John Lawlor

In a blog post and related LinkedIn question back in March, I asked the question, “Why do organisations not learn from project failure?” I gained some wonderful insights from the dialogue that ensued and will share those gems of wisdom in this short series of articles.

While some answers dealt directly with the question posed, others concentrated more on the reasons for project failure, per se. Two key issues were identified that related directly to the question:

1. Inability or unwillingness to acknowledge failure and
2. Inability or unwillingness to learn from failure.

Acknowledging failure

Several correspondents stated that organisations that would not, or were culturally unable to, acknowledge failure could not learn the lessons of failure. Organisations and the people in them often fail to recognise their own negative behaviours and, because of this, are unable to own up to the project failure. Many organisations can also tend not to correct or challenge negative behaviour and, too often, fail to reward or recognise positive behaviour.

It was also argued that some organisations simply refuse to acknowledge failure at all because it is politically incorrect, culturally unacceptable or otherwise an unpalatable prospect. Admitting defeat is not the done thing. Most education, training and textbooks tend to focus on success rather than failure, so the latter is harder to accept, together with the adverse connotations that accompany failure.

Those who are perceived to have failed on a project are often encouraged – or feel the need – to leave the organisation. When this happens, the organisation loses an opportunity to build upon the embedded and hard-won experience of the project manager and team. Rather than punish people, organisations need maturity so that they can accept failure and learn lessons from it.

Finally, the need for “truth telling” was raised. Many organisations are unable to hear the truth and instead look to attribute blame, find scapegoats or cover up a failure. What is needed is the ability in the organisation to listen to the truth, acknowledge it and take appropriate action to avoid failure or mitigate its effects in the future.

Learning from failure (and success)

It has been said that, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. Correspondents argued that, in some cases, this might be due – in the case of projects – to hubris, organisational immaturity, politics, culture, thinking it will be different this time, or simply choosing to ignore the past.

Building on the theme of “truth telling”, a correspondent referred to the difficulty of actually capturing knowledge from individuals for group use. For many years, organisations have tried to “commoditise” knowledge but continue to fail at the endeavour. A reason for this is the difficulty of capturing and organising practical, real-world experience and tacit knowledge. Entering lessons learned in computerised repositories is not enough: there is a need for people to share practical experience and to learn from each other by observing, doing, trial and error. This practical approach can be facilitated by “story telling” as a means for organisations to learn. Although this approach does not appear to have penetrated the world of project management yet, it could be a worthwhile technique for learning and transferring knowledge to others.

Whatever the approach, many correspondents argue that organisations need a process for capturing and implementing lessons learned from project failure and success. In too many cases, however, such processes do not exist. The suggested benefits from having a clear process for capturing lessons learned included quicker delivery of projects, less costly projects, reduced resource requirement and increased quality. Where an organisations embeds these learning disciplines it has a greater chance of learning from the past and doing better in the future.

Organisations often tend not to learn from previous failure because they blame external factors instead of recognising their inability to deal with these factors. Examples given were changing requirements, scope change and changes in the business environment. Change is inevitable and – as projects are mostly about achieving change – to blame change itself for failure misses the point. Even when organisations actually have “lessons learned” processes, they can occasionally fail to pick up on these when new projects are started, thinking that circumstances were different the last time, or that it was all someone else’s fault.

Not everyone agreed with the concept of learning organisations, with some arguing that there was no such thing or that all learning occurred at an individual level only. I don’t really have a strong personal view on this, but I tend to believe that an organisation that tries to capture knowledge – in whatever form and by whatever means (including story and truth telling) – has a better chance of improving performance over time.

What’s your view?

What is your opinion on acknowledging and learning the lessons from project failure? Do you or your organisation accept failure when it occurs and deal with it in a positive and constructive manner? Do you blame the team, the project manager, external factors? Do you look for scapegoats? Do you learn lessons or continually relive the past? Do you use story telling and truth telling as a way of sharing knowledge and changing the future? Or don’t you believe in the idea of learning organisations at all?

I welcome all relevant opinions, so please leave a comment and let me know.

Further reading

I am grateful for three book recommendations received from a correspondent:

“The Knowing-Doing Gap” by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton. I’ve read this excellent book and subscribe to Bob Sutton’s wonderful blog, Work Matters.

“The Next Common Sense” by Michael Lissack and Johan Roos, which I am reading at the moment.

“How the Way We Talk Can Change The Way We Work” by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, which I intend to read next.

Footnote:

Replies to my question came from New York; San Francisco; Mexico; Brazil; England; Ireland; Denmark; France; Australia; Boston; Santa Barbara; Chennai, India; Denver; Kota, India; Mumbai, India; Holland, and Ahmadābād, India. In this age of Internet and Social Media, time and distance really are becoming irrelevant and it is clear that Social Media and the Internet can foster and support collaborative working across the globe.

My sincerest thanks to all who replied to my question; I hope my first blog post in this short series does justice to their contributions.

If you liked this post, you might also like:

Planning For Success: The Basics Of Good Project Management

Will We Ever Learn?

Deploying Microsoft Project and Project Server in Trinity College

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