What Went Wrong? A Project Manager’s Post‑Mortem on a Failed Development Project

1. Project and Team Background

The project was a secondary development of an existing printing declaration system that needed to integrate with national systems via three main workflows. Requirements changed frequently—over eight major changes in one month—and the estimated effort was about 100 person‑days. The team consisted of three developers (two familiar with the base system) and the manager oversaw four concurrent projects without direct coding involvement.

2. What I Did Wrong

2.1 Manage Quality, Not Only Schedule

Focusing solely on progress led to numerous quality defects after release, such as main workflows failing, false success messages, incorrect print data, synchronization errors, and database disconnections due to long‑running operations.

Prioritize quality over speed.

Never sacrifice testing for speed.

Ensure core functionality works even under tight schedules.

2.2 Trust Must Be Coupled With Vigilance

Although the developers were competent, the manager relied on them without providing timely guidance or assistance, leaving problems unresolved.

Monitor team members’ status continuously.

Balance trust with appropriate oversight.

Offer help and direction rather than using time constraints as an excuse.

2.3 Assign a Dedicated Owner When You Can’t Control Everything

Without a single person responsible for the whole project, issues were communicated piecemeal, leading to a lack of holistic understanding.

Delegate clear ownership.

Empower a team member with management authority.

Managing one person is more effective than managing many.

2.4 Control Requirements and Processes

Frequent, unmanaged requirement changes and the absence of design specifications caused chaos; no formal change tracking or review was performed.

Establish design and development standards early.

Record all requirement changes and feedback.

Reject unreasonable changes and standardize the change process.

2.5 Conduct Code Review Under All Circumstances

Minimal code review led to poor naming, low reuse, and hidden bugs, which later required extensive rework.

Maintain high code quality to reduce bugs.

Implement peer code reviews regularly.

Early code reviews save significant time later.

3. My Role in the Failure

The manager’s multiple responsibilities and lack of direct involvement contributed heavily to the project’s collapse.

4. How I Fixed the Issues

Thoroughly reviewed all main workflow requirements with developers.

Spent three days analyzing and correcting the core code, then deployed fixes to production.

Worked over 12 hours daily on code review and bug fixes, often staying until early morning.

Collaborated side‑by‑side with developers during fixes to avoid further mistakes.

Improved user experience by addressing prompts and optimizing functionality.

5. Lessons Learned

Design before development.

Delegate clear ownership; someone must be fully responsible.

Never skip code review.

Never compromise quality for speed; reject unreasonable timelines.