Personally I don't believe the idea has anything to do with failure of a project. If I were to pick one specific step in the process it would have to be the planning, especially if there is horrible communication. Poor communication does and always will result in failure. It's the only way a team can become successful no matter the case. I would never blame the testing phase because there is always information that can be gained and used in other instances. 

There are many different factors that can lead to the failure of a project, some preventable and some unpreventable. Some preventable issues that may arise during the course of a project that can be detrimental to the success of a project include underestimating task durations, running out of resources, missing deadlines, poor communication, and lack of technical skills. Some unpreventable, and sometimes inevitable, issues that can occur are management canceling a project when there is no longer a need for that project at the present moment, certain risks that were assessed while initiating a project proving to be too dangerous to continue the project, and, lastly, extreme turns of events, like we have experienced over the course of the past year with COVID-19.

A project that fails usually has a poor planning of the prototype with complex features that make lead times on prototypes take way longer than expected (not based on manufacturing fault, but rather manufacturability of part being difficult) as well as project team shifts. I don't think that a poor choice of a project team is going to occur as the business isn't looking to make one All-Star team and one benchmarking team. They will usually combine who they believe will excel in that area in the project without setting up a team that is unable to work with one another. A prototype is like a concept car where it may look great in CAD and have amazing ideas put in place, but to transfer that design into a working prototype can be another beast on its own that may be doomed to fail due to its large cost, lead time on manufacturing, or if it does not work as intended due to real life use. Project teams also shift personnel during a reorganization of the business that can cause a project to be shelved until a later date that is not from the poor design of the project but rather a refocus of business needs. These are only a few reasons for failure (at least from an R&D perspective) where there can be multiple reasons on a failure of project. 

I think poor communication would be a major reason for a project to fail. Communication is necessary during all aspects of the project, and without it there would be much difficulty in completing the project successfully. In the Initiation stage, communication is important in proposing a project and getting it started initially. In the Planning and Executing stages, communication is key in creating a project team, determining a schedule, and keeping the tasks on time according to the schedules. Without strong communication, every aspect of the project would be extremely challenging. Poor communication would be a very avoidable reason for failure. 

It is never very obvious why the project failed and it can be because of many reasons. Choosing the right people for the project is definitely necessary; someone can be very skilled and knowledgeable in the R&D activities including testing and documentations but he is not really familiar with the project, which might be a big disadvantage to the team. Another reason would be not outlining exactly what the project is targeting. The scope can be very clear to the team members and it would still have a part of it that was not said to the team. For example, the team is designing a new syringe; the team goes ahead to make all those design changes making it futuristic, however, it costed the manufacturing site to do some operational changes that costed the company a lot of money. What the team didn't know was that it was a cost saving project and doing huge amount of design changes defeated the purpose of the project. Going off the last example, scope creep can pretty much happen at any time and the project leader has to ensure that the scope is clearly communicated to the team members and the business to avoid misunderstanding. The last reason would be cutting corners due to a tight timeline, which would force the team to quickly execute the design verification testing without any pre-DV work, that would cause having failures that would delay the whole project.

I think there are several reason which can lead or set a project for failure but In my opinion important reasons are such as unrealistic expectations (as a project manager, it's important and necessary to gain a clear picture of what you and your team can do and in what time frame), communication gaps ( the way you and your team communicate must be explained very clear and it may be a good idea to implemented from the outset of your project), lack of resource planning and lack of project visibility. 

One of the top reason which would lead to a project failure would be that communication gap or error in communication. Other than that another top reason being failure to follow the protocol which has been set up. As mentioned in the previous discussions also a project manager has to have a clear vision of what is the goal which needs to be achieved and what is the final outcome. The planning is the next step in the scenario. if a project is not planned properly it is bound to fail. A time constriction may lead to a big issue in which a team may fail to deliver articles within the alloted time frame. So, it is very much crucial that lack of resources, misunderstanding  and miscommunications donot happen or else that will lead to a failure of the project.

As you stated in the prompt, I believe that the most issue that sets a project up to fail is poor communication between team members or departments. Just look at the mini-Sim 2. The main solutions to both key questions is to contact the important contributors of a project and make sure that both you and them understand what is going on with the project. Another issue that is very difficult to fix is insufficient resources to complete the project. Usually this arises due to management not wanting to commit to a project, which means they will most likely not provide additional resources later on down the line.

As a few have mentioned before, one aspect of a project that can cause failure is poor planning and communication. Of course plans can change and the team can adjust or adapt to setbacks but if the project is poorly planned from the beginning then I believe it would be that much more difficult to bring a project to completion. Communication is also extremely important not only in the planning phase of a project but throughout the project's timeline. I have experienced poor communication in many group projects before and it can definitely cause setbacks. If you are not communicating to your team about any issues that arise or keep the team updated on progress or checking up on tasks then it would be difficult to meet project milestones.

A specific or main cause of project failure is difficult to pinpoint. While I agree that communication seems to be a major factor in the success of a project, I think that sometimes project failure can just be due to the quality of the project. A team can be perfect, but if the device or study that they are pursuing just simply doesn't work then it's doomed to fail. As someone who used to do a lot of art projects, sometimes you can have the proper skill sets, the proper materials, and even the right people and the project will still fail because the idea just didn't work. 

Of course, I think situations in which you have the "perfect" team are rare, and most project failures are probably not as much of the result of, "chance" as they are the result of miscommunication, poor planning, poor time usage, unexpected absences, etc. 

It really depends on what the project is, what the teams like, how experienced team members are, how good the team is at communicating, and the resources that the team has access to. 

I've seen projects fail because they've run out of time, they've run out of materials, they've run out of money, they've run out of people willing to help with the project, etc. 

So again, I don't think that there is one specific cause of failure. 

In my opinion, projects fail due to a combination of varying reasons such as those mentioned in the forum question. Nonetheless, I believe a major contributing factor to project failure is inadequate preparation, brainstorming, and market research during the planning phase of the project. The reason for this is that the planning phase outlines the entire project such as determining both the tasks and schedule of the project. In addition, I would agree with prior posts that ineffective communication is a major cause of failure, but I believe this can be associated with inadequate planning. Therefore, I believe that it is important to develop a communication strategy during the planning phase to monitor the progress of the project throughout its execution. This could consist of schedules that include meeting times to obtain updates at periodic time points as well as defining the mode of communication that will be utilized by team members. Overall, I believe the planning phase plays a major determining factor in the success of a project.

Posted by: @sameer-rana

In my opinion, projects fail due to a combination of varying reasons such as those mentioned in the forum question. Nonetheless, I believe a major contributing factor to project failure is inadequate preparation, brainstorming, and market research during the planning phase of the project. The reason for this is that the planning phase outlines the entire project such as determining both the tasks and schedule of the project. In addition, I would agree with prior posts that ineffective communication is a major cause of failure, but I believe this can be associated with inadequate planning. Therefore, I believe that it is important to develop a communication strategy during the planning phase to monitor the progress of the project throughout its execution. This could consist of schedules that include meeting times to obtain updates at periodic time points as well as defining the mode of communication that will be utilized by team members. Overall, I believe the planning phase plays a major determining factor in the success of a project.

You brought up a very important point when outlining the schedule for the planning phase and phases that follow, a lot of us do not account for the meeting and communication timing that might take plenty of time from the schedule if it is not properly arranged. Setting up a periodic meeting with the team of the project and discussing the milestones that need to be met and the plan to meet it can save the project plenty of time that could be wasted on accommodating the schedule for the missing milestones and can also same money by preventing us from going back to the planning phase after we started developing and testing of the project.

 They say the 5 Ps are prior planning prevents poor performance.  The planning stage plays such an important role in the project management process that often projects do fail because you fail to plan properly. There are some cases where even when you do plan properly if the plan is not excited or followed, that it certainly leads to failure in many instances. Very good example of this is during Hurricane Katrina, plans were in place by FEMA and many different projects were in place to address how to mitigate the circumstances that transpired as a result of the hurricane but the plans were not followed and as a result devastation and thousands of lives were lost in the aftermath. Many case studies have been looked at to measure whether if those plans had been observed then perhaps many of the travesties that occurred would not have taken place.  The original testing protocols in early 2020 during the height of the pandemic is another example of what happens when plans fail.   

In my opinion, a project is doomed to fail if there is inadequate preparation and a lack of effective communication. Proper planning and preparation is not only important, it is the first part of the PDCA cycle. Without a plan, a project is just ideas and conversation topics that evolve into fruitless actions. Even with a detailed plan, lack of effective communication can derail and/or delay a project. For example, if a team member does not communicate with other team members, or the project manager is not communicating with the group, the plan will not be executed properly, thus leading to the failure of the project.