Beyond the Promise: Why so many digital projects fail and what we can learn

How can cultural organisations build the digital fitness to succeed?

I recently attended a session with Ash Mann and Chris Unitt that really resonated with me. Prompted by Ash’s recent research on why and how digital projects fail in the cultural sector this session looked at what we can do differently to improve our chances of success.

One of the most striking observations was how failure starts well before a project begins. Ash put it simply

The seeds of failure often take root at the beginning and often before the project starts.

This means it’s critical to slow down early on, ask better questions and clarify expectations before rushing into delivery.

In the cultural sector, there is a familiar impulse to spend the funding, meet the deadline and fix the problem. But as Ash noted, when it comes to digital

Speed is often the enemy of impact.

Instead, we need to slow down and understand audiences, get buy-in from stakeholders and ensure we’re solving the right problems. I really liked Ash’s advice to

Fall in love with the problem, not the solution.

That mindset shifts focus from rushing to a fix, to deeply understanding what the real challenge is. This is as much about organisational culture as it is about technology.

Digital readiness is much more than picking the right tools or platforms. Ash defined it as trust, alignment, decision-making, capacity and culture. The strongest projects and teams take time to understand the landscape, involve audiences throughout and treat digital as an ongoing process rather than a one-off product. Documenting decisions and revisiting them regularly helps to keep projects adaptable without losing sight of the goal.

Chris reinforced this point by highlighting that digital success is not about organisational size or skill alone. It is about whether an organisation has built the muscle memory to do this work regularly. Like physical fitness, you build digital readiness by practising constantly, testing new ideas, reflecting on what works, and knowing your limits so you do not strain your resources.

The session broke digital work into three levels

Everyday tasks such as website updates and social media, need clear processes so the organisation just gets on with them smoothly

Stretch projects, including system updates and audience segmentation, are often done alongside everyday work and require some change management and time juggling.

Transformational projects redefine what the organisation does digitally. They require dedicated teams, leadership involvement and a strong culture of readiness.

One powerful insight was that cultural organisations often excel at reacting to crises or new funding, but struggle with slower, less visible work that is needed to build lasting digital capacity. This is where digital fitness comes in. The ability to assess opportunities, test tools in low-stakes ways, and build trust across departments. AI, for example, presents exciting potential but also reputational risks and organisational tensions around trust and control. Without a culture that supports experimentation, organisations risk missing out.

A concept that really stuck with me was slow down to speed up. As someone that tends to move quickly and rapidly problem solve this is a skill I could do with practising more. Taking time for discovery, and reflection early on means catching problems before they start to grow, and become more expensive to fix. It is about involving the right people early enough so their voices shape the project and their concerns get addressed before work ramps up. This approach is often skipped but it pays dividends.

This session reminded me how important it is to look beyond the tools and technology, instead focus on people, culture and process. Building digital readiness is not a one-off project. It is ongoing fitness, requiring practice, patience and leadership that understands how to nurture it.

This really resonates with a session I attended last week with Jamie Bykov-Brett from the Executive AI Institute on Leadership in the age of AI, hosted by The Corporate Governance Institute. Leaders don’t need all the answers, or to understand all the technology, they need to surround themselves with people who do, ask the right questions, trust their teams and lead them through change, understanding the impact this can have on people and how to best enable them to move through the process successfully.

At The Knighton Group, I bring the skills and experience gained over many years working in cultural digital strategy to help organisations think differently about their digital projects. I support teams to take the time to stop, reflect and ask the right questions so their digital work can be more strategic, aligned and successful. I don’t have all the answers but I have the experience to guide you through answering the questions for your organisation.

If your organisation is starting its digital journey, planning to film productions, or looking for strategic support to make sure your digital projects deliver real impact, I’m here to help. Get in touch to explore how we can work together to shape projects that truly succeed.