I really didn’t go into this survey with any expectations – other than I anticipated a fairly good turnout and a broad range of answers.  I was right on both accounts.  With so many projects failing and for a variety of reasons, I know the readers would have a lot of input.  And even when they don’t fail, there are still many frustrations and roadblocks on the path to project success.



Let’s look at our October results a little deeper….



#1 – What is your #1 frustration as a project manager?



I came up with what I anticipated to be the top eight main frustration categories for PMs.  I was close – seven of the categories saw action.  Only “lack of training/knowledge/experience’ failed to receive any response.  At least our readers are feeling a little less let down by their organizations in terms of training – though an earlier survey with a differently worded question would tend lead us to believe otherwise.



The leading frustration factor cited was Lack of Management Support at 26%.  Poor Communication in the Organization followed at 21%.  Lack of PM Authority and Decision-Making Ability was next at 13% and Lack of Planning Time Allowed came in fourth at 12%.  That figure tells us that PMs are feeling frustrated about the senior management (or possibly customer) pressure to get started without allowing enough planning time prior to starting or without allowing enough planning time to go into the project plan’s early phases.



The remaining options have very few responses making them fairly insignificant.  The “Other” responses did make up 17% of the feedback with some interesting responses including (I’m generalizing here) things such as “too many processes,” “3rd party vendors,” and “poor handoff from Sales to PM (which is one of my stated pet peeves).”



#2 – Other







(covered in #1)







#3 – Do you network with other PMs to share knowledge, lessons learned, and feedback?



Overall, the answer to this was basically “yes.”  82% responded that they do this to some degree.  29% simply said, “Yes,” meaning that they basically have processes in place to share such knowledge across PMs in the organization.  63% indicated that they sometimes do this, but there is no formal process in place so it’s not necessarily done on a regular basis.  Finally, 9% stated that they do not routinely share knowledge from PM to PM on project related issues so as to learn from each other.



#4 – Why do you think most projects fail?



Bad or Incomplete Requirements was the clear choice in this category at 38%. Since I profess that requirements are the lifeblood of the project I would tend to agree with this figure.  In fact it was my choice when I took the survey.  19% stated Poor Communication – which would have been my next choice if I could have picked two.  12% stated Poor Planning by the Delivery Team and 10% chose Lack of Customer Involvement.



I find that last choice an interesting one since the delivery team does do much of the work.  But when customers choose to not participate it can really slow down processes, progress, and decision-making so I knew this had to be included as an option (I’ve experienced this frustration myself) and I found it interesting to see that response figure so high.



In yet another indication that I didn’t do an incredible job on my pre-determined selections, 14% of responders used “Other.”  Some of the responses included “indecision,” “poor overall management,” “lack of stakeholder involvement.”



#5 – Other



(covered in #4)



Summary



I thought this was an interesting exercise since we’ve all faced frustrations and failures on our projects.  If you say you haven’t, then you’re not being honest with yourself or you’re new and you haven’t completed a full project yet.