Why Good Projects Fail Anyway

1

• Why Good Projects Fail Anyway
• N. F. Matta and R. N. Ashkenas
• Robert H. Schaffer Associates
• Presentation by
• J. Stephen Rottler
• Harvard Business Review, September 2003, Page
  109

2
Big Projects Fail At An Astonishing Rate

• Traditional approach to project management
  shiftsfocus away from end results toward
  developing recommendations, new technologies, and
  partial solutions
• Managers use project plans, timelines, and
  budgets to reduce execution risk, but often
  neglect
• White space risk some required activities
  wont be identified in advance
• Integration risk disparate activities will
  not properly come together at the end
• Project teams can execute their tasks flawlessly,
  on time and under budget, but overall project may
  still fail to deliver intended results

3
Rapid Results Initiatives Concept

• Based on 20 years of experience with hundreds of
  teams
• Basic Concept Inject into the overall plan a
  series of mini-projects each staffed with a team
  responsible for a version of the hoped-for
  overall result in miniature, and each designed to
  deliver its result quickly
• Not the same as pilot projects, which are
  typically designed to test a preconceived
  solution, or means, and to reduce execution risk

4
Example World Bank Initiative

• Goal Improve productivity of 120,000
  small-scale farmers in Nicaragua by 30 in 16
  years
• World Bank and Ministry of Agriculture conducted
  surveys and interviews, analyzed data, and
  identified essential work streams
• Reorganize government institutions that give
  technical advice to farmers
• Encourage creation of a private-sector market in
  agricultural support services
• Strengthen National Institute for Agricultural
  Technology
• Establish an information management system that
  would help agricultural RD institutions direct
  their RD to most productive areas of research
• Launched five teams with representatives from
  work streams and farmers each team was results
  oriented, vertical, and fast

5
Results Oriented

• Intentionally commissioned to produce a
  measurable result but on a scale smaller than
  overall objective
• Increase Grade A milk production in Leon from 600
  to 1600 gallons/day in 120 days in 60 small and
  medium-sized producers
• Increase pig weight on 30 farms by 30 in 100
  days using enhanced corn seed
• Secure commitments from private sector to provide
  technical advice and support to 150 farmers in El
  Sauce within 100 days
• Allows project planners to test whether
  activities in overall plan will add up to
  intended result and to alter plans if needed
• Produces real benefits in the short term
• Delivering results is more rewarding and
  energizing for teams

6
Vertical

• Encompasses a slice of several horizontal
  activities, implemented in tandem in a very short
  time frame
• Cross-functional teams
• Key to reducing white space and integration
  risks
• Team can succeed only by uncovering and and
  properly integrating any activities falling in
  the white space between horizontal streams
• Example World Bank team working on securing
  commitments between farmers and technical experts
  in the dry farming region
• Discovered missing marketing of technical
  services and added to horizontal work stream

7
Fast

• Generally last no longer than 100 days
• Not quick fixes they change the way teams
  approach their work
• Fosters a sense of personal challenge, ensuring
  team members feel a sense of urgency
• Leaves no time to squander on big studies or
  inter-organizational bickering

8
Shift in Accountability

• Typically executives assign execution risk to
  team but hold responsibility for white space
  and integration risk
• In rapid results initiatives, teams are assigned
  responsibility for total risk of project
• Example Milk productivity team
• Discovered distributors dumped almost half of
  milk produced due to contamination and spoilage
• Added customer to team to help team learn how to
  produce milk that meets international quality
  standards
• Then team discovered growth goal was threatened
  by inadequate storage facilities for additional
  milk being produced
• Rather than build additional facilities, customer
  suggested they collect milk daily rather than
  twice weekly
• Team met goal of tripling sales in 120 days

9
Leadership Balancing Act

• Balance use of rapid results initiatives
  longer-term horizontal activities, which are more
  cost-efficient due to economy of scale
• World Bank Initiative
• Vertical team members continued working on
  horizontal streams and fed improvements to these
  streams
• Horizontal training team adjusted design of
  overall training program when milk productivity
  team discovered need to educate farmers on
  clean-milk practices
• When choosing vertical teams
• Identify aspects of an effort that have high
  probability of failure if they are not closely
  coordinated
• Think of projects that can replicate longer-term
  goals on a small scale in a short time and
  provide maximum opportunity for learning and
  discovery

10
Example Avery Dennison

• Launched fifteen rapid-results teams accelerate
  achievement of business growth goals horizontal
  activities continued
• Secure new order for an enhanced product, refined
  in collaboration with one large customer, within
  100 days
• Sign up 3 large retail chains so experience could
  be used to develop method for moving into new
  distribution channels
• Book several hundred thousand dollars in sales in
  100 days by providing all parts needed by a major
  customer
• Teams yielded more than 8M in new sales by end
  of 1QFY03 and were forecasting 50M in sales by
  end of year

11
Example Zurich Financial Services

• Overall long-term objective was to improve
  financial performance and strengthen
  relationships with core clients
• Launched dozens of rapid results initiatives
• Combined vertical teams focused on such goals as
  increasing payments from a small number of
  clients for value-added services with horizontal
  activities targeting staff training, internal
  processes, and the technology infrastructure
• In less than 4 years, loss ratios in the property
  side of the business dropped 90, the expense
  ratio was cut in half, and fees for value-added
  services increased ten-fold

12
Example Johnson and Johnson (Pharmaceutical RD)

• Goal Integrate QA functions for two
  traditionally autonomous clinical RD units with
  people located around the world
• Full integration involved many horizontal
  activities and would require many years
• Developing training standards
• Devising a system for standardizing disparate
  automated reports
• Created rapid results teams
• Example Quickly put into place several standard
  operating procedures that cut across horizontal
  work streams
• Focused on areas that would put company in
  greatest danger of failing to comply with U.S.
  and European regulations and on areas wit
  opportunities to generate knowledge that could be
  applied company wide

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Summary

• Rapid results teams can be used to effectively
  reduce or eliminate white space and
  integration risks in large, complex projects
• Use of these initiatives should be balanced with
  the use of lon-term horizontal activities
• Teams should be formed in areas with highest
  probability of failure if not properly
  coordinated
• There really are no wrong choices when it comes
  to deciding which initiatives to pursue
• Each 100 day initiative focused on a targeted
  result is a relatively low risk investment
• Even if it does not fully realize its goal, each
  project will produce valuable lessons learned and
  help illuminate the path forward
• These initiatives have been used with notable
  success by many large companies