Most projects do not fail during execution. They fail in the way they begin.
Why do some successful projects seem to run almost effortlessly, while others repeatedly stall despite experienced project managers, detailed project plans and sufficient budgets? It is a question I keep coming back to in my work as a project manager.
And this is not just about IT projects. Over the past few years, I have seen similar patterns in transformation programmes, organisational development, infrastructure projects and even when looking at architecture or major public projects. The circumstances differ considerably – the underlying challenges surprisingly little. That is precisely why it is worth looking beyond our own discipline.
What can an architect teach a project manager about successful projects?
Probably more than one might initially expect. The starting point for this article is a piece in Harvard Business Manager about the architect Frank Gehry1.
The more I explored Gehry’s way of working, the more often I found myself thinking about my own projects. Not because IT projects and architecture face the same challenges, but because they share something fundamental: people have to create something together that did not exist before.
That is precisely why it is worth looking beyond our own discipline.
In this article, I bring together insights from project research, management literature and my own project experience. The aim is explicitly not to summarise individual sources, but to develop an independent perspective on successful projects.
A project does not begin with its official start. It begins the moment people start thinking about the same task. And that is often where the first risks already emerge.
Ask project managers when a project begins and you will usually hear similar answers.
- “With the project mandate.“
- “With the kick-off.“
- “With budget approval.“
- “With the first entry in the project plan.“
The longer I have worked with projects, however, the more I have felt that these answers are understandable – but miss the crucial point.
What Frank Gehry teaches us about successful projects
When I read the article “No One Planned Better Than Frank Gehry” in Harvard Business Manager, I initially expected a piece about an exceptional architect and his work.
I was surprised. The real subject of the article was project management.
Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner describe Frank Gehry’s way of working against the backdrop of decades of research into major projects. Their central observation can be summarised as follows:
Exceptionally successful projects are not different because they are less complex. They are different because of how they deal with complexity.
They bring together people with different perspectives to develop something that did not exist before. That is their real common denominator. It is therefore not about the technology or the industry, but about dealing with uncertainty. And that is precisely why project managers should look beyond their own discipline.
