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    <title><![CDATA[Discussion on Top five reasons organizations fail at project management ]]></title>
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    <lastBuildDate>2013-06-18T18:01:40-07:00</lastBuildDate>
             

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        <title><![CDATA[Projects v Operations]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-3764480]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[The old PM Clich is plan to do, do to plan. As a PM do not get sucked into other peoples games and fantasies. First, write a very clear explicit project charter, with summary business case, as described to you and get the 'management' to sign it off. Things like what is the project to do in SMART terms, what authority the PM has, if any and what priority the project has over other work that people are doing. Make sure every other power broker has a copy and let them at each other. When it is signed off, then send a plan, with milestones and resources, for 'approval'. Remember as a PM you can never start a project too slowly. Get your authority before you start using resources. Too many PMs get wrapped up in the initial dream, do not plan or obtain authority, just dive in head first, and find the pool is both shallow and leaking fast.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-3764480]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[billsherlock]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Wed, 22 May 2013 01:44:11 -0700</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[RE: Top five reasons organizations fail at project management]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-3244980]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[In my opinion, #4 is a big reason for project failure.  To do projects correctly (especially larger projects), there is simply no substitute for up-front planning.  This of course takes time and resources. Most people are 'doers' and they just want to roll-up their collective sleeves and have at it!  This invariably leads to projects that end up over budget and past due.  Very thoughtful article - thank you!]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-3244980]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[william.stoddart@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Wed, 17 Feb 2010 05:33:26 -0800</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[I don't think I'd make that specific to PM resource]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2671213]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[The real problem to me is PM's in most organisations don't have the authority necessary to do the job. Whether it's a failure to identify the required resources initially, some one important moving the goal posts, unforseen reduction in resources. Most of the time they get to manage within poorly defined constraints and have no way to change them. Hence report success and hope crossing of fingers does some good.I've got to say the japanese work ethic probably helps you out. One place I worked at used to go over regular for tips and tricks. That was one thing they couldn't get past us gaijin though. Never got the chance to go over to Kobe, mainly the engineering types. Some big head must have thought we couldn't learn any IT stuff off you guys.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2671213]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Hopkinson]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:20:50 -0800</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[RE: Top five reasons organizations fail at project management]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2670655]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[Hi, Guys: I am a head of project management team in a Japanese IT firm. I think the root reason, it failed, is because the organization has no corresponding revenue recognition system towards Project Management. While customer does not pay for it - Customer often only pays for result, not process - then supplier must identity its process needs. As one of them, PM value must be recognized. If not, then, normally there is no enough resource assignment to PM and thus lead PM failure.  One of the countermeasure is to set the PM team as cost center. The other is to use multiple element concept in your accounting system to share the PM to other elements.  If resource is there, most PM problem can be worked out.  Thanks.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2670655]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[shijinou@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Fri, 02 Jan 2009 01:14:44 -0800</pubDate>
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    <item>
        <title><![CDATA[?]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2660473]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[Do you mean management hiearchies and permissions?]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2660473]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[georgef@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Sat, 13 Dec 2008 05:40:21 -0800</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Many good points.]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2660426]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[I would caution against developing empirical conclusions from relatively narrow experiences.  I don't mean to demean your PM experience or knowledge but unless we've had the experience of managing hundreds of projects in hundreds of companies and different situations, something like Ralph Kimball's DW experience, we can only feed our judgements from that relatively narrow experience.One thing that you write sticks out a lot of for me.  Your second to last sentence comparing good project managers to good managers.  I wholeheartedly agree and consider a PM position to be an episodic or sliced manager, except in those situation where the PM has absolutely no management responsibility or authority, situation, I believe, that are likely to fail.That rarity is in the 10% range for both, because of human nature and the confusion generated by these cookie cutter standards of process.]]></description>
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        <dc:creator><![CDATA[georgef@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Sat, 13 Dec 2008 05:35:33 -0800</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[RE: Top five reasons organizations fail at project management]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2659625]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[Pure Project Managers without technical experise of the right kind in a particularly important area tend to take the technical part of the job(make light of) and with only bulldozing attoitude try to assign resposibilities w/o considering the WBS. Instead if they only playa an enabler's role w/o getting played down by the most veceferous person in the meeting, it would improve project management quite a lot. Though your reason #5 seems more suited to the IT field, examples of a similar attitude(more than an attitude a fond hope or an overestimated awe for a tool)in a non-IT field are not uncommon.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2659625]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[mahadeva_sarma@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:14:21 -0800</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Yep]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2659179]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[That's the fella. Mess about with numbers, get smileys on the dash board, job done....]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2659179]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Hopkinson]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2008 11:23:39 -0800</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[That was my first major IT task]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2659176]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[I learned a lot from it. The error wasn't a vendor fault, it was in their interface, which they obviously didn't test either at all of even vaguely properly. Test cheque run.Test 1Do they come out for the right people. No.I'd call that a showstopper personally....]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2659176]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[Tony Hopkinson]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2008 11:16:25 -0800</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[When Senior Management turns Project Managers into Technical Staff]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2659132]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[We have all seen it, business or projects grows to quickly and insufficient experienced staffing becomes a firm biggest problem.  Many senior managers will delegate their responsibility to the PM's consequently holding them liable for production.  PM's are then forced to become technical staff as they don't have authority to hire anyone but are still held to produce their projects as if properly staffed.  I have seen many a PM take work home just to meet the deadlines of their original work plan when it is seemingly impossible to keep at their staffing levels.  I too was culpable of such action until it was physically unsustainable.  I believe this is when senior management revert to reason #2 and thus product quality assurance and quality control fail.]]></description>
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        <dc:creator><![CDATA[rramos@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2008 10:33:51 -0800</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[RE: Top five reasons organizations fail at project management]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2658925]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[Macro level Scope Creep where the business keeps heaping on requirements and Micro level Scope Creep were BA's and/or Programmers covertly add neat new things.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2658925]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[dcritchley@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2008 07:43:32 -0800</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Hit the head on #4]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2658922]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[I was put into that position at my former employer, and let me tell you, nothing starts the gray/white hairs sprouting quite like having to juggle the implementation of an offsite call center project with a critical enterprise application server dying in the data center.Not exactly fun times; especially when senior leadership is without a clue.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2658922]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[NotSoChiGuy]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2008 07:19:16 -0800</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[RE: Top five reasons organizations fail at project management]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2658854]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[1) inexpereinced project managers2) lack of understanding of project management pricipals and benefits3) Trying to implement project management without bringing everyone on board.  Development, Product Management, end users may not have agreed to the project management process, or been involved in its creation, so they don't see / know / accept the stated benefits.4) The process is cumbersome, hard to understand, hard to find, inadequately documented, too long to read, not intuitive.  Change is hard.5) When push comes to shove, project management practices are abandoned to 'get the work done' - lack of commitment from senior management.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2658854]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[krauskopfk@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2008 06:39:38 -0800</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Inexperienced Project Managers, Ineffectual Senior Management]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2658763]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[Some additional reasons to some of the excellent ones already mentioned:1. Inexperienced, untrained PMs;2. Lack of PM knowledge amongst executives/ senior management/project sponsors that results in insufficient support to the PM;3. Lack of understanding of a PMs role, authority, responsibility;4. Mistaken belief that PM is a part-time job and can be added when a person is already fully allocated in another role;]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2658763]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[aghai@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2008 05:18:39 -0800</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[ITA, Annella]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2658699]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[Having been involved in a failed project that cost millions of dollars and thousands of man hours, I agree 100% with that assessment. The workers saw that the project, a move from a flat-file based system to a relational database, was not well thought out or analyzed, and understood that it wouldn't work from the beginning. And guess what, those high school educated workers were smarter than the degreed upper management! They didn't sabotage the project--the manager in charge had basically committed all the sins on the list. The end result was unusable and eventually abandoned.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2658699]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[VEH]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2008 04:25:36 -0800</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Breaking up Hirechy]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2658696]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[In most of the Indian companies, one most important reason to fail any project is the breaking up Hierarchy.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2658696]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[dushyant.sharma.0706@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2008 04:10:45 -0800</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[RE: Top five reasons organizations fail at project management]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2658688]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[It is not organisations that are bad at project management it is the people appointed as project managers are not skilled and experienced enough. Line managers are good at routine and project managers are good at variety, uniqueness, ambiguity, living in transition etc etc etc]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2658688]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[beardkj@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:12:39 -0800</pubDate>
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    <item>
        <title><![CDATA[It's about managing interests as well as resources and time]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2658682]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[Organizations get hung up on complicated schemes managing time and resources, forgetting that it's people who push those units around, and indeed it's people who make up most of the 'resources'.If you don't manage your people, all the charts and spreadsheets in the world won't bring your project home on time, on budget - or even within a hundred miles of where you intended it to land.People, as the agents who push those timeframes and resources, and as resources themselves don't all run at the same speed and in the same direction.  Just having the plan doesn't mean they are going to follow it.  Even forcing them to conform with the 'plan' isn't going to engender an equal commitment from all of them.Indeed in any project you can likely count on folk who kick, folk who sulk, and a heap of very active folk - you think you're on a winner with these until you realize they're the most dangerous because they are out to use you project to push their own barrows.  What to do?  Simply understand the 'interests' of all of the players before you start, and factor that into your project plan.  For example I left a 'endless project' a few years ago after realizing that it was in the interest of just about everyone there to 'never finish the product', they'd been guaranteed virtually endless funding and had no performance targets except the ones they set themselves - which were all activity based rather than outcome based.  Sure it's a busy place, but anything they achieve is more by accident than design.  But remember, all the performance indicators will show this one as a big success.Which leads to my last point.  Don't rely on reputations to tell you what works well.  Sometimes the biggest planning disasters are touted as the greatest successes.  In business perceived failure equals failure, perceived success equals success.If someone (usually some product vendor) tells you about a fairy tale transformation of an organisation I suggest you listen respectfully, then contact someone at a mid level of that organisation and hear the real story.Managing interests, as opposed to just timelines and resources, is difficult.  Which is why good project managers are just about as rare as good managers.  Good luck!]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2658682]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[rosearch@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:05:22 -0800</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Is it really scope creep?]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2647154]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[Or is it scope clarity?  My experience has been that we substitute and blame scope creep for our inability, at least in software projects, to completely understand and document every requirement.  So, when that clarity emerges as prototypes, wireframes and data models start to develop, we blame the end users.  I think Agile's biggest promise is the acknowledgement that requirements and priorities change and need to be accommodated and embraced.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2647154]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[bobk@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:16:33 -0800</pubDate>
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        <title><![CDATA[Of a mind]]></title>
        <link><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2595080]]></link>
        <description><![CDATA[We're of a mind.  I agree with everything you have here.Everyone's experience is limited, there's just too many people who think they've experienced it all, and so they come up with a system or a book.You've got to separate the static from the music. ;^).I feel we've had similar experiences and taken similar things from them, which is never guaranteed, where humans are concerned.]]></description>
        <guid><![CDATA[http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-271944-2595080]]></guid>
        <dc:creator><![CDATA[georgef@...]]></dc:creator>
        <pubDate>Sat, 13 Sep 2008 15:05:33 -0700</pubDate>
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