Every week, someone tells me the same thing. “Scott, the project is failing.” Nope. The project isn’t failing. The decisions being made around the project are. That may sound harsh, but it matters because you can’t fix a project if you’re blaming the wrong thing.
Projects don’t wake up one morning and decide to go off the rails. Projects are simply collections of thousands of decisions made over weeks, months, or years. Some are good. Some are bad. Most are delayed. And that’s usually where things start to unravel.
Your projects reflect your leadership. A project has no emotions. It doesn’t care about your title. It doesn’t know whether you’re using Agile, Waterfall, Hybrid, Scrum, Kanban, or the latest methodology someone paid $4,000+ to learn.
A project simply reflects the quality of leadership behind it. If leadership makes clear, timely decisions, projects move. If leadership hesitates, avoids conflict, or refuses to prioritize, projects stall. It’s really that simple.
Too many organizations spend weeks trying to diagnose what’s wrong with a project when the answer has been sitting in every steering committee meeting for months.
Nobody wants to make a decision, and one of the biggest lies in project management is that “we’re waiting.” Waiting on approval. Waiting on legal. Waiting on finance. Waiting on procurement. Waiting on leadership. Waiting on the customer. Waiting on another department. Waiting.
Here’s the reality. Waiting is still a decision. Someone decided not to decide. And indecision has a cost. While everyone waits, schedules slip. Budgets grow. Risks mature into issues. Team morale declines. Stakeholders lose confidence.
The project didn’t fail. Decision-making failed.
Some of the worst projects I’ve ever seen were run by people obsessed with consensus. Everyone had to agree. Every department had to weigh in. Every email required twelve approvals. Every meeting ended with another meeting. Consensus feels safe because nobody owns the decision, but it comes at a tremendous cost.
High-performing project managers know that collaboration is valuable. Consensus is optional. Gather input. Understand perspectives. Then make a decision. Leadership isn’t about collecting opinions forever. Leadership is about deciding.
I hear this constantly. “We just need a little more information.” No, you don’t. You need enough information to make the next reasonable decision. If you wait until every variable is known, you’ll still be waiting long after your competitors have delivered. Every project operates with uncertainty. (That’s why it’s called project management.)
If certainty existed, we wouldn’t need project managers. We’d simply follow instructions.
Most failed projects don’t collapse because of one catastrophic mistake. They die from hundreds of small decisions that nobody wanted to make. Nobody challenged unrealistic deadlines. Nobody clarified vague requirements. Nobody addressed poor stakeholder engagement. Nobody confronted underperforming vendors. Nobody escalated obvious risks. Nobody said no to unnecessary scope.
Eventually, those small decisions pile up until executives suddenly declare the project is in crisis. The crisis didn’t begin yesterday. It began months ago.
Project managers make dozens of decisions every day. Some are technical. Some are financial. Some are political. Some involve people. The longer a project lasts, the easier it becomes to postpone difficult conversations because everyone is exhausted. That’s dangerous.
The quality of your decisions often declines long before you realize it. Build systems that reduce decision fatigue. Use frameworks. Document assumptions. Delegate appropriately. Standardize repeatable work. Save your mental energy for the decisions that actually matter.
For the love of God, stop managing around problems. One habit separates average project managers from exceptional ones. Exceptional project managers address problems early. Average project managers learn to work around them. If a stakeholder never responds, they stop asking. If requirements are vague, they guess. If leadership won’t prioritize, they try to do everything. If resources are overloaded, they simply ask people to work harder.
Those aren’t solutions. They’re coping mechanisms. Eventually, reality catches up.
Nobody else talks about courage in project management certifications. They should. It takes courage to tell an executive the deadline isn’t realistic. It takes courage to challenge assumptions. It takes courage to stop scope creep. It takes courage to escalate uncomfortable issues. It takes courage to say, “We made the wrong decision.”
Technical skills get you hired. Courage keeps projects alive.
Instead of asking, “Why is this project failing?” Ask: What decision are we avoiding? Who actually owns this decision? What happens if we wait another week? What assumptions have we never challenged? What are we pretending isn’t a problem? What decision would simplify everything else? You’ll be surprised how quickly the conversation changes.
Projects rarely fail because of bad software, imperfect schedules, or flawed methodologies. They fail because people delay decisions, avoid accountability, tolerate ambiguity, and hope problems solve themselves. Your job as a project manager isn’t to produce prettier schedules or longer status reports. Your job is to create clarity. To make decisions. To help others make decisions.
And when necessary, to force decisions.
Because every successful project is simply the result of thousands of good decisions made consistently over time. If your project is struggling, don’t ask whether the project is failing. Ask which decision everyone is avoiding. You’ll usually find your answer there.
