Silence Fails

Belinda:

A fascinating study, reported as Silence Fails, identifies five necessary conversations that every leader must be able to successfully execute new initiatives.  The statistic that was most staggering, to me at least, was that 91% of the executive in the study believed these crucial conversations were difficult or impossible to resolve in the environment of their current organization.  Even though failing to have these conversations results in having projects derail.

The key conversation topics were:

1.  That deadlines get set and resources allocated without getting enough data.  They call it "fact-free planning."

2.  That the key sponsors of a project go AWOL, and get away with it.

3.  That priorities don't get set.  It's a tough fact that everything can't get done and no one want to say what can go to the bottom of the list.

4.  That no one wants to be the one to say there are problems.  They call it Project Chicken.

5.  That team members are unwilling or unable to support the project, and this does not get addressed in an open and constructive way.

Any thoughts, Kelly?

Kelly:

When I see stats like the one above the first thing that comes to mind is how remarkable it is that any projects ever finish successfully.  I mean, come on:  it's obvious the five topics you list are critical to every project's success.  Then I jump to "Well, how dumb are we, if we actually develop plans and make significant commitments based on little or no data?"  But I know it happens all the time.

Studies like this one have been done before, and one of the best, because it's repeated annually, is the Standish Group's Chaos Report.  In 2008, they found that only 32% of projects finished successfully, which was down from the previous year.  In their first report almost 15 years ago, they identified ten success factors that have been reconfirmed every year since:

1. User Involvement
2. Executive Management Support
3. Clear Statement of Requirements
4. Proper Planning
5. Realistic Expectations
6. Smaller Project Milestones
7. Competent Staff
8. Ownership
9. Clear Vision and Objectives
10. Hard-working, Focused Staff

Do you notice how similar some of these points are to the five from the Silence Fails study?

Belinda:

Yes, the similarity speaks to how basic these things are to successful execution.  It seems to be a case of knowing what should be done but not doing it.  How often do we encounter that in our personal and professional lives?!  So are we trying to do too many things and don't take time to do them well?  Or is it that actually accomplishing projects is harder than it looks on paper, and we get bogged down when we come up against obstacles?

I'm intentionally using "we" here because I have to admit that while I know what to do , there are several projects in my own work life that are moving along at a sluggish pace.  For me it is a matter of trying to balance too many projects, all of which I believe are valuable, and not have the time and energy to manage all of them well.  Dare I confess, some of the steps are boring, or at least not interesting, and I don't stay on top of them.

Wonder what would happen if I made a list, prioritized, and dropped the bottom 30%?  Seems like I might be doing a good service to the projects that are most important..and to myself as well.

Comments

[Niya C Sisk]

Very nice article. I really appreciate how you and Kelly bring up the tough issues in leadership and directly and very intelligently address them.
your fan, Niya

[Maureen Metcalf]

I really appreciate your solid research and the questions that arise. It seems staggering that so many projects fail at significant cost to companies and yet we as leaders maintain similar behavior. I have taken a hard look recently at what I am doing and in my case I ended a business alliance to allow me to focus on my core offerings. This was extremely difficult because I had invested time and energy in developing it and yet, I felt I could not maintain everything. I wonder how many relationships and projects I have allowed to drift along over the year and what the real cost was to my reputation as well as my diluted time and energy?