ruining the entire project? By expecting change and remaining flexible. And lucky for you, there’s an entire methodology made just for that.
Fix it:
- Agile methodology, it’s a way of getting things built faster and adjusting to changes quickly while the product is still in development. Teams are able to quickly gather feedback during the project, review what they’ve learned, and re-scope as needed before moving on to the next sprint.
Origin: https://blog.trello.com/project-fail?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=trello-May2022-newsletter1
