I'm asking project managers all the time: What are the most serious/frequent causes of project failure? What are the most important/dependable practices of project success? My collection of respondents now is in the countless hundreds, and . . .

Ninety percent of the project managers 90 percent of the time tell me: Poor planning and ineffective management lurk in the wreckage of every ruined project. Sound planning and good management drive every successful project.

Today's blog outlined the sad tale of a project manager mired in a failure-in-progress. I asked that you answer two questions:

How does Sergei rescue this project?

What does this experience tell Sergei about his next project?

Let's deal with the first question. The short answer is: Sergei stops asking for a deadline extension, and instead stops the project in its tracks. Why and how? We'll get to that in a bit.

One customary response of a project manager in Sergei's spot is to take on the “champion” role, driving self and team members through night and weekend work in a heroic flameout. An alternate, the “grim soldier” approach, is to put one's head down and march obediently over the cliff.

Sergei is by no means alone in this situation. Every study I've seen shows a majority failure rate for projects in all fields.   PM Network, a publication of the Project Management Institute, provided these numbers about IT projects:

    17%   Canceled       

    33%   Issues with Budget, Schedule and Functionality       

    28%   Successful, but not meeting Return on Investment Standards  

    22%   Successful, and Meeting ROI Goals   

I believe a successful project comes in with variances of no more than 10 percent either way on schedule, budget and completion criteria. And that's without fudging by moving the goal posts as the project slides sidewise.

OK, so what does Sergei do now?

First, he must address the root problem here, which is a failure of senior management (the VP/facilities) to put his authority behind development of a rational base for the project. This fundamental flaw was compounded by whoever was the project manager at the time, accepting the situation and proceeding to drive the project into the ditch. Sergei himself picked up the downward spiral from his predecessor.

How does Sergei reverse the resultant cascade of catastrophe?

For starters, he must attempt to reconstitute a realistic basis for the project. Instead of asking for a postponement of the deadline, he must declare a halt to the project, and inform the vice president. His message: He has acted to stop a serious waste of resources and must have an immediate conference with the VP. That should get some attention.

This may seem insubordinate enough to end this phase of Sergei's career, but what other choice does he have? He never should have agreed to attempt the impossible in the first place – that didn't make it possible, it simply volunteered him to take the fall. The only real authority to do anything useful is the power currently being held in abeyance by the vice president.

If that VP truly wants the project to succeed, he will agree to meet – however angry he might be.

Now Sergei shifts into diplomacy mode: How does he carry out a conflict management phase, followed by a persuasion negotiation? He does that by doing his homework and tuning up his political skills.

What does this experience tell Sergei about his next project?

He must thoughtfully examine this experience as soon as it's over, zeroing in on what precisely started this ball rolling out of control down the hill, what accelerated that destructive process, and what specifically will prevent it from starting at all in his next project.

All topics for other times.