Why Do We Only Read About Project Management

When Projects Fail?

COMMENTARY

By Sebastian Wieschowski                      

Nuremberg, Germany

INTRODUCTION

Why do projects fail? This question is a perennial favorite whenever project management is discussed. A search engine returns countless guides, studies, and analyses. What mistakes were made? Who was responsible? Why were deadlines missed? Why did costs spiral out of control? And how could professional project management have prevented the disaster?

But the question can also be turned around: Why do we read so often about project management when projects fail – and so rarely when they succeed? Every day, projects are completed without a newspaper reporting on them. Production facilities go into operation as planned, IT systems are migrated successfully, new products are launched on time, and buildings are completed within their intended budgets. Project teams solve problems, respond to risks, and make decisions. That is precisely what professional project management is for.

Yet precisely when it works, it often remains invisible to the public. This is not accidental. Communication science offers an explanation.

WHY DO THE MEDIA REPORT MORE OFTEN ON FAILED PROJECTS?

One of the best-known approaches in communication science is news value theory. It addresses the question of why some events become news while others do not. In the 1960s, Norwegian researchers Johan Galtung and Mari Holmboe Ruge developed a catalog of twelve factors associated with newsworthiness. These included, among others, unexpectedness, meaningfulness, unambiguity, continuity, reference to persons, and reference to something negative (Galtung & Ruge, 1965). Their model has remained highly influential, although later research has revised and expanded the taxonomy of news values (Harcup & O’Neill, 2017).

News value theory is a communication-science approach to explaining journalistic news selection. It assumes that certain characteristics of an event – known as news factors or news values – increase the likelihood that the event will be selected by the media and presented prominently. In Galtung and Ruge’s original formulation, the more criteria an event satisfies, the greater its likelihood of becoming news, although the authors also proposed complementarity and exclusion effects rather than a simple mechanical scoring rule (Galtung & Ruge, 1965).

This creates a fundamental problem for project management. Consider a major construction project budgeted at $500 million. After five years of construction, it opens on the scheduled date and ultimately costs $495 million. For the project organization, that is a major success. For a national news outlet, the story may be worth little more than a brief item.

Now change a few parameters: The opening is delayed by three years, costs rise from $500 million to $1 billion, a parliamentary or legislative inquiry examines the project, and those responsible publicly blame one another. Suddenly, there is a news story. Not because the second project is more representative of project management – but because it satisfies more news values.

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How to cite this paper: Wieschowski, S. (2026). Why Do We Only Read About Project Management When Projects Fail? commentary; PM World Journal, Vol. XV, Issue IX, September.  Available online at https://pmworldjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/pmwj168-Sep2026-Wieschowski-Why-do-we-only.pdf

About the Author

Sebastian Wieschowski

Nuremberg, Germany

Sebastian Wieschowski is an editor at the German Project Management Association (GPM), the national member association of the International Project Management Association (IPMA) in Germany. He is responsible for developing GPM’s media relations and serves on the editorial board of PM Aktuell, a quarterly magazine distributed to more than 6,500 GPM members as well as external stakeholders.

Born in 1985 in northern Germany, Wieschowski developed an early fascination with journalism. His formal education began with active contributions to school and local newspapers. He later completed journalistic training at the Cologne Journalism School for Politics and Economics, earned a Master Level Diploma from the School of Journalism at Eichstaett University, and undertook professional training at a regional newspaper publisher. He also holds a postgraduate M.Sc. degree in Public Health from Hannover Medical School.

In addition to his freelance journalism for national and international outlets, including major German media such as DIE ZEIT, Wieschowski has held senior communications roles since 2012. He first worked as press officer for a private university specializing in social work, then for a psychiatric hospital, and later for an industrial company. In September 2024, he joined GPM’s Marketing and Public Relations department, where he focuses on strengthening the visibility and public relevance of project management through editorial formats such as storytelling.

Alongside his professional career, Sebastian Wieschowski is also active as a freelance author in his lifelong passion, numismatics. He writes for both German- and English-language specialist publications, and his work has been recognized three times by the Numismatic Literary Guild, a writers’ association based in the USA.

Sebastian is a reporter at heart and enjoys discovering inspiring stories and meet people from around the world, a goal that is particularly easy to pursue in the field of project management. He can be contacted at s.wieschowski@gpm-ipma.de.