Sophia Jayden is a senior writer and content marketing specialist. She has 10+ years’ experience in content writing and marketing. Currently, she is a staff writer at GoodFirms, a pioneering B2B research, review and rating platform. For more information about her work, you can reach out and start a conversation with her at sophia@goodfirms.co.
Today, businesses live in a world where efficiency and transformation must go hand in hand to experience success. From sustainability to AI integration to techno-shift, businesses have to work multiple tasks parallelly to make impossible projects possible. "Organizations continue to struggle with the complexity of project, program, and product delivery while seeking to manage economic and political volatility as operational and business needs change dynamically with competitive, technology, and geopolitical disruptions,” says the IDC report. This blog is a quest to learn and understand what really makes a project sustainable and what makes it fail.
It is no secret that projects aim to generate considerable achievements for a business, and essential value to the brand. If successful, they allow companies to advance beyond what they envision and surpass the limits. Limited by time, budget, resources, machine intelligence, and human intelligence, projects consist of a series of activities that differ by operation.
Before we learn a few tips on sustaining a project, it is important to understand why projects fail.
Every project is different and thus requires a different approach from the planning to the execution and sustainability stages. Building the essential structure and culture to help the project sustain is one of the top qualities of a project-driven organization. A project's success depends upon the actions taken while executing it and even after executing it. Reports indicate that there are a vast number of projects lying dormant or executed with poor strategies.
One recent example that we can consider for our study is foldable smartphones.
Android-based Royole FlexPai was the first foldable smartphone released in 2018. Huawei, Motorola, Honor, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo are other brands in the foldable smartphone market. In July 2023, Samsung launched its 5G Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Flip 5 smartphones, followed by Fold 6. One had a horizontal hinge, and the other one had a vertical hinge. Motorola Razr+ and Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold are the other brand’s releases. Reportedly, Apple has two prototypes but is not able to proceed with a launch due to the crease that is visible in the middle of the display, which comes from folding the phone multiple times.
What are the Challenges?
Although these phones appear handy, the device cannot lie completely flat due to the crease. This issue is a major one for the manufacturers.
Although the concept is excellent, some challenges make this project a failure. Foldable smartphone models still need to be sustained.
Apart from these major issues, this concept has other challenges like cost, durability, lack of efficient applications, etc.
But, above all, users were happy with a traditional phone and found no reason to shift to foldable phones.
Are the Challenges Addressable?
Samsung reduced the crease to a greater extent in its special edition of the Z Fold 6 due to its UFG (ultra-flexible glass). This model is launched in China as W25. But, yet, there is no question that the crease will disappear.
William LaCourse, a professor at Alfred University stated on CNN, “The technology is being pushed to new levels, but there are still limits.”
So, today, the foldable smartphone project idea is a flop. Perfection remains far from many attempts. With advanced technology and evolving strategies, the idea can be flipped and enhanced and become a hit in the future.
Although this is just one example, multiple reasons contribute to a project's failure. Here are a few prominent factors;
“This year, the focus on maturity models, agile methodologies, leadership dynamics, and emerging technologies shapes the narrative around project success,” says the Standish Group’s 2024 Chaos Report.
Projects that are not planned effectively, executed effectively, and monitored effectively will not see sustained growth. Here are a few points that will further highlight the reasons for project failure.
Rigid Ideas
Lack of resources
Lack of Market Demand
Poor Architecture
Poor Risk Management
Not following the predictive management
Not following the adaptive management
Not following process improvement
Not adapting an iterative development approach
The potential possibilities to increase the success rate of a project are limitless, and identifying the right expertise and experts to conduct the project and sustain it is critical. Although a significant portion of the projects is human-centric, there is an equal percentage of contribution from technologies - more precisely, AI-based tools. A high level of technological maturity can contribute to the sustainability of the projects.
Here are a few points that can help in project sustainability:
Plan your projects efficiently
Adopt a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach
Invest in the best AI-backed project management tool
Focus on sustaining your projects by constantly monitoring
Master agility with automation to run multiple projects simultaneously
#1 Plan Your Projects Efficiently:
Businesses must break out of the “one-size fits all” methodology. A lack of flexibility and adaptability only makes a project fail. So, planning a project efficiently is critical for its sustainability. Generative AI can help in several workflows of this stage and can supercharge every project towards sustainability.
#2 Adopt a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach
The MVP approach involves validating your project idea, testing, and iterating based on feedback. This strategy will help project managers judge and launch a user-focused product that will be sustainable. Using analytics and data-based decisions can add value to every project.
#3 Invest in the Best AI-backed Project Management Tool
A study from HBR revealed that 80% of project management tasks will be run by AI, powered by big data, machine learning (ML), and natural language processing. Modern-day project management software have powerful AI features for risk assessment, resource allocation, project workflow tracking, and much more.
#4 Focus On Sustaining Your Projects By Constantly Monitoring
Projects initially receiving a good welcome can fail over time due to various factors. Every project, whether large or small, with high or low complexity, requires reasonable control to succeed and sustain. Continuous monitoring is necessary to ensure that the project meets expectations. It is also essential to understand the importance of using digital thread to study the project’s performance, adoption, and much more enabling project managers to check the sustainability.
#5 Master Agility With Automation To Run Multiple Projects Simultaneously
Agile methodology continues to be the best factor for project success and sustainability. According to a Deloitte report, 71% of projects are delivered late. The reason could be a lack of practice in the agile methodology and an inability to iterate the projects as required.
“First, have a definite, clear, practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends: wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.” – Aristotle
Project management in the AI era is undergoing drastic transformation and stands as one of the most critical activities of a business. For assured success and sustainability of the projects, it is necessary to take the support of efficient software solutions that have powerful AI features. Advanced AI-based project management tools help in planning, automating, predicting, analyzing, scheduling, real-time/demand-based resource management, document management, risk management, task management, and much more.
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