Human &Organizational factors leading to project failure

October 30, 2007

In traditional systems the technological failure was the major cause of failures in business data processing. Today, the failures are mainly caused by human and organizational problems.

Human problems are issues that are caused or raised by users and other people involved in the project that might cause the projects to fail. Some of these human problems are:

Lack of Co-operation in that the users may sabotage the project by not co-operating with the developers or some objectives that were not agreed upon by management may be introduced.

Poor training is also another human issue that may cause a project to fail. If the users are not properly trained on how to use the system, the project in turn will not be helpful as envisioned. Also the various people involved in the project may need to be sensitized on their roles e.g. sponsors, users e.t.c. so that they can know their responsibilities in the project.

Poor communication is also another human issue that can cause projects to fail. If the developers and the users of the system are not communicating then the project is doomed to fail. Proper channels of communication in a project must be clearly defined.

Lack of involvement of those needed in the project can cause it to fail, in that if the developers do not involve the users or the management in the project then chances are high that the project can fail.

Not all failures are caused by human factors; some failures are due to organizational factors like;

Lack of management support, the management may view the system or project as an issue for users and thus they may not get involved except when allocating resources, also projects need constant involvement by management and this may cause the manager to see it as a time wasting issue thus they may not get involved.

Lack of resources is another organizational issue that might cause projects to fail, in that the management may stop allocating some resources to the project midway. E.g. managers or money e.t.c. thus will cause the project to fail.

Lack of planning or poor planning may cause the project to fail in some way, in that the time, money allocated to the project might be so little for the project to work with hence it fails.

Lack of control in the project may cause the whole project to fail, in that the organization or the project manager may not put enough checks and review meetings to monitor and control the project.

External influences may also cause the project to fail in that factors such as social, political, economic, technical and legal issues may influence the project negatively and hence fail. Most projects often raise political and social issues and thus the management need to ensure that the project gets the political support needed and the local community support.

REFERENCES

Structured Methods: Merging Models, Techniques, and Case (Mcgraw-Hill Systems Design & Implementation)

Information Technology Project Management, Fourth Edition

Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling

The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management, Second Edition

The Art of Project Management (Theory in Practice (O’Reilly))

Project Management: A Managerial Approach

Fundamentals of Technology Project Management

IT Project Management: On Track from Start to Finish, Second Edition (Certification Press)