A large portion of industrial projects fail in one or more parameters of project goals. Therefore, authors of the paper have focused on identifying the failure roots through a survey performed among industrial companies from automotive, foundry & metallurgy and aerospace area located in the Czech Republic. Based on the analysis of projects structure, the paper has defined which parameter most critically affect projects success or unsuccess in the specific sample of companies of all sizes. The paper focuses on and discusses in detail the projects deadline, budget and quality as key parameters which exceeding causes the most often project failures.