Reducing Unwelcome Surprises in Project Management

Many project challenges and failures catch executives by surprise. But not all such surprises are truly unforeseeable — if you know where to look.

Tyson R. Browning and Ranga V. Ramasesh

SPRING 2015

Why do so many projects fail to meet their goals for time, cost and performance? Regardless of the answer, many project managers and their executive sponsors seem to be surprised when a new project gets off track: “Why didn’t we see that coming?” Even projects that employ sophisticated techniques for risk management can encounter surprising derailments. Those methods, while powerful, can only manage known risks. But projects are new and unique. What about the things that we don’t even know that we ...