Generally, the symptoms of failures start becoming visible in the Information Technology Projects after the project is started and many times, only during the mid-stage or thereafter.  However the seeds for the failures are mostly seeded even before the project is started.    So there is a need to analyse the projects, before we get in, keeping in mind, the potential risks that could happen during the execution of the project and that becomes the subject of this post.

Let us try to create a checklist of points which could help us to identify the potential causes for failures at the time of  project evaluation stage and see how we can take suitable precautions to avoid those pitfalls.

In Line with the organisations’s core strategy

Every organisation has some core business strategies and the successful companies spend most of their energy only in the agreed strategies.      If the proposed project is not in line with any of their core strategies, then there is a very high possibility for the project to be a failure, as the project will not attract management support and the company will not have the capacity or competency, from the resources perspective, to see the project through.

Project Size

The project size plays a key part in the success of the project.  If the project is too small, then the resources, available time and the management attention will be relatively small  and sometimes, the project gets unnoticed.  In some cases, there is no time to recover if something goes wrong in the first place.   Sometimes the failure of such projects throw such a bad publicity, it would be better off, not taking part in such projects.   At the same time, if the project is too big, more than what the project team or the organisation can chew, then it becomes a showcase for failure for incompetency, mismanagement and cost overrun.   The recommendation would be that the new project is within plus or minus 20% of the average size of the projects that were handled previously by the organisation.

Future Potential / Expansion

All projects will have some scope for future expansion and the projects with lot more scope for future expansion, get higher level of attention, involvement and motivation from the project team and the management.   With involvement, generally, the quality of the work gets improved and the project gets completed with sufficient laurels.   Also future potential and expansion give a longer term stability to the project team.   So projects with no or minimal future potential, will have no supporters, to generate the required momentum for completion.

Adoption of new technology and products  

While undertaking a project with a full set of new technology and products throw a huge risk, a project with known technology and proven products could offer least thrill and excitement to the team.     The project that provides scope for learning some new technology and newer products is always welcomed by the team and gives enough source of motivation for the team to make the project a success.

Efforts needed to start the project 

If a project takes more time and efforts to start, it generally loses the charm and interest for the management and the project team.  Such long delay to start the project, would always give an impression to the outside world, that the project has been going on for a long time without much results.  Similarly such projects would have consumed majority of the resources upfront, leaving limited resources and energy for rest of the project.

Special horses 

Apart from the above significant points, there are some other factors which are important to specific stakeholders, like

• higher value-add to a specific stakeholder of the project, in the social, economic, political or environmental front
• Gross Margin to the organisation undertaking the project
• the value-add to the project team members, like the project at preferred location
• immediate deployment opportunity to a chargeable project for the existing resources who are on bench
• the proportion of products and services to balance the offerings of the organsiastion, etc.

These factors are the special horses that could get additional momentum along the project life cycle and may be helping the project team members to be winners.

Be a Winner, by cherry picking your project !

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