5 Early Warning Signs Your Project Team May Be Headed Toward Failure

By Bill Allars

You have scored your dream project and you have your trusted project team at your side. You have worked with this team for some time and everything seems to be smooth sailing. What could possibly go wrong?

Watch out. Sometimes the hum of everyday routine can blind you to emerging cracks and warning signs your project team is not operating at peak performance or worse, headed toward failure.

5 warning signs your project team may be headed toward failure

1. Communication breakdown

We tend to think of the classic signs of a breakdown in communication as screaming matches, rude remarks, and watercooler gossip. But communication breakdowns can also emerge in much more subtle forms, such as a lack of engagement and lower team morale. As George Bernard Shaw famously said, “The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion it has taken place.”

Project teams can fall into the mundane rhythm of weekly reporting and status updates, believing that it's sufficient communication for stakeholders and direct oversight. With the increasing shift to remote working and the use of collaborative technologies to keep everyone in the loop, team communication appears to be easier and clearer than ever.

However, numbers and updates alone are not able to capture the insights, feelings, and realities of an on-the-ground project team. In fact, research shows that working from home is contributing to higher rates of emotional exhaustion and burnout, particularly due to the accumulation of unfinished tasks.

Clear communication within a team is necessary to ensure people are not being overloaded or overburdened by tasks, leading to a massive loss of productivity down the line. If you start noticing team members not joining meetings and missing key engagement activities, these might be early warning signs of impending project team failure.

2. Lack of initiative and an emerging groupthink

Many make the mistake of thinking a team without conflict is a productive team. With everyone agreeing and being on the same page, shouldn't that be a classic sign of success? Well, it might not be the case.

You may have heard of the concept of groupthink. This occurs when individuals reach a consensus with minimal critical reasoning or evaluation. It happens when a team of people value cohesion and harmony above all else. When teams start falling into groupthink, they fail to think critically and innovatively when solving issues that may arise during a project. The fear of conflict is one key sign of an unproductive and dysfunctional team and can emerge due to unsupportive cultures that discourages speaking up or due to team complacency.

A team flourishes when it has different perspectives, members who are willing to challenge one another and are open to debating their opinions to build a culture of critical thinking. If you notice team members having to censor themselves or conclusions being made too easily, these may be critical warning signs of groupthink sinking in.

3. Lack of data-backed action

We all know that one guy who throws out wild suggestions and backs it up simply by saying, “Trust me, I’ve done this before.” Csaba Okrona, senior engineer at Contentful, dubs these people ZEBRAs: Zero Evidence But Really Arrogant. If your team is starting to look like a herd of ZEBRAs grazing together, this is a massive red flag screaming for attention.

In our current fast-paced, ever-changing, data-based world, data is king. Depending solely on intuition and how things “have always been” is a recipe for disaster. Now, this does not mean that your team should stop presenting out-of-the-box ideas, but there should be quality data backing ideas to increase the likelihood of project success.

4. Working in silos

If you start hearing team members use more “I” than “we” when discussing projects and results, your members may be working more in silos than as a collaborative team. Some see teams with members working fast individually on their allocated tasks as the sign of utmost productivity. But what is the point of all that action if everyone is just working but not moving in the same direction?

Working in silos also means that team members are losing out on great opportunities to collaborate with each other, get more critical insight into their ideas, and brainstorm more effective solutions. This may stem from certain team cultures that promote individualism, organizational cultures that perpetuate a silo-like mentality, or tools that limit the capacity for effective collaboration.

Your project team is not solely affected by this issue. If your team is functioning under a single organizational silo and is not collaborating openly with other departments or teams, your project goals may not be aligned with the greater objectives of the organization.

5. Same problems again and again

There's a well-known saying: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” If you notice your team has been using the same processes but the same problems keep on occurring, this might be a clear sign that your project team needs to make some changes.

One of the biggest reasons for recurring problems is a lack of clear goals, processes, and collaboration with stakeholders. Without any external input to give you insight into your processes, your team might very well be like a hamster stuck on a wheel—a lot of activity without any results to show for it. Whether it is processes, tools, or cultures, recurring problems are a critical sign of project team failure and that change is needed.

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• Benefit Corporations: How Do They Differ from Nonprofits?
• 5 Red Flags Every Investor Must Avoid
• 4 Simple Organization Tips for Marketing Teams

How to get your project team back on track

Set clear goals, roles, and responsibilities

If team members are constantly scurrying around to find out who oversees what, you not only lose a lot of productivity, but you risk teams investing precious resources into activities that don’t serve the project or the organization. By setting goals, roles, and responsibilities clearly from the beginning, all team members will know exactly where they stand, what they have to do, and where they need to go if problems arise.

Communicate well

People often make the mistake of believing that communicating is all about talking. But flooding your teams with dozens of emails, status updates, and meetings is not a way to stay productive.

The sign of a good communicator is not how much they communicate, but how well they do it. An effective communicator is also a good listener who pays attention to what the other party wants to know and only communicates necessary information. Surprisingly, sometimes less can be more with communication. It is all about quality communication, and it all starts from properly listening first.

Build the right culture

Culture plays a large role in a productive team. If the team culture does not encourage open collaboration, thinking outside the box, flexibility, and adaptability, a team leader cannot expect team members to perform in such a way.

Building the right culture that suits your project’s specific needs and objectives is critical to a productive team. Practicing appreciation and empowerment are some key ways of building a positive and uplifting culture that encourages team members to invest more of themselves into the project’s activities.

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