Project Management
As you could guess, there are many things that could negatively impact your project or cause it to be dropped after initiation. Here are a few common ones that come to mind:
- Lack of upper management support
- Lack of agreement on initial goals and objectives
- Lack of stakeholder support or understanding
- Lack of funding or required resources
- Unclear project definition or expectations
- "Renegades" who don't follow the project plan
- Diminished interest either as progressing or at completion
- Lack of use of final outcome
- Personality conflicts
- A plan that is too simple, complex, or unrealistic
- Poor leadership style
- Inadequate controls and monitoring
- Weak communication between project team members or management
- Re-inventing the wheel or redundancy
As bettermanagement.com points out, there are things we can do to limit our susceptibility to obstacles:
- Evaluating the organizations mission and culture relative to the new project.
- Planning an effective decision-making structure.
- Establishing adequate controls to govern the new project.
- Development of an appropriate implementation and execution strategy.
- Identifying relevant performance "benchmarks."
- Deciding upon an exit strategy.
With IT projects another large issue is definition of requirements. As a matter in fact for technology and IT related projects requirements planning could almost be considered a project area in and of itself. After all, faulty requirements up front will lead to a outcome that does not satisfy actual needs. There is a tendency to use technology for technologies sake, when instead technology should only be used when it serves a clear purpose.