Why do projects fail?

The primary causes for project failure were captured succinctly by Danek Bienkowski (1989) - 20 years ago. For anyone who's had a project go the wrong direction, you'll find yourself nodding in agreement.

Ten Major Causes of Project Failure (Bienkowski 1989)

The project is a solution in search of a problem
Only the project team is interested in the result
No one is in charge
The project plan lacks structure
The project plan lacks detail
The project is under budgeted
Insufficient resources are allocated
The project is not tracked against its plan
The project team is not communicating
The project strays from its original goals

Getting that "sinking feeling"?

Been there, done that

Research suggests it's all too common. 31.1% of projects will be canceled before they ever get completed; further results indicate 52.7% of projects will cost over 189% of their original estimates (The Standish Group, Chaos Report 1995). Agile approaches to project management have emerged to help. These are summarized in the following agile manifesto (from the Agile Alliance):

Avoid failure, embrace success

Tools, process and people help you avoid failure and embrace success.

Agile Manifesto ~ an iterative approach (the Agile Alliance)

The agile manifesto reads: "We follow these principles:"

Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.
Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
Working software is the primary measure of progress.
Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.
The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

How groupweave can help

Organic team communication; flexible project planning that allows developers to input when the scope has changed and to track those changes; interface for tracking requirements.

Use groupweave to define project iterations (the good ol' waterfall approach is also supported!)
Define the goals of each iteration, quickly and easily
Communicate in a single web page
Track progress and predict results