Over the years many reasons have been forwarded as “the reasons why projects fail”. We at Vincula considered these reasons in 2024 and we reviewed the stated reasons again now early in 2026 to see if the “reasons” remained the same or whether the reason for project failures changed
Method: For each time period we considered five or six articles providing the top reasons for project failure. Some articles provided ten reasons whilst others provided seven or twenty. The 2026 group had additional reasons provided, not found in the 2024 group Vincula considered. The top four reasons for each time period were extracted and are reflected in this article. This is not an in-depth study, however, the results are interesting enough to warrant a large-scale, in-depth study, which Vincula will do and share with you all in due course.
From the above it is clear that the reasons for project failure changed. In 2024 the main reasons were (in no particular order)
- Unclear goals and objectives
- Lack of resource planning
- Inadequate stakeholder management
- Poor communication across the organization
- Poor resource allocation.
In 2026 (very early in the year) the main reasons for project failure are:
- Poor resource allocation
- Unclear goals and objectives
- Inexperienced project managers
- Choice of technology
We shall visit some of these reasons for project failure in detail in the upcoming blogs.
We at Vincula consider another reason, not listed in the articles at all, as one of the biggest reasons for project failure. We shall reveal what we consider to be a major reason for project failure, in future blogs. See you next Friday and enjoy the weekend.
