The two key causes of web project failure

There are few things more rewarding in one’s working life than delivering a web project on time and on budget.

Happy clients get better results, pay you on time and tell others about your capabilities.

However, no matter how hard you try and how professional your team is, it is the nature of services that some projects don’t always get to the line the way we would like.

That minority can quickly wipe out schedules, budgets, relationships and good sleep.

There are two key reasons for projects going off the rails.

1. A major change of direction

The first is a significant change of direction to the project plans.

The creative and technical industries have well versed practices in place for projects like websites. It is essentially a draft and approval process which has been around industries like building for centuries and the media for decades.

The provider provides an ‘on paper’ draft which the client considers and comments on. The provider takes on those comments and amends a next draft. And so on until the desired result is achieved. The final design or plan is then put into practice on the real or technical development – often with prototypes or samples provided to ensure all is on track.

The key to a smooth and efficient process is to keep the project moving forward in a linear fashion.

Dramatic changes of mind or plans will create a disruption that can easily throw the project, its schedule and budget into disarray.

Major change = major budget compromise

The equation here is that the greater the change, the greater the time needed to incorporate the change into the plans and resultant development.

Sometimes the change is so significant that the project needs to be ditched and essentially started over.

Experienced professionals understand this process and so take care to be thorough and clear when amending or approving a phase of the project. Some have a contingency budget just in case there is a significant change.

Newness = massive contingency budget

But it’s not just inexperience on the part of any member of the team that can disrupt a project.

In fact ‘newness’ on any aspect of a web or other project needs to be treated with extreme care.

I recall my Project Management 101 tutor telling us that if you haven’t done this kind of project before, you need a contingency of 100% of the budget.

That’s right. If you haven’t completed a project matching the specification exactly, you can double the budget allocated.

Given that by their nature all web projects are different, that advice would quickly put most web projects out of reach of their clients.

But it’s a cautionary note on just how challenging ‘new’ project components can be.

2, Competing phases

The second key reason for web (and other) project failure is overlapping phases of a project.

This occurred with one of our client’s projects recently. The client had a deadline to send out an email campaign from a website that was yet to be complete and was underpinned by a website platform they hadn’t yet used.

From the start this formula was not one that boded well for a smooth completion.

Inexperienced client with new website system being driven by an email campaign using a new email marketing system does not equal likely success.

If there was budget, the preparation of the two or more competing projects could have been managed concurrently with both dovetailing neatly at the end.

But there wasn’t, so it became more of a seat of your pants exercise.

Throw some indiscriminate changes of direction into the mix and you get the idea – a team struggling to keep the project on time and budget and an increasingly anxious client.

Horse before the cart

Clearly what needed to happen on a project of this budget was consecutive distinct phases for completion rather than concurrent, competing phases.

So phase one should have seen complete focus on the launch of the basic website, phase two the addition of the shopping area, phase three the eNewsletter and so on.

Not to say some of these activities can’t start while other aspects are going on. But when a phase of the key milestone is being delayed because of work on a secondary phase is clearly putting the cart before the horse.

So when planning your web project, don’t bite off more than you can chew.

Ensure your fundamental project is on track prior to taking on a second that could easily undermine the first – particularly when either of the relationship, technology or process is a new one.

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Craig Reardon is a leading eBusiness educator and founder and director of independent web services firm The E Team which provide the gamut of ‘pre-built’ website solutions, technologies and services to SMEs in Melbourne and beyond.