Why will your project fail?

Leading Change
Written By Stacia Aylward

The Challenge

At the start of your next project, ask your team, "Imagine that we have just finished this project and it was a complete failure. Why did it fail?" Spend 15 minutes brainstorming this scenario and writing down the reasons that you and your team come up with. You can also do this exercise on your own with a personal or professional project. 

Why do this?

This question re-frames the classic risk analysis often performed at the beginning of a project. By pretending that you're at the end of the project looking back, you can see potential trouble spots that might not have been visible before.

Viewing a question from multiple perspectives helps you to form a truer approximation of the answer. 

What’s next?

Now that you've identified reasons that your project might fail, how are you going to avoid them? Develop a plan for how to evade each potential problem.

Stacia Aylward

Zelos CEO Stacia C. Aylward is an executive leader and lifelong learner with broad professional experience in envisioning and leading programs, projects and teams; facilitating and teaching adults; conducting research; and developing client relationships using proven methodologies in many government and technical fields, including economics, education, healthcare, housing, non-profit governance, IT and law. Stacia holds a master’s degree in Communication and Information, a bachelor’s degree in English, a Six Sigma black belt certification, and a Coach Approach to Leadership credential.

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