The US Government is a great source of Project Management resources and while I plan on giving an overview of what is available for free in the near future, I stumbled across an item from NASA’s “ask” that I just had to share. The US Inspector General released a report recently attempting to answer why NASA projects so often seem to cost more and take longer than originally planned.
While the full report weighs in at 72 pages, I’d recommend everyone interested in Project Management to read at least the overview. Where the rest of the document is interesting in its deep exploration of the current operating environment at NASA, the overview gives a good introduction to the four major factors limiting project success:
- NASA’s culture of optimism.
- Underestimating technical complexity increases cost and schedule risk.
- Funding instability can lead to inefficient management practices.
- Limited opportunities for project managers’ development.
These issues are far from specific to NASA and serve as a great reminder to constantly review trends in your own projects’ success and examine ways to improve.