Failure is part of project management. Strike that. Failure is part of life.

Failure happens. The idea is to learn from it and find a way to move forward. However, that’s a lot easier said than done. It can be quite devastating to go through a failure. It’s usually down to how much you have invested (emotionally more than financially) to know how you’ll react. When you really care, it’s harder to admit defeat, much less come to terms with it and find lessons from the situation.

When it’s a project you’re managing, you probably have a lot of emotional and psychological energy tied to it. And as the Project Manager it’s easy to see and be seen as the one responsible for the project failure, true or not. Keep remembering that failure is part of life and the goal here is to learn from this. It may require some deep soul searching, but you can do it. You really don’t have much of a choice…You will recover. How fast, though, is up to you.

The following three steps to recovering and learning from project failure might help. Steps one and two are focused on getting, you, the Project Manager, the individual, through the sense of loss, grief, anxiety and possibly guilt of the failure. Step three aims to help you focus on reflecting, discovering and growing from the experience.

1. Time and space

When failure happens, you normally are not at your best, emotionally, psychologically, mentally, or even physically. So when you’re down, the tendency can be to retreat inwards with questions like ‘why me?’ or to lash outwards and blame others. Although this might protect you from the initial shock of failing, it’s negative and unhelpful and if sustained too long, damaging.

There really is no healer like time.

You will be going through the five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression/apathy and acceptance. Give yourself time and space to do it (enough space away from others, especially when in anger!). Recognising when you are in each phase somehow helps you get through it faster. Conscious living and all that.

2. Techniques to help develop objectivity about the situation

While going through failure and the after effects of failure, you will need to gain perspective, become objective about the situation before you can begin to learn lessons. Some techniques that can help include:

 

Journaling

Research has shown that people who journal report having significantly less stress, and having a better overall mood (Greenberg, et al, 1996; Park & Blumberg, 2002). Writing down your experiences, emotions, expectations (things that seem to start with E) will help you start to sort through them and they will begin to make sense. You’ll start to recognise patterns, trends, specific incidents that can only come into perspective in hindsight. You’ll see their significance in the bigger picture and possibly how you might have dealt with them differently.

 

Support Groups

Those going through a major life change or stressful situation can reap certain benefits from being a part of a Support Group (Mayo Foundation, 2016):

• Feeling less lonely, isolated or judged
• Gaining a sense of empowerment and control
• Improving your coping skills and sense of adjustment

Recovering from a failure, especially a public failure, can feel very isolating. Joining a support group involves surrounding yourself with others in order to vent and ask for help. Additionally, they will provide non-judgemental support, advice, guidance and potentially mentorship. All of this helps to build or re-build self-confidence to venture out and try again.

 

Movement

Sometimes when the mind is too clouded and there’s nothing that can be done to free it, the body can act as the valve for release. Enhance your well-being through the release of endorphins! From walking to running to really any type of exercise that moves the body will help. Let loose and let go of the stale, negative energy and make room more positive, life-affirming and optimistic energies. Exercise promotes positive changes in the brain, such as neural growth, reduced inflammation, and patterns that promote feelings of calm and well-being (Robinson et al, 2016).

 

Reframing (NLP)

If the situation is still driving you crazy, you could benefit from the NLP technique of context re-framing – reframe your perspective to get a different response. Try looking at the failure from another point of view, consider other factors, put a positive spin on it or see the glass as half full. (MicroDot.Net, 2008). The meanings which we apply to our model of the world directly influence our behaviours and the ways in which we respond to the world. The NLP Reframing technique replaces the meaning you’ve attached to the ‘failure’ experience with a new meaning where it now becomes a useful, positive and beneficial experience.

3. Review and Analyse

Once you’re in a mental and emotional state to look at the failure objectively, time to learn from it! Review the past to look for lesson for the future. It’s no good going through all of this turmoil just to go through it again (and again and again!).

Review your goals

• Were your goals realistic? Too big? Too complex? Too small?
• Were the stakeholders bought into the goals?
• Were there divided stakeholder interests? Hidden agendas?
• Were you chasing perfection, and thus fell short?
• Were the constraints around the goals understood? And agreed?

Review your PID / Project Management Plan / Charter / SOW

• Was there any documentation about how the project would run?
• What shape was the documentation in before you started?
• Was the project documentation agreed and signed off before you started?
• Who was involved in writing the documentation? Were they the right people?
• Were the roles and responsibilities for the project understood and/or documented?
• Were the right people with the right skill sets assigned to the roles?
• Was there a Business Case for the project?
• Was there a Risk Management Strategy / Plan?
• Was there a Quality Management Strategy / Plan?
• Was there a Configuration Management Strategy / Plan?
• Was there a Change Control Strategy / Plan?
• Was there a Communications Management Strategy / Plan?
• Was there a Procurement Management Strategy / Plan?
• Was there a Resource Management Strategy / Plan?

Review your plans

• Was there a plan?
• Was the plan realistic?
• Did the stakeholders buy-in to the plan?
• Was the planned agreed and signed off before you started?
• How much effort did you put into planning and preparing?
• How many people were involved in planning? Were they the right people?
• How much time and effort went into identifying risks with the plan?
• What kinds of risk mitigating activities were in the plan?
• How much emphasis on quality was embedded in the plan?
• How many reviews, audits and checks were planned for in the plan?
• How many gated decisions were built into the plan?
• Were the right resources with the right skills reserved for the work in the plan?
• Were the estimates thought through or based on gut instinct?
• Did the plan match up with the project budget? And milestones?
• Was the plan reviewed for external dependencies outside of the project to identify key timings, budgets, decisions, logistics, resourcing constraints?

Review your execution

• Did you follow the plan? Consistently?
• Did you monitor the actual work against the plan?
• Did you report regularly? Was it enough? Too much?
• Did the team report to you regularly? Was it enough? Too much?
• Were processes in place and being used? Consistently?
• Was team motivation high? Consistently?
• Were controls used correctly? Tolerances? Contingency? Gated decisions?
• Were issues captured and managed as they happened?
• Were risks being identified proactively? Consistently?
• Were reviews, audits and checks performed as planned?
• Were the results of the reviews, audits and checks acted upon (e.g., fixes made and recommendations addressed)?
• Were stakeholders communicated with based on the Communications Strategy / plan? Was it enough? Was it too much?
• How was feedback from Stakeholders managed? Who was responsible?

Analyse for the Future

• What incidents or trends can you identify retrospectively that would have indicated failure was approaching?
• What mechanisms specifically could have helped intervene with those incidents or trends in time to recover?
• What would you do differently next time you see those incidents or trends?
  What will you do differently now to avoid those incidents or trends from happening in the first place?

One last time, you cannot avoid failure, but you sure can learn from it! Best of luck on all your future projects and project failures!

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References:

Greenberg, M. A., Wortman, C. B. & Stone, A. A. (1996) Emotional expression and physical heath. Revising traumatic memories or fostering self-regulation? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 588–602.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/. 2016. Exercise: 7 benefits of regular physical activity. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/exercise/art-20048389. [Accessed 2 September 2016].

Microdot.Net 2008. 2008. Microdot.Net 2008. [ONLINE] Available at: https://Microdot.Net. [Accessed 2 September 2016].

Park, C. L. & Blumberg, C. J. (2002) Disclosing trauma through writing: testing the meaning-making hypothesis. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 26, 597–616

Robinson, Lawrence, Jeanne Segal, Ph.D., and Melinda Smith, M.A.. 2016. The Mental Health Benefits of Exercise. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.helpguide.org/articles/exercise-fitness/emotional-benefits-of-exercise.htm. [Accessed 2 September 2016].