7 Signs A Project Is On Shaky Ground [And What To Do Next]

by Nicki Carruth | Jul 3, 2021 | Project Assurance

If you’re working on a project and not sure whether it’s ‘successful’ or not in its current state, it’s a good idea to do some careful reviewing of where things are at. Without this clarity, project teams run the risk of going further in the wrong direction or missing significant warning signs that could lead to failure – whether that’s budget overrun or incomplete delivery. Through our years working in project assurance and on the ground as project managers, we’ve built up a wealth of knowledge around project warning signs. Part of what we help our clients do is establish what these signs are, and more importantly, what can be done to address issues before they spiral out of control. In this article, we’re going to provide some ‘starter for 10’ project failure signs. But before you read on, we’d suggest conducting our 3 Minute Project Health Check – we guide you through a series of questions, after which you can get a % score of project health and an optional free report…(we’ll wait!). …Okay, welcome back! Let’s jump in:

1. The budget and delivery milestones are out of alignment

Possibly the clearest telltale sign the project isn’t exactly on track is assessing the scheduled deliverables against expenditure to date. A project budget should ideally be paced out to meet these milestones.

A total project budget is important to control, but organisations need to pay special attention to the budget used at each stage. Any overage will have to be offset by reducing the budget for another deliverable if the project is to land on a budget. This can be particularly hard if multiple milestones are delivered over the forecasted costs – we have seen first-hand how difficult it is for project teams to recover from this.

A misalignment may not be due to any shortcomings of the project team. In fact, many overruns are experienced due to unrealistically tight budgets or timeframes set by the wider organisation leadership. And in some cases, there’s scope creep introduced by over-ambitious or enthusiastic stakeholders that the project team is expected to deliver on.

This is why governance around a project is absolutely critical – before a single minute of delivery happens, a project budget, scope and timeframes should be carefully planned out, with contingencies allowing for uncertainty. But once the project is underway, governance should kick in – both at steering level on a regular basis (monthly seems to be the going thing, but it really depends on your project) and through the internal project controls of resource management, budget review and firm adherence to scope.

A project’s spend should align with the delivery stages as much as is possible. If the organisation has to wait until the end of the project before any value is delivered, there is a high level of risk exposure at play. It’s why we recommend chunking big initiatives into smaller projects – budget and milestones become much easier to navigate and value is demonstrated early and often.

2. There’s a lack of clarity on the priorities and objectives

Clarity is key in the world of projects. Through our work with many organisations in New Zealand, we commonly encounter unclear objectives as a barrier to project success.

We don’t believe many if any organisations set out to lack transparency; in the rush of delivering a project, internal communication can inadvertently suffer. This can lead to different people believing different things about a project’s status or purpose. We’ve seen this result in a project solution that doesn’t completely meet the expectations of senior leadership, causing headaches and costly extensions to a project’s delivery timeline.

Delivering a project brings pressure on a team to meet a timeframe, budget, and scope. This can mean long hours with heads down. Luckily, with the adoption of Scrum and other collaborative working methods, communication within teams on a regular basis can be much easier. No matter how you do it, we strongly recommend project teams spend at least one moment a week as a group to reinforce the project goals and scope at a high level – not just the tasks involved in the sprint. Don’t underestimate the value of a delivery team being dialled into the organisational objectives of what they’re doing – this can open up new ideas and keep people motivated.

But misalignment and lack of clarity doesn’t just exist with delivery. Large programmes or projects that touch multiple parts of an organisation are highly susceptible to being compromised by conflicting objectives. It’s therefore critical that steering committees and the leadership team keep up communication around a project’s purpose and status.

To provide more clarity around a project:

Reinforce the goals and scope of the project at every level of the organisation.
Keep communication high.
Circulate important decisions around in scope/not in scope around all stakeholders to reinforce the project’s parameters.

3. Governance is neglected

Healthy, successful projects are almost always based upon having the optimal combination of the right processes, right people and right structure in place, whatever “right” is for your project and your organisation. Outside of delivery of the actual project, organisations need to ensure that roles and responsibilities, reporting, measurement, risk, assurance and other governance functions are in place.

We look for the governance function of a project early on in our engagement with clients as the quality assurance provider. If there are gaps in this function, our first job is to support you to fill these. While this may push out delivery getting underway, the long term benefits for the project and organisation are definitely worthwhile.

Inadequate measures put your project at significant risk of unexpected failure – things like completion progress, budget and efficiency are all instruments crucial to effective decision making for project leadership. Beyond measurement, failing to report on progress to key stakeholders can quickly lose buy-in to the project, leading to bigger and harder questions from those in a senior leadership team ultimately responsible for the project’s outcomes being delivered. Having to answer these questions without all the information to hand is not a particularly enjoyable experience for any project team!

Building a clear profile of risks to the project must not be overlooked. As with anything in business, a project comes with risks. Identifying these and planning mitigation strategies can put a stakeholder’s mind at ease. It’s not realistic to expect a project to go off without a hitch – but there simply must be a strategy to navigate any risks that do come to fruition as much as possible.

Governance will vary depending on the size of the project and the organisation it exists within. But every project needs clear roles and responsibilities established from the outset, including:

Who is responsible for signing off different parts of delivery?
Who is responsible for the overall project cost to the business?
What are the roles within the delivery team(s) required?
Who is ultimately accountable for the success of the project?
Who is on the project steering committee?
How is the project management office or support function structured?

Establishing robust governance always pays off – if the above questions aren’t clear in your own project, this may be a sign that something needs to change.

4. Project team and steering committee have differing views of the project’s status

Given the function of a steering committee is the high-level direction and a project team focuses on the actual delivery, any lapse in communication between the two can quickly cause a big divergence in perspective as to the project’s current status. Unfortunately, when these teams are out of kilter, there’s a high chance of conflict and stress as the direction being passed to the project team will be perceived as out of touch with what’s happening ‘on the front line’.

As we’ve covered earlier, communication must be kept high throughout the project’s lifespan. Communication comes through meetings, briefings and as we’ve talked to earlier, good reporting. If a steering committee is not armed with all the facts, they are unable to make decisions accurately. Similarly, a project team that does not have a complete view of the steering committee’s motivations for particular decisions passed down may start to build resentment. As quality assurance experts, we find that many of our biggest wins with clients are establishing better communication channels between all parts of a project.

5. Continual need for additional resource

While a project requiring additional budget is sometimes unavoidable, a constant request for extra resources over the duration of the project likely means that there are bigger issues at play. Unfortunately it can be a challenge getting to the bottom of exactly why resource issues are occurring – it’s why many organisations engage quality assurance like IQANZ. We’re able to review and uncover the problem areas based on our experience of seeing similar issues in the past. Resource needs could point to an issue with the original scope of the project, or it could mean there are efficiency challenges to look into. Regardless, consistent demand for more resources should trigger other broader questions about the project before any hiring occurs. If you’re finding that the project you’re involved with frequently needs additional people to meet milestones, we’d suggest taking stock of the project’s current status against the original scope.

6. ‘In scope’ vs ‘Out of scope’ is dominating conversation daily

Speaking of scope, it’s one of the most commonly used words in any project team. Clear parameters for the project helps decision making and prioritisation. But a project that is struggling with scope creep or ongoing debates around what is/isn’t in scope is a warning sign that project failure or budget overrun might be on the cards. Clear project scope can be referenced to protect a team’s time and avoid unnecessary tasks or costs. But an unclear project scope will simply create internal debates about work, in place of actual work itself. When scope is vague, there’s a high probability at least some of your project team will be conducting work that does not have any bearing on the overall objectives. If scope dominates the daily conversation, the project leadership and steering committee have work to do to clearly define what’s in, and what’s out.

7. Personnel are leaving the project

Much like permanent staff attrition in a workplace points to potential issues in a culture, losing project resources (including contractors) prematurely before they’ve fully delivered might be a sign your project is not healthy.

A well-structured project offers many benefits for staff to stay on until the end – clear goals, milestones and management. For contractors, projects represent good earning and reputation opportunities. If an organisation starts to churn through key roles frequently, the steering committee needs to conduct careful review on the project as a whole. They might like to start by conducting an assessment with our 3 Minute Project Health Check. It’s also important to speak with departing team members to gain insight into why leaving the project was preferable to seeing it to the end – there may be some quick fixes that can be implemented right now.

Every project deserves to succeed – we can help that happen.

We’re keen to chat to any organisations or project teams who are concerned about the current health of their project. It’s unlikely the challenges you are facing are unique. Our team will be able to apply our extensive QA experience to advise you about the status of your project – and importantly, the next steps to take.