I recently spoke at a summit at the CDC. I’ve had a close relationship with them for several years now, and I got the chance to share some research with their project managers. This came just a few days after I had watched the Walking Dead episode where they travel to the CDC looking for refuge from the zombies, so needless to say, I was feeling all Rick Grimes-like as I pulled in the parking lot.

At a follow-up lunch, one of the managers shared with me that she was involved in mentoring a friend on a troubled project, and during this meeting she stated that virtually all failed projects could trace their difficulty back to one of three problems:

1. Confusion over the scope
2. No executive buy-in
3. Problems with communication

This resonated with me pretty strongly. It doesn’t seem to matter who you are or what industry you are in, trouble projects almost always trace their issues back to one of those three things.

And if you want to get to the root of all of it, problems #1 and #2 are completely reliant on #3 since the scope has to be agreed upon at some point, and the scope is ultimately at the root of what executives buy into.

Like it or not, the project manager is ultimately responsible for communication on the project. That includes communication with the team, with the stakeholders, and with the customer(s), and ambiguity and uncertainty almost never works in the PM’s favor. Communication gets everyone in sync, and it has to happen whether you are using a waterfall or an Agile approach. In fact, my own research shows that good communication is one of the core essentials that all successful projects have in common.

Your scope is likely more complicated than Rick Grimes’ (destroy the zombies and protect and provide for your family), but hopefully it’s at least some easier. As bad as you may seem to have it, you could always be living in the zombie apocalypse.