Why Are We Failing to Learn?
Chris Cashell, Principal Change Architect for Marbral Advisory in Ireland, progresses from his January blog on the future of project management, to now focus on what we are failing to learn.
We (as Project Managers) are the practitioners, and we tell everyone to do a ‘Lessons Learned’ after every project to ensure we don’t continue to repeat mistakes and improve the way we deliver. However, that also means taking a look at ourselves and what we can do. Problem is, we aren’t learning those lessons.
Why aren’t we learning the lessons??…because it will still, and always, come down to people and COMMON SENSE!!!
For those of a similar age, you may remember the Standish Group being famous for publishing their CHAOS Report with IT project success/failure/challenged rates and an attempt to analyse what could make projects successful. Even in the 1970’s (and that was 50 years ago 😊) two main success factors (or failings) were executive support and user involvement, i.e. human interaction, relationships and involvement.
What we then see over the next 50 years, via the same report, is that these areas - which are critical for project success - are still ‘failing’ when it comes to projects. Methodologies may come and go, new technology may be introduced, but it can’t disguise the need for human interaction to enable project success.
Even our own institute (PMI) has emphasised the importance of ‘power skills’ such as collaboration, strategic thinking and communication that are all synonymous with the ever-important executive buy-in and user involvement.
So, it’s made me question why we are not learning lessons of the past. Are we continuing to point them out whilst failing to take them seriously?
We must remind ourselves not to get caught up in the next big thing, the shiny object in the sky, the silver bullet to solve all our problems that never materialises. We have to put the effort in and start to develop our human skills to drive success for all – it is hard, and it takes effort but there aren’t easy and simple answers because if there was, we would have already done it!
Remember - If we DON’T focus on our human side, we will continue to repeat the failures of the past. You have to reinvent yourselves to be relevant in the future. Businesses change so fast these days, along with the environment in which they operate, especially with the onset of AI. What we can control is who we are, how we behave, and how we build productive relationships to truly deliver.
