The 90% syndrome

Why projects are often “almost finished” and why this is rarely true

What exactly is the 90% syndrome?

The 90% syndrome describes teams reporting a high degree of completion (e.g. 90%) for a project over long periods of time, even though the project does not appear to be making any progress during this time. The remaining 10% share turns out to be significantly more time-consuming than initially assumed, meaning that the project cannot be completed as quickly as expected. This effect occurs particularly frequently in software and knowledge projects and costs time, budget and credibility.

Reasons for the 90% syndrome

• False security: As soon as a certain level of progress has been achieved and it is known exactly which steps still need to be carried out to complete the work, achieving the goal seems very easy. Possible difficulties that may arise later are not known at this point and therefore cannot be factored into the answer regarding the degree of completion. This false security tempts people to state a high degree of completion, even if it has not yet been achieved.
• Subjective measurement: Percentages of completion are usually subjective. Depending on the perspective, 90% can mean that 90% of the lines of code have been written, 90% of the functions have been developed or 90% of the ideas have been checked. Without a clear definition of what exactly should be stated, such percentages are meaningless.
• Optimism: People tend to communicate progress in a positive way in order to look good and avoid bad news. As a rule, this is even done unconsciously. For example, PMOs or stakeholders are not burdened with problems until they are obvious, and progress is highly valued when team members feel that they can master the task. It is even worse if perfectionism is added to this, because then it may be that the work has actually already been completed, but it is constantly being optimized in order to deliver as perfect a result as possible.
• Underestimating the last third: Integration, testing, documentation or performance tuning are important tasks, but they often eat up most of the time. The last 10% in particular are often more complex than expected because they require a lot of care and detailed work, which in turn takes a lot of time.
  – Large work packages: Very large work packages can conceal difficulties and problems because they quickly become confusing.

The effects of the 90% syndrome

• Deadline and budget overruns: Creeping delays within a project often result in major difficulties, for example because subsequent work packages cannot be started on time as they have to wait for the predecessor to be completed.
• Credibility and trust suffer: If false information is passed on, credibility suffers in the long term and stakeholders lose their trust.
• Quality losses: If subsequent work packages have to be completed more quickly than planned due to such statements, quality losses may have to be accepted, e.g. because testing and refactoring are neglected.
• Deceptive certainty: If it is assumed that the actual task is already 90 percent complete, this can tempt the team to start other tasks. As a consequence, however, the original tasks can hardly be completed. It can also happen that employees are assigned more and more additional tasks so that they are quickly overloaded.

How to escape the 90% syndrome

It is almost impossible to completely avoid the 90% syndrome. However, you have already taken an important first step if you become aware of this effect and understand the reasons for it. Then you can take targeted countermeasures:

1. Clear definitions: Specify exactly how the progress of a project or work package will be measured and when exactly it will be considered completed. For example, you can define specific milestones or clear acceptance criteria.
2. Smaller work packages: Plan work packages that do not take too long or try to split up long work packages. This will give you quickly visible results and more precise information on progress.
3. Regular reviews: Regular interim reviews allow you to identify open issues at an early stage and better assess the progress of the project.
4. Agile working: Agile project management with frequent iterations and a clear definition of done usually prevents false 90 percent answers quite well.

Conclusion

The 90% syndrome is a widespread phenomenon in project management. However, with knowledge of this phenomenon and clear strategies to avoid it, you can deal with it well and minimize the risk of difficulties arising as a result.

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