Project Fails Often Due to Lack of PM’s Expertise

So, what’s the top reason for a project failure that Senior IT Managers often cite as the major one? Is it Project Manager’s lack of expertise or leadership skills or lack of executive support or is it lack of awareness on the importance and criticality of the project?

Yatin Bhatia, PMP, SGM - Technology: Content Head at Aptech Limited says, “I believe one of the top causes behind Project failure is Project Manager’s lack of expertise. A Project Manager can drive the project to its logical end with his/her skills, by doing apt stakeholder management / expectation management. If he communicates clear project objectives and has accepted the same while signing project charter, then I believe PM becomes solely responsible for meeting Project Objectives and he can do so by his Project Management skills.”

Amandeep Singh Hunjan, Manager - IT Services at Orange Business Services has a similar opinion. He believes top cause is lack of PM's expertise. If a Project Manager is the primary driving force behind a project, he has experienced and seen simple projects fail.

He says, “I have observed many projects gone for a toss because of some or the other weakness of the Project Manager. On the other hand, quite complex and difficult projects can be executed without any issues just if Project manager has the right set of skills. When we talk about expertise at PM level it is not only the technical or Subject matter expertise, we are also talking about his skills with the team, his efficiency and reliability in getting the work done and his problem solving capabilities.”

Pradeep Chankarachan, Senior IT Manager, Harman International says, “ I think most of the time it is the lack of a clear success criteria, "why are we doing a project needs to be first answered and understood by all ", so it could be linked as PM leadership and establishing a Project vision.”

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