You can easily find cases of high-profile projects which fail. Public sector projects are the ones that will often hit the paper because their budgets and audits are open to scrutiny.

Below are a few high-profile projects that failed:

  • Following an internal analysis, the Australian development firm, Multiplex which is responsible for the Wembley Stadium’s reconstruction became aware of the fact that the costs for that project were rising to the level that the company itself would suffer the loss of £750 million. This was mainly due to the overlooked rise in the price of steel.
  • The Millennium Dome faced financial complications and found itself requiring an extra £179 million from National Lottery funding in the year 2000.
  • The Scottish Parliament had five iterations of the project plan and got delayed by 20 months. The cost of the project was ten times more when compared to the original budget, eventually reaching £430 million.
  • The spa complex which was planned to increase tourism in Bath had an original budget of £13.5 million. But unexpected delays and building-related issues have increased its cost by £43 million. They had planned to invest £3 million at the beginning of the project, the rest of which came from lottery funding. Rather, the bill was footed by taxpayers.
  • The project related to the construction of the Channel Tunnel had its budget rise to £10.9 million from £4.8 million.
  • The Airbus A380 had been expected to seize the skies in the year 2006. But the compatible design software was not used by the international team which drove to snowballing problems. The project’s overdue costs penalties of £1 billion every year to its 16 customers. This delay caused a slide in the investment price of EADS, which is the parent company of Airbus and as a recovery plan, most of them became jobless in Germany and UK.

There were investigations, reviews, and reports of these projects. Foresee to be in front of the public eye when you work on an eminent project which fails.

Success or failure? Let’s have a look again

However, every story always has two sides and it will be likely to analyze those projects as beneficial too. For instance, 5.5 million visitors had a paid entry to the Millionaire Dome which is twice that of any other tourist spot in the UK in the last year. Also, another 1 million visitors were allowed free passes.

Nearly 87% of the visitors were happy with their visit. The timeline of the project was sustained as the venue unlocked its entrances on time, and it is pretty significant for the millennium attraction.

The Airbus A380 started the maiden transatlantic expedition in March 2007, quieting down the critics and ascertaining that it could use shorter runways than other jets. For all the airline passengers, an airplane’s quality (hence the safety) is more vital than the budget or the time of delivery of the project.

If the definition of success is quality, then the early flights of Airbus show that it has made a huge impact with its superjet.

The above examples highlight that defining the meaning of success has a notable influence on whether we conclude the project has declined. The interpretation of these unfavorable captions hinges on the explanation of failure. Hence, it is necessary to understand what’s crucial to your project.

What is the reason for the failure of your project? What will make your project a success? What will be the significant norms for your sponsor? How will you be able to define them?

These are the fundamental concerns to resolve during the phase of the project initiation. Keeping a project success norm alone might not be sufficient to guarantee the success of your project. Other issues can also cause the failure of your project.

Causes for the failure of a project

Many factors contribute to the failure of a project. The United Kingdom Office of the Government Commerce has done a study that illustrates the main reasons for a project failure are:

  • lack of visible executive leadership
  • following poor processes to identify and manage obstacles linked with the project
  • The void between the technical expertise, the project team, and the business, who don’t understand the tiny details often
  • failure to consider and manage the truth that change isn’t liked by humans and the impact it had on people and business processes
  • duration of the project that extends over a year, when the business environment develops rapidly.

Technology is the least possible reason for the failure of the project. This indicates that when compared to any IT system structure, the human indications of change are more significant.

There is much academic research regarding the reasons for the failure and success of the project. The willingness of an organization to speak about the reason for the failure of individual projects is what’s lacking in the profession of project management. There is a variation between performing an anonymous survey for someone who is specializing in academics and appearing in public with the facts about the downfall of your project.

Most of the studies about the failure of the project are those funded by the public, which is indebted to taxpayers. Many projects listed in this article are public projects. Inquiries and audit reports are accessible to anyone who browses and they are always on a large scale, there are many managers of any sized projects who can know from them.