Aptus Consultants

It's easy enough to find commentary encouraging you to succeed in the face of difficulties.

True, giving up too soon is often a mistake, but how many of us are guilty of not giving up soon enough?

Not every project can succeed, and how many of those failures drag on far too long after they should have been abandoned?

It is easy to point to high profile public projects that have failed, like the Millenium Dome.

However it is not always so easy to spot a failure coming, especially from the inside. It is tempting to keep going, thinking that a project never really fails until it is actually abandoned. Until then, you may think, we can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

The greater your emotional investment in a project, the harder it is to spot likely failure.

In recent years I've been involved in a number of start-ups, so I have first hand experience of handling the failure of a project that has received years of hard work and commitment. I have also observed at close hand the failure of other people's projects over the years, acting as a trouble-shooter on a number of occasions.

This has taught me a lot about identifying and then managing failure. While some projects can be rescued, some are simply not worthwhile.

So how do you distinguish impending failure from potential success?

First let's take a look at why we can be so reluctant to recognise failure. Apart from our natural desire to succeed, the main reason is the "sunk cost fallacy", also known as the "concorde fallacy".

According to Wikipedia, "[This refers to] an irrational decision over future action based on past costs incurred. The delusion that the past costs will be wasted if future costs are not incurred. However, the past costs should be ignored when considering the likelihood of success against the upcoming costs likely to be incurred."

It is all too easy to fall victim to this fallacy: we've invested too much already to consider abandoning the project.

The result of this delusion is that we do not rationally review the project benefits against upcoming costs and the likelihood of success. Instead our complex emotional commitment to the project prevents us from admitting the possibility of failure.

Sometimes to avoid the reality of a failure, all you need to do is carry on pretending that success is possible. The broad middle ground between the termini of success and failure is inhabited by apparent progress and admitting failure is hard.

We do not want to admit weakness or mistakes for fear of being labelled incompetent. We fear the consequences and the risk of reputation damage.

We forget that how you deal with failure is more important than the failure itself, and that those who understand failure are more likely to succeed in future.

Step outside your emotional commitment to the project, however, and the symptoms of likely failure are pretty easy to spot.

What is success? Delivering the project objectives for the project sponsor, in the time required and within the resources allocated.

This definition makes it easy to pick out the warning signs of a project likely to fail.

Does the project lack a single or coordinated project sponsor?

A successful project needs a single sponsor who has the authority and the ability to determine the project's objectives. If the sponsor is a team, there should be a clear mechanism for resolving conflicts over project objectives.

If you cannot identify the project sponsor unambiguously, how can you define the project objectives? Without clearly defined objectives, success is meaningless.

Does the project have fixed, unambiguous and measurable objectives?

Don't be surprised if you find that the project has no such objectives and no clear sponsor! Lots of projects like to fail this way. Without measurable, fixed, and unambiguous objectives, you cannot define success. Changing objectives is also a very popular way of sabotaging a project.

If you change the objectives, you effectively fail the original objectives and are starting a new project. Both the project sponsors and the project team should recognise this and the implications for project success.

Are the project's objectives complex?

Are there lots of inter-dependent or inter-related objectives? Complex objectives and their emergent properties are very rarely understood sufficiently by either the project sponsors or the project team, making success very unlikely.

This is a popular route to failure for large scale projects.

Are the project resources adequate and committed to the project?

If you can't answer 'yes' unambiguously, the project is heading for trouble.

These are just some of the questions to consider when reviewing the risk of failure in a project. Here are a few more to consider:

• The objectives are no longer relevant due to changing circumstances
• The project lacks unambiguous milestones or has consistently missed or abandoned milestones
• Conflict within or between the project team and sponsors, or multiple changes of personnel
• Lack of commitment to the project by the project team or sponsors

The challenge you should pose when first embarking on project is: can I spot signs the project has failed or is likely to fail? Each time a significant project milestone misses or fails, review the likelihood of project failure as a whole.

Once you've taken the fateful decision to abandon a project, how do you scavenge success from the ashes?

As well as identifying project outputs that may have value elsewhere, work with the project team and sponsors to examine the causes of the project failure so that all involved can learn from the experience.

Failure is a fact of life. Sometimes it is down to your own mistakes, sometimes due to circumstances beyond your control, often a mixture of the two. However, the lessons learned from failure can be invaluable.

Learn from them and apply them to new projects. Even better, examine the failures of others and apply those lessons too.

"A fool learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others".