Given the common reality that projects run into rough weather, this recent book is aimed not at ‘people in charge of straightforward, neat projects where team members are handpicked, where there are never any problems with management and where everything goes right.’

One of the first topics, therefore, Jones takes head on is ‘project killers’. He studies ‘doomed projects’ and finds their different, and sometimes subtle, characteristics. Such as, an incompetent team, which doesn’t even know it’s in trouble.

“Although not malicious, the team members are just not experienced or switched on enough to realise that things are going wrong. They can’t warn you the project is going badly but, even worse, they might tell you things are going well when they’re not!”

Another feature of a disaster-prone project is ‘the scared team,’ which doesn’t tell anyone what the problems are.

“Things are going wrong but, consciously or sometimes subconsciously, no one is passing on the bad news because they fear (rightly or wrongly) that nothing will be done or that they will be punished in some way,” explains Jones.

‘Ostrich management’ is yet another characteristic of a project in trouble. Stretch targets are imposed way beyond what is achievable, and the management doesn’t listen to feedback from the team.