70% or more of quality initiatives fail.  80% or more of reengineering initiatives fail.  70% or more of mergers fail to hit their desired financial targets.  Could it be the criteria used to evaluate and prepare for these projects that caused this?

In my last post, I suggested five criteria I had discovered for selecting projects that were right-brained.  Criteria like ‘passion’, ‘rave’, and ‘breakthrough’.  These are not your typical project criteria.  Normally, project evaluation is very thorough and left-brained, and should be enough, but is it?

After reading some of the responses to that posting on Facebook, I started thinking about the horrendous failure and abandonment rates for projects and initiatives, large and small (including those cited above).  We spend so much time on anal-yzing, and so very little time on the human equation.

If you go back to W. Edwards Deming, the founder of the quality movement and truly understand his philosophy, you’ll realize that the quality philosophy is not about statistical anal-yses.  It’s about engaging the human part of the equation.  He truly believed that.  And yet all that’s taught today is the anal-ytical side of the equation.

Take a look at the projects that have basically succeeded and those that are outstanding successes.  What’s the difference?  Passion. The human equation. And what’s missing in most projects that fail or are abandoned or go way over cost?  The human equation.

Do you want to spend your life struggling or doing outstanding work?  You have 29,000 days, give or take, in your life.

What do you choose?

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