Resolving Cobb's Paradox
Cobb’s Paradox: “We know why projects fail; we know how to prevent their failure – so why do they still fail?”. It may sound overly simple to say it, but the answer is right there in part B of the question, "we know how to prevent their failure" . Quite simply, this equates to those who are accountable for the things we see will cause the project to fail, where the are solvable, are not making those responsible take the required action. So why do projects fail; there are simply too many reasons, but the key one is if we know how to prevent it - why is this not acted upon? A project only truly fails if it doesn't achieve the intended benefits. If you are late, over budget, or scope / quality not as planned, but despite this the benefits are realised, then the project has succeeded though you as PM have failed in project delivery (covered a bit more here - How important is project success to you?) . To frame the discussion; 1. what is project delivery failure, s