52% of Projects Fail – And How to Fix That

According to the 2024 Project Management Institute (PMI) survey, only 48% of projects are deemed successful. They have a grey area of "mixed," but in my book, if it's not a success, it's a failure. Imagine getting to the end of a project and asking, "How did we go?" and the sponsor says, "Meh."

I REALLY like the PMI's definition of success: "delivered value that was worth the effort and expense." I also appreciate that their findings are based on data gathered from over 10,000 participants across 139 countries.

In the 1990s, we had a few highly publicised reports (CHAOS, Du Pont, Standish, and the US Department of Defense), but these were somewhat opaque in their breadth and methodology. These older reports also used my least favourite definition of success: "delivered on-time and on-budget." I struggle with this definition because it implies that a project's timeline and budget somehow guarantee money well spent.

To make up for this, the old reports at least agreed that only 25% of projects were successful. I suspect this is still closer to reality, but I'm happy to go with the more optimistic and contemporary view that only half of global IT project spend is wasted 😂.

What Does This Mean in Reality?

Let's look at that for a sec. Imagine I'm a social enterprise providing life-altering education and support to kids in poverty. I'm spending $10M of donor funds over the next two years on a major digital initiative.

By the law of averages, this means $5M will be pure waste.

How many kids could I help for $5M?

It seems crazy to me that, despite these statistics being available for decades, we're still using the same governance framework in both project management and funding.

A More Effective Alternative

There is a better way to govern projects. Using the PMI's definition, we should be framing projects in terms of value rather than scope or project plans.

This is surprisingly easy and eliminates a lot of pre-project "scoping" work. It also encourages delivering value incrementally, which is way better for the CFO or other sponsor because they receive more objective feedback throughout the project. Better feedback leads to better control.

A relevant case study: From a Flintstone Pilot to Thousands of Users in 18 Months.

I often hear, "But this won’t work here."

Yet, here we are—300 projects later with a 100% success rate for our clients (by the PMI definition).

Andrew Walker
Technology consulting for charities
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-walker-the-impatient-futurist/

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