Why Project Plans Fail And How To Avoid It

We've all found ourselves in a similar situation. You create project plans, but the team members are not at all enthusiastic. Doesn't this remind you of the collective projects you did at school? Teamwork means you need to bring together a group of people with different perspectives, experiences, and communication skills.

The truth is, work projects are much more complex than those in school. In the professional world, there is much more at stake than getting a bad grade. According to the Project Management Institute (PMI), 9.9% of every dollar invested is wasted due to ineffective project planning. Moreover, according to the Standish Group report, only 29% of IT projects are successful, and 19% end in complete failure. This means that time and huge amounts of money are wasted. When team members are scattered across different countries and continents, or when collaboration is between different organizations, the project planning process becomes more important than ever. Having a clear work plan for project management saves a lot of time and money. But first, you need to figure out why many work plans for the project are thwarted and how to pass your project to a solid five. 1. Differences in views and lack of stakeholder support According to Forbes, 25% of technology projects fail, 20% do not pay off, and 50% need improvement at the time of completion. According to senior executives, the lack of clear goals is the reason for the failure of 37% of projects. If you do not have a clear goal, sooner or later you will find that all requirements, tasks, and deadlines are not related. Think back to your projects. Was it not such that it was projected without a clear goal or those that were carried out without your participation disappeared from the radar, while others, much more complex, safely reached the finish line? If the project you are managing does not have clearly defined goals, team members will not make an effort to complete it in the event of any problems due to a lack of motivation. To avoid this trap, you need to clearly define the goals and specific benefits that the completed project will give you. Provide team members with all the documentation so that they understand each stage of the project. The project plan will help them define areas of responsibility, milestones, assessment methods, end goals, and, finally, the final result.

Want to learn how to draw up project plans? One of the simplest ways to ensure a successful project launch is to use templates. Create a template with tasks, timeline, tools used, required deliverables, assignment of performers for each task, and deadlines. Once you have this template, you can copy it and apply it to every next project. Here are some free examples of a simple project plan. 2. Lack of a clear communication process Have you ever worked in a team where one member prefers to communicate by email, the second in Slack, the third just walk up to your table, and important news is dumped into the chat? This is why projects fail - managers waste time on many small tasks and disorganized communication. The project plan must include a standard communication process. Ineffective communication and collaboration are two of the top causes of stress in the workplace. When participants have to constantly ask questions to get the latest news, there is no trace of their motivation. To avoid this trap, specify where, when, and how team members should communicate. Give your team user-friendly and effective software to make communication easier. This means that you will have to spend some time drawing up a project plan and determining all the forms of interaction that you will need in the course of work. The most useful tool would be one that supports integration with other tools, such as Slack or Salesforce, so that all interaction, collaboration, storing, and sharing processes are completely transparent for all members of the project team. This ensures that everyone has access to all the resources they need. 3. Unrealistic goals and deadlines Meeting deadlines is one of the biggest challenges faced by project managers. And in second place is the exchange of information between teams. While working on a project, the biggest hurdle is waiting for someone to finish their tasks or provide access to important information. The overall deadline for the project cannot be rescheduled because one of the employees delayed the completion of the task. When the deadlines are running out, people start looking for the guilty ones - this is exactly how you will not come to success. To work around this trap, consider the capabilities of the team and add a buffer time to the task deadlines. The truth is that a drop in speed is inevitable, so to compensate for it, schedule buffer time intervals between tasks. When creating a work plan for a project, be sure to consider the dependence of tasks on each other so that team members know with whom and when they will need to collaborate. One way to plan a project and avoid unrealistic expectations is to use a Gantt chart. The Gantt Chart is an interactive timeline that gives you a complete view of project progress, the scope of work, and dependencies. It allows you to identify possible obstacles leading to a decrease inefficiency. Using a kanban board or a scrum board will also help you in planning your project, as you will have a general idea of how the team will be assigned responsibilities. By customizing a Gantt chart from the get-go, you can help team members who prefer a visual representation of data to see how their input affects the project timeline. This motivates employees to pay more attention to project tasks and complete their part of the work on time. 4. Inefficient allocation of resources and team members According to a 2018 study by the Project Management Institute (PMI), 21% of projects fail due to missing or limited resources, and errors in resource forecasting lead to the failure of 18% of projects. Lack of money, time, or labor can derail any project. Therefore, when drawing up a work plan for a project, a project manager must necessarily take into account all the necessary resources, including the capabilities of the team. When the workload is optimal, labor productivity increases. But the opposite situation can lead to emotional burnout or loss of motivation for your specialists. To get around this trap, you need to balance the workload of your employees and schedule all the necessary resources. Fortunately, this problem can be easily avoided by planning resource allocation and workloads from the beginning. Tools like Wrike Resource help you visualize all project tasks from a team workflow perspective, provide visibility and flexibility to help balance workloads. When team members can manage their tasks, they can meet deadlines and save resources such as money and time.

Creating a project plan that includes resource tracking will allow you to immediately identify potential obstacles. Since 95% of employees report working with more than one team or on multiple projects, providing transparent workload data will help them prioritize project tasks and negotiate responsibilities with other project managers or other teams. Well-established communication helps team members to spend more time on productive work. 5. Scattered tools and lack of flexibility to make adjustments New technologies often make life easier for us, but when your project work plan includes many tools and teams that are used to using different processes, the situation can quickly turn out to be in your favor. One of the most important elements in project management is the ability to identify emerging obstacles and make adjustments. If your tools are not connected and the information your team needs is not stored centrally, you will not be able to spot icebergs lurking under the surface of the water. According to a McKinsey study, employees spend about 20% of their weekly work gathering and searching for the information they need. If the tools are not connected, your team will spend time searching for the information they need in long threads of emails and instant messages. You risk not only wasting valuable time but also disrupting the project if your subordinates cannot find the latest materials or information. To avoid this trap, you need a centralized tool to help keep track of project progress. Your project plan should include the necessary tools where the project materials will be stored, as well as tools to monitor or measure success. For example, Wrike supports integrations with tools like Slack, Jira, Salesforce, and Adobe Creative Cloud. This capability ensures that all project data is stored centrally. Not only will you save time, but you will also be able to create a centralized location to keep track of all tasks and dependencies. You will know at what stage of execution each of the tasks is and which of the executors may need help.