Research Paper on:
Analysis of Failures in Project Planning

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
on such failed projects, this constitutes a considerable loss. In a reported entitled "What Skills will characterize Top Project Managers?" the institute found that the majority of projects fail because  of poor methodology on the part of project managers. Successful project management, in contrast, is related to good business and interpersonal skills on the part of the project manager  (Mateyaschuk, 1999). These skills encompass a wide range of topics, including not only business-oriented skills, but also the project manager is aided by "people" skills that concern such topics as  handling conflict and side-stepping power struggles over goals and project orientation. The following discussion will examine why projects fail and what experts feel constitutes "good skills" on the part of  project management. Inwood (1996) reports that all too often project managers have the attitude of "John" - a hypothetical project manager that combines all the worst features that Inwood  has encountered in consulting work. "John" is a project manager who feels that planning is a waste of time because "since 50 percent of projects are late, there is  obviously no point in planning in great detail" (Inwood, 1996, p. 30). As this implies, many project managers have never attended any sort of formal project planning workshop and, therefore,  possess little, or no, training in producing coherent project plans (Inwood, 1996). These project managers believe in working from an intuitive level that can get results if the project manager  has enough experience to draw from, but also frequently fails because of unforeseen circumstances, for which there are no alternative plans in place. One of the principal problems in  those who subscribe to "Johns" approach is due to the fact that, with no plan, there is certainly no backup plan, i.e., no coherent method for dealing with unforeseen