The downturn in economic markets has forced organisations to establish projects that focus on generating revenue to survive the slump. New insights1 has revealed that 40% of projects are established for business imperatives and 30% are focused on revenue generation. The other reasons for establishing projects represent less than 10% each and are to reduce costs, implement changes due to regulatory requirements and to replace obsolete technology.
An assessment of the average size of projects reveals that a 31% are valued under $1million with 36% valued between $1million and $10million. The largest industry sector was information technology (22%) followed by consulting (12%) and banking & capital markets (8%). Two-thirds of the projects were established in the private sector and a third in the public sector. A quantitative assessment of the average size of projects reveals that the majority of projects established in South Africa would be covered by the smallest two sizes of projects (67%).
A similar study focusing on IT-based business projects2 found that 68% of projects fail or only delivered partial success. The assessment of the projects found that 32% delivered the original project objectives on time and within budget whereas 44% fell short of expectations in terms of the scope, budget and time line. The biggest concern is that 24% of projects failed to deliver the project and were classified as complete failures.
The top three contributors to the poor performance of projects revealed that poor estimation, lack of executive sponsorship and poorly defined goals and objectives account for 53% of the issues. Changes in scope mid-project, insufficient resources and poor communication complete the top six contributors and account for 78% of the issues causing the poor performance of projects. The most worrying concern is that poor estimation is the single biggest cause of poor performance and is the largest worsening trend.
Our team of project auditors can help you to overcome the issues that are hampering the performance of your projects so that they can meet their objectives on time and within budget. We can help to redefine the project, improve stakeholder commitment, resolve problematic issues, improve communication and provide experienced recovery expertise. We can manage the recovery or provide mentoring services. We have successfully recovered distressed projects across a wide variety of industries in the private and public sector and can do the same for you.
Footnotes
1. PWC, Insights and Trends, Current Portfolio, Programme and Project Management Practices, 2012 (1,524 respondents from 38 countries and within 34 industries)
2. PWC, On budget, on time, on scope, 2012
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