See What Leading Executives and Project Management Leaders Have To Say About Silence Fails

Robert Scott, Vice President, Innovation and Architecture, Procter & Gamble
“At Procter & Gamble, we understand that addressing these human factors—and doing it the right way—is crucial to the success of our cross-functional initiatives. This work by VitalSmarts and The Concours Group effectively calls out one of the root causes of project failure. All senior leaders who are executing on any project, large or small, would be wise to take note.”

Mike Murray, VP of Human Resources, Microsoft (retired)
“Any CEO with big projects, big budgets and big expectations ignores this groundbreaking research at his or her peril. VitalSmarts has made a significant contribution to management literature and offered senior executives a pathway to delivering on strategic commitments with unprecedented success.”

Leslie Weigel, EIS Business Performance Group, SunTrust Bank
“The Silence Fails perspective is right on target. At SunTrust, we are expanding a current IT project management transformation effort to embrace the entire enterprise, both business and IT.

As we re-examine the role of Project Managers and the related methodology and tools (above-the-surface systems), we know we need to address the broader corporate culture as well. Our training and coaching models for the enterprise project management capability will definitely incorporate the Silence Fails research findings.”

Tom O'Dea, VP - Client Solutions, Convergys
“The Silence Fails study is the most important contribution to a step improvement in project execution I’ve seen in the past two decades. I’ve seen first hand how the epidemic of silence they so compellingly document costs hundreds of millions a year. More importantly, I’ve learned through personal experience that simply making a visible commitment to creating an environment where dialogue about these five crucial conversations is encouraged and expected leads to immediate and remarkable improvements.”

Eric Denna, CIO, LDS Church
“Having been a CIO at a Fortune 500 company, a large university, and a global not-for-profit for more than 15 years, I have seen plenty of projects. Some of those have been successful but most have not—especially when held up against the original scope, schedule, and budget.

During the past 15 years, some of the biggest innovations in project management have been in making silk purses out of sow's ears for executives instead of attacking root-cause issues. I often say that if surgeons had the success rate of IT project management no one would show up for surgery. ‘Silence Fails’ is a laser beam that is opening the project management body of knowledge and exposing our failure to successfully deal with disagreement and disappointment.

I am excited to apply the research and am confident there will be more measurable improvement than with any other project management innovation in the past 20 years.”