Projects fail — a lot. Nearly half of all projects fail to meet time, cost and quality requirements. Eighty-four percent of projects don’t meet all success criteria and 9 in 10 projects go over budget. In fact, only 2% of organisations don’t experience any kind of project failure (Standish Group; McKinsey; PwC).
In the last 20 years, organisations – both public and private – have invested heavily in improving their capability to deliver projects. Yet project success rates have only improved by 10% or less. Having a PMO isn’t a silver bullet either – they only reduce the failure rate by 8% (PMI).
Over the same period, ‘projectisation’ has continued to gain prominence as a means of delivering core elements of business strategy.
It stands to reason then, that if you’re delivering your strategy though projects, your Project Delivery System is either a competitive constraint or a competitive advantage. And the way yours works can be a key driver of success (or not).
