One of the questions most frequently investigated in studies is the question of success factors in project work: what needs to occur in order for projects to be successful?
In a large-scale study of Volkswagen Coaching GmbH, conducted together with the University of Bremen on German industry, the above findings were achieved. According to these, whether or not projects successfully achieve their goals is largely down to top management. This is followed at some distance by the themes of method utilisation and qualification, i.e. using the right methods (instruments and processes) and disseminating these amongst the participants or employing suitable qualification concepts to enable the participants to put these instruments and processes to use. Interestingly, the question of whether to employ software – and if so, which – was accorded just 5%.
Reasons for the failure of projects
If the question of success factors of projects is applied to their failure factors, a GPM study of 2006 and 2004 arrives at different, but by no means contradictory, findings. Here project managers were asked about the reasons for projects failing to achieve their aims.
According to this, the main causes are errors and problems during the project start phase and a lack of consideration paid to so-called soft or social factors.
Remarkably, overly-high technical requirements play a completely subordinate role.