Who are you kidding?

A colleague and I recently got into a discussion about the biggest cause of project (campaign, business, whatever) failure. It’s easy to find countless case studies, management books, and magazine articles outlining best practices designed to prevent us from repeating sins of the past. In theory, we should invent brand new sins. Yet, that’s rarely the case.

Seriously. Why do we repeat these mistakes?

I think the answer is very simple. It’s a question of honesty. It’s simply too hard to tell the truth sometimes. Not to others. To ourselves. Next time you find yourself in a meeting where someone is playing with the truth, claiming that there is appropriate time, budget, resources, scope, whatever, call him on it. Especially if it’s you.