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The Cost of Bad Project Management

31/12/2015

By Benoit Hardy-Vallee

When it comes to project management, most organizations put their practices before their people. They place more emphasis on rational factors -- the process itself -- and less on emotional drivers that could lead to project excellence -- like their employees' engagement with the project and company.

Large projects, especially those in the IT sectors, have a poor record.

But forcing team members to adapt to project management processes and procedures makes it more likely that the project will fail. The resulting cost from bad project management is reaching astronomical levels. It represents a significant waste of money, and it poses a threat to organizations that rely on the success of large-scale projects.

Gallup's behavioral economics research suggests a different, more powerful approach: behavior-based project management. This approach enables project groups to gain higher levels of emotional commitment and performance from their team members -- and increased levels of emotional involvement from stakeholders -- in a way that improves both engagement and performance.

Behavior-based project management applies the principles of behavioral economics to manage an organization's emotional economy. More importantly, it uses scientific research on human nature and the workplace to develop more effective project teams and to enable better project delivery.

The high cost of failure

Project management is integral to the business world. Milestones, kickoff meetings, deliverables, stakeholders, Gantt charts, and work plans constitute the everyday world of most managers, whether they are called "project managers" or not. Given the vast experience organizations have with project management, it's reasonable to wonder why all projects aren't completed on time, on scope, and under budget.

Yet large projects, especially those in the information technology sectors, have a poor record. Multiple studies show that a significant share of projects overrun their original timelines or are never completed. A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which reviewed 10,640 projects from 200 companies in 30 countries and across various industries, found that only 2.5% of the companies in 30 countries and across various industries, found that only 2.5% of the companies successfully completed 100% of their projects. A study published in the Harvard Business Review, which analyzed 1,471 IT projects, found that the average overrun was 27%, but one in six projects had a cost overrun of 200% on average and a schedule overrun of almost 70%. And we all have heard about large construction projects -- the Channel Tunnel, Euro Disney, and Boston's "Big Dig" -- that ended up costing almost double their original estimate.

Cost and time overruns also have a profound effect on national economies. One estimate of IT failure rates is between 5% and 15%, which represents a loss of $50 billion to $150 billion per year in the United States. Another study estimated that IT project failures cost the European Union €142 billion in 2004.

While bad project management comes with an enormous price tag, the costs aren't always just financial. The seven deaths resulting from the Columbia Shuttle disaster have been attributed to organizational problems, including a weakened safety culture at NASA. The failure of the FBI's Virtual Case File software application cost U.S. taxpayers $100 million and left the FBI with an antiquated system that jeopardizes its counterterrorism efforts.

What's more, it seems that this trend is here to stay. With an ever-growing need for accessible and integrated data, organizations require larger platforms to manage supply chains, customer relationships, and dozens of other crucial systems. Mega-software projects are now common in private and governmental organizations. Development is not slowing down, especially in emerging economies.

Considering the failure rate of these endeavors, a great deal of human effort and organizational resources likely will be squandered. So why haven't organizations become better at managing projects, especially large ones in the IT sector?

Benoit Hardy-Vallee, Ph.D., PMP, is a Consultant for Gallup.

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Not Feeling the Holiday Cheer? Some Thoughts on How to Manage Any Stress

23/12/2015

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By Suzie Doscher

It is that time of year again, if spending time with the family is not the easiest see if any of these tips can help you for those difficult moments. If you just take one and try it out, it will be better than not having any support for the moment.

Time with family can trigger many emotions from the past or the present. If you have chosen to spend the time with family finding it stressful the best thing you can do for yourself is to be considerate and thoughtful in your actions with yourself and with your family.

If possible take a break and leave the room. Find a quiet space, even the bathroom will do. Compose yourself by taking at least three deep breaths. As you exhale, imagine a little bit of the tension leaving your body. (I find it helpful to visualize a dark cloud dissipating.
Gather your thoughts and let your feeling settle.
Keep your focus on exactly what has been going on that is causing you the stress. Is it the overall situation or one person in particular?
Once you know specifically what has thrown you off balance, think about what you can now do to influence how you are feeling.
Is it a question of acceptance i.e. ‘You cannot change people but you can change how you react to them’, then ask yourself what do you have to accept? Is it how this person behaves that rubs you the wrong way, or do you have left over wounds that could use some attention, or are you simply exhausted and not in the mood for a family gathering, or...
Think carefully of what exactly you can influence in this moment. Can you influence how others are, can you influence the overall mood or can you influence how you are?
Having thought things through you may find your perspective on the problem has changed. Remember the only thing you can influence is your reaction to events – not the events themselves!
Hopefully you will find that haven taken these few moments for yourself to consider what is causing you the stress will have left you feeling a bit calmer and more grounded to re-enter the room more composed.

It is a short lived event, comes around only once per year, these days life seems to fly by, is full of uncertainty. Be sure you do not have any regrets.

If you need to make some changes ... the New Year is around the corner ...
a great time to focus on change.

Ready for Change? Book a Session for the New Year

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Happy Holidays from the Coaching Group of Switzerland - Life, Business and Executive Coaching in Zurich, Switzerland

19/12/2015

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What the Company Can Do For You - What You Can Do For the Company (And Yourself)

17/12/2015

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by Suzie Doscher

Employees stay where they are when they are paid well, mentored, challenged, promoted, involved, appreciated, valued, on a mission, empowered, trusted.

As an employee, what is your responsibility in all this?

Paid well: Know your value, grow as a person and master your field, this will allow you to negotiate and be financially rewarded.
Mentored: Find a mentor who can support you with stimulating and challenging conversations/brain-storming sessions, encourage you when you need it, motivate you and who believes in you.
Challenged: When you feel challenged there is room to grow, learn and acquire new skills.
Promoted: Have the courage and gain the self confidence to be seen and stand out...this will show you are worth promoting.
Involved: When you are included you feel not only valued but also involved.
Appreciated: Appreciation can come with the smallest action. A boss or team member noticing something you did and acknowledging it. You feel seen therefore appreciated.
Valued: Value yourself first. When you are appreciated, involved, empowered by the company feeling valued will be sustainable if you value yourself.
On a mission: Know the goal for the team, project, company this will keep you motivated.
Empowered: Being given freedom to ‘do your thing’ makes you feel believed in, valued, empowered. A good boss will know how to delegate to make you feel empowered.
Trusted: Show you are trustworthy, have integrity and the right ethics and you will feel the trust.

For support in any of these areas
get in touch with us for a complimentary chat about how our coaches can help.

EMAIL to Schedule a chat

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Too confident? Not confident enough? - Balancing Your Confidence Level

10/12/2015

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by Suzie Doscher and Susan Begeman Steiner of The Coaching Group of Switzerland

Confidence is a hot topic in business. Usually people worry about having too little confidence because that makes it difficult to take action in many situations. These are some areas where confidence (or lack thereof) show up:

Communication - expressing yourself, asking for clarification if you do not understand or are not sure etc.
Focus – Trusting your capabilities, feeling confident about them for example can result in increased focus
Motivation - Believing in yourself can increase your willingness to take risks and be excited about new projects
Time management – Being realistic about how you schedule your day, giving yourself enough time to complete tasks. This is influenced by your level of confidence and allows you to have increased confidence.

Stress management – Feeling comfortable setting boundaries, taking time out all require confidence.

It takes confidence to say 'no'

You need a certain amount of confidence to deal with the possible consequences of saying ‘no’. Without enough confidence, you probably won’t risk this, even if it could lead to good consequences.

So confidence is great, right? But what about when you are over-confident?

Results of having too much confidence:

You can inadvertently roll over others who are less confident, causing you to miss out on their good ideas
Brainstorming with others can feel like a waste of time
Holding onto your own opinions (and not being open to hearing from others) makes the world a very black/white place – and you can end up in the dark
Someone’s thoughtful or considerate suggestion might feel like a criticism to you and cause you to get defensive instead of listening
Humility can seem like a quality that only the saints have

As with confidence, every ‘good’ trait has a dark side. That leaves us in a balancing act between too little and too much. Finding that balance in each moment is where awareness comes in. Knowing and being honest with yourself with help raise your awareness.

Get in touch - To talk about your confidence levels -

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BALANCE - A Practical Handbook for Life's Difficult Moments by Suzie Doscher

3/12/2015

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Based on my professional and personal experiences relating to Personal Growth and Development I found that there are a number of issues everybody faces at one point or another. Becoming aware of and acquiring the life skill to handle the difficult moments makes a huge difference to the quality of your day-to-day life.

Having certain life skills and knowing when to reach for one can be compared to knowing that the toothbrush is used to clean your teeth. If you want to be more selective what you say ‘yes’ to, means learning how to say ‘no’. By choosing to behave differently, together with practice and repetition, the brain will rewire itself – neuroscience has proven this. For a more balanced and consequently better quality of life it is worth looking into which life skills your ‘tool kit’ needs acquiring or upgrading. Also, know that maintenance is of the utmost importance - just because you took one bath does not mean you never have to take another one!

In my coaching practice I like to take care of the ‘housekeeping’ before my client and I focus on achieving the goal they came to coaching for. By ‘housekeeping’ I mean finding out if certain skills are already in place, need exploring, upgrading or acquiring. To name a few:

Saying ‘No’
Allowing yourself to take some ‘me time’
Or knowing how to schedule time to think away from technology
Having a grip on time management
Understanding what to do in a stressful moment
Being comfortable with asking for help
Comfortable to communicate
Knowing your Core Values
Knowing that change involves practice and repetition! In time the brain rewires itself (you get rid of the ‘virus in the software’)
Upgrading your social / interpersonal skills
Enhancing your Self-Esteem / Self-Confidence
Etc.

In coaching once the basic life skills are in place and being maintained we move on to focus on the goal and forward.

BALANCE – A Practical Handbook for Life’s Difficult Moments is the result of wanting everybody to have access to learn these skills without necessarily having to work with a coach, or as my clients tell me ‘they refer to the book when they need a ‘top up’.

Have a ‘Look Inside’ on Amazon and see if it might be useful for you.

Click to "LOOK INSIDE"

Suzie Doscher, July 2015
www.suziedoscher.com / www.balancebysuziedoscher.com

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Coaching Blog
The Coaching Group Of Switzerland

The Cost of Bad Project Management

Not Feeling the Holiday Cheer? Some Thoughts on How to Manage Any Stress

Happy Holidays from the Coaching Group of Switzerland - Life, Business and Executive Coaching in Zurich, Switzerland

What the Company Can Do For You - What You Can Do For the Company (And Yourself)

For support in any of these areas
get in touch with us for a complimentary chat about how our coaches can help.

Too confident? Not confident enough? - Balancing Your Confidence Level

BALANCE - A Practical Handbook for Life's Difficult Moments by Suzie Doscher

Self-Help Book / Personal Development
by Suzie Doscher
3rd Edition

Categories

Archives

Contact info:

Coaching Blog The Coaching Group Of Switzerland

The Cost of Bad Project Management

Not Feeling the Holiday Cheer? Some Thoughts on How to Manage Any Stress

Happy Holidays from the Coaching Group of Switzerland - Life, Business and Executive Coaching in Zurich, Switzerland

What the Company Can Do For You - What You Can Do For the Company (And Yourself)

For support in any of these areas get in touch with us for a complimentary chat about how our coaches can help.

Too confident? Not confident enough? - Balancing Your Confidence Level

BALANCE - A Practical Handbook for Life's Difficult Moments by Suzie Doscher

​Self-Help Book / Personal Developmentby Suzie Doscher3rd Edition

Categories

Archives

Contact info:

Coaching Blog
The Coaching Group Of Switzerland

For support in any of these areas
get in touch with us for a complimentary chat about how our coaches can help.

Self-Help Book / Personal Development
by Suzie Doscher
3rd Edition