C. Keith Ray

C. Keith Ray writes about and develops software in multiple platforms and languages, including iOS® and Macintosh®.
Keith's Résumé (pdf)

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Stages of Failure

(Originally posted 2003.Jun.07 Sat; links may have expired.)

From Rob Thomsett's page "Project Pathology: Causes, patterns and symptoms of project failure"... "We observed this pattern of failure in every one of the 20 major projects we reviewed. Fifteen of the 20 projects we reviewed had degraded to Step 4 and the remaining 5 were at Step 3."

The four stages of failure:

  1. Development team unilaterally de-scopes the project.
  2. Project manager requests additional people.
  3. Unpaid overtime work becomes the norm.
  4. Team has lost control of the project, but the team is in denial.


For an example of stage 4: "This denial was well evidenced in a project where all team members and the project manager felt that the project could meet a deadline 3 months out and that our review was a waste of time. In one day, we identified that the project was over 12 months behind schedule and would deliver [at best] in 15 months not 3! Our findings were wrong - the project finally delivered 18 months later."

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