Hello and welcome to our Impactful Projects and Planning series. I'm Jami Yazdani. In today's session, we'll talk about common reasons projects fail and what we can do about them.

So we've all been there right a project that started with purpose, and maybe even excitement ends in confusion and disappointment, so maybe momentum fizzles and folks kind of move on to other priorities. Maybe we didn't meet our deadline, or we didn't deliver on all of our promised outcomes, or maybe what we did deliver didn't live up to our stakeholders expectations. So what happened? Why did the project fail? It's been my experience leading projects in mission driven organizations that projects don't fail because people don't care. They fail because clarity slips through the cracks. And so today we'll unpack four common reasons projects go sideways, and we'll talk about some of the practical shifts that can help bring them back into alignment.

Alright? So let's start with one common reasons projects fail, the lack of a shared vision of success and so too often teams begin projects by diving right into planning and timelines before they've really agreed on or confirmed the project's perfect purpose. But every successful project begins with a shared picture of why we're doing what we're doing. So if we don't share a clear vision of success, our projects and teams fall into a clarity gap.

And so to avoid this, the shifts that we need to make is to pause and make sure everyone is on the same page about the projects why, and we want to do this even if scope and deliverables have already been identified and documented. And so we need to be sure to discuss and concern confirm the why before we move on to the when. And so the reason for this is that clarity on paper isn't the same as clarity in people's minds. And so if five stakeholders read the same scope or or project proposal, and picture five different visions of success that is not alignment. That's a recipe for quiet chaos and a recipe for project failure. I sometimes get pushback on kind of taking this pause, because people will say, Well, you know, the information is already documented. Folks should have looked at it. It was in the grant proposal. But we really want to make sure that what is on paper is clear in folks minds. And so before you move into detailed tasks or drafting a schedule pause for a critical check in with key stakeholders and your team to confirm the Projects Foundation. So we want to discuss the fundamental project parameters to ensure everyone is on the same page, even if they were already outlined in a proposal or initial plan.

And so one of the ways that we can facilitate this discussion is by asking a couple of questions. So get your team together and ask, what is the project's purpose or scope? So this helps us define that essential why are we working together?

Next? You can ask, What concrete deliverables or outcomes must we achieve? And so these are the tangible What's that are going to drive project action, and they also are a way that really helps us define project success. And three, what key activities or features are outside of scope right now. And so clarifying these boundaries really early is critical for avoiding scope creep, but also helping us to maintain focus throughout the project. And so when every team, team member, every key stakeholder contributes to this discussion, either by defining these answers together or getting on the same page about these answers, if they have been documented somewhere, it will help you ensure buy in and continued engagement. And so this type of collaborative approach also creates some Share.

Ownership, and that's really the shared ownership necessary to keep the project moving forward, alright? So reason number two, projects tend to fail even when the scope and vision are clear. If you've got everybody on the same page, projects stall if no one knows who's doing what, and so the root problem here is unclear stakeholder roles. I know that I beat this drum regularly in these sessions, and if you've ever talked with me or attended other trainings, I talk about this a lot, but I see this negatively impact projects all of the time, and you've probably seen it as well. So meetings full of smart, capable people waiting for someone else to raise their hand or make a decision, or those lists of next next steps and actions that never get accomplished, it's really not about apathy. It's about ambiguity, and this ambiguity leads to disengagement and delays, which threatens project success. And so the shift that we want to make is move from attendance to ownership. And so collaboration is not about everybody showing up, it's about people engaging. And when we have clear project roles for our team, for our stakeholders, it helps you clearly define how each stakeholder should contribute to or engage with the project, and that's the clarity that is going to turn those meetings where no one's raising their hand in to movement. And so to define clear roles, there's a couple of general questions we can ask, first, who owns the work, so who is going to be responsible for different deliverables and tasks? Who makes the final call, so who will approve deliverables if they need approving, or who's going to make key decisions, and what are those key decisions? We also want to ask who provides input? So who needs to give feedback or input or share expertise to move the project forward? And then who needs to be informed, not involved? So who needs to know maybe that the project is happening or be getting progress reports, but doesn't need to be actively engaged throughout the project. Once you've answered these questions, once these sort of lanes are clear, your meetings get shorter, your decisions get faster, and your teams breathe easier.

That's because collaboration isn't consensus, it's clarity and contribution. And so too often we treat collaboration like it means that everybody must show up and agree before we can move forward. That is not collaboration. That's a type of gridlock hiding behind that smiling face of good intentions. And so true collaboration is about alignment and commitment. When you create that clarity of contribution and roles, people know what decisions they own, what input they're expected to give, and when it's their time to support or steer. So when we have role clarity, people stop just showing up, and you really can start building project momentum. All right. Reason number three projects fail is about planning, and so we've all seen it, and maybe we've been there. Your grants approved, the meetings booked. Suddenly we are sprinting into action before we've mapped the road ahead. Everyone's moving, but no one's aligned. That's the execution gap. So where momentum is replacing method. It happens when planning feels like a formality, not a leadership tool. Sometimes this is an overreaction to failures of reason number one. And so in Reason number one, we jump into planning, and we haven't all gotten on the same page about the why. And so sometimes folks come out of those situations feeling like planning hasn't gone well, hasn't worked out. And so we say to ourselves, you know, we'll figure it out as we go. But then we wonder why our team is overwhelmed and exhausted and tasks start to slip. And so the reality is that urgency without structure breeds burnout. So when we don't have a clear and realistic plan that reflects capacity, we are constantly playing catch up. We're asking our teams to wait for decisions, then to complete tasks at the last minute. And not having a plan doesn't create more agility. Folks often think agile project management, somehow is about not having a plan and agile you're actually planning more often.

What not having a clear plan does is it creates confusion and chaos that can really overwhelm our teams. And so the shift that we need to make is we need to start thinking about planning as a collaboration tool, not a bureaucratic step. And so people don't resist plans. They resist plans they don't understand. And so planning should be the moment where your team translates ideas into action together. And when planning is done really well, it will surface blind spots. It will help folks to find priorities, and it will really strengthen that buy in before the work even begins. So instead of treating planning as a solo assignment or a paperwork step, treat it as the first act of collaboration, and so gather the right voices early and spend time identifying the actions you need to take and align those actions with your team's capacity. So with your core project team, determine what actions do we need to take to complete our deliverables, and how long should these actions take? Once you have that information, then you can think about capacity and resources. So what do we need to make this timeline a reality, and what capacity do we actually have? And so this should get you to a realistic plan that folks understand and are bought into. And so when we bring our teams into planning discussions, planning becomes a collaboration habit, not a hurdle, all right. Which leads me to our fourth reasons project fail. It's not motivation, it's capacity. And so most leaders and teams I work with are not short on passion and they are not short on skill, but they are short on time and space to think, plan and lead, and so they are managing projects on top of their day jobs. They're juggling different priorities. All of those priorities feel urgent and all of them feel important. And so what this creates is a situation where everyone's busy but progress feels really uneven. What I've actually found is what feels like a capacity gap is actually a strategy gap. And so when your projects feel disconnected from the larger strategy, or when too many initiatives compete for too few folks to lead them and make them work, our projects start to fail. And so that's what the strategy gap is. It's a disconnect between what we say matters most and what we are actually spending our time doing. And so the shift that we need to make is to create strategic alignment. And so strategic alignment happens when your organization's mission strategy and capacity really intersect. So when that alignment is missing. Energy can get tied up in legacy projects, urgent requests or low impact work, while the initiatives that are really going to move the needle move your mission forward, wait for attention. So when every project feels urgent, that's a great time to kind of pause and ask which of these projects truly moves our mission forward. This means that we aren't just looking at our capacity within a single project. We absolutely want to do that, but we are also looking across projects and programs and other work. And so solving the capacity challenge isn't about doing more. It's about focusing your effort where it matters most. And so here's a couple of ways to start first confirm alignment early. So don't green light projects just because funding is available before committing. Ask two questions, does this align with our strategic priorities, and do we have the capacity to deliver it well, and so this quick reflection can often save months of frustration later.

All right, we also want to ask and make sure that we are defining and sharing purpose. We talked about this a little bit earlier, about a shared vision of success, but we really want to make sure that every project not only has a why, but that why is clearly connected to our organizational purpose, and so when people understand why their work matters and how it fits into the bigger picture, engagement really starts to grow. And so the third thing that we can consider here is to prioritize by impact and effort. And so when resources are.

Limited focus where value is highest. If a project is high impact, low effort, do it and do it first. If it's low impact, high effort, reconsider or delay it. Sometimes the most strategic decision you can make is to say no to the wrong project so your team can say yes to the right ones. That's how you protect capacity, that's how you reduce burnout, and that's how you are able to lead with calm confidence. All right, so those are four common reasons projects fail, clarity, gaps, collaboration gaps, execution gaps and a capacity or strategy gap, each one is fixable if we discuss the why before the when. Move from attendance to ownership by assigning clear stakeholder roles and bringing our team into planning by identifying those actions aligning with capacity and then looking across projects to protect what matters most, your team's focus, energy and impact. Before I take questions, you might be interested in our Clarity to Action framework, a simple and practical guide that helps you turn projects into confident execution. It's a great next step if you want to bring more focus and alignment to your team's work. This free download walks you through how to move from purpose to plan with clarity at every step. So you can find it at yazdaniconsulting.com/resources. And if you're curious about how our approach helps mission-driven leaders bring clarity and calm to complex work, you can visit https://yazdaniconsulting.com/approach to learn more. Alright, so I'm happy to take any questions that you have about reasons projects fail, or any of the strategies that I've talked about, feel free to add them in the comments. I'll give folks a few moments to add their questions. If I am not able to answer your question live, I'm happy to do so later in the comments. You can also find all of the ways to contact me at yazdani consulting.com/contact please reach out to me if you'd like to talk about projects. Alright, so a question is, what's the best place to start if my team is already stretched thin and doesn't see the value in another planning process? And so that's a really good question. It's one I hear a lot and in almost every organization I work with. And so when your team is already running full speed, the idea of adding a planning or alignment step can feel really difficult, but clarity doesn't add work. It just replaces the time that we're going to spend later in a project in confusion. And so my suggestion would be to start really small, pick one project, just one, spend 15 minutes with your team, discussing the why, kind of before the when, but also how the project is strategically aligned. So, you know, we can ask, what problem are we solving, and how will will we know when it's solved? You know what strategic initiatives does this support? And maybe once your team sees how this conversation makes things easier, going forward, fewer emails, fewer false starts, fewer waiting for decisions, they may start to value planning. All right, great, so feel free to comment or reach out with any additional questions that you have, and thank you for participating in our impactful projects and Planning series. Visit https://yazdaniconsulting.com/ipp to find out about upcoming sessions and to view the recordings of all of the sessions in this series. Thank you. Bye.