"1. Put a multi-disciplinary team in charge"
With one of the challenges of failure being the blame game (no one taking responsibility but instead pointing the finger at others), I find this suggestion rather ironic. This suggestion creates a system where the workers have more places to point the finger rather than fewer places to place the blame.
Management by committee is generally inefficient, it often leads to never ending conflicts of ego centric ideas and eventually, in general, those best at playing group politics are the ones that get their way.
I do not intend to imply that ideas should be top down. A person-centric team, with the correct person directing a team, does not exclude abstract methods of problem solving by team members nor does it prevent input and ideas from different parts of the team.
"You can't pin down project failure on one person or one topic and yet we continue to use a person-centric method to manage projects."
If you can't pin down failure to one person then it was not truly a "person-centric method" of management.
If different departments can play the blame game, then no one was truly in charge and many were only given the illusion of authority.
"On many projects, participants focus exclusively on their own individual tasks, thus becoming disconnected from the big picture."
This is usually the result of a disconnected person in charge. I have worked with managers who had almost no overall awareness concerning the status of the different divisions of a project and often many on the project would take advantage of the situation. In the end the project would fail and those who were slothful would point the finger elsewhere and the manager pointed the finger at a different department.
I have also worked with managers who often knew more about the status of each division of a project than many who were in charge of each division. When the person that is directing a project is actually doing their job, others who are on the project actually focus because when the project organizer is fully involved the teams are fully aware that the teams have no opportunity to pull the wool over their manager's eyes.
I am sure that your described system would work, but it takes a diligent organizer to pull it off. Just as it also takes a diligent organizer to efficiently manage and direct a person-centric team.
