Project Success Factors

Project success is a fundamental pillar of project management that influences many other aspects. It’s a complex and philosophical concept, often debated in numerous papers, articles, and discussions without a universally accepted definition. Many have tried to create concise, straightforward definitions and identify universal criteria. Three of the most common factors are ‘On-time’, ‘Within budget’, and ‘On-benefits’. While the set is far from ideal, each metric could relatively easily be measured. 

Recently, PMI proposed simplifying the definition and narrowing it down to one criterion: Delivering value that is worth the effort and expense. The proposal received mixed reactions. Many believe the oversimplification is beneficial for low-performance projects.

I believe it needs to be an alternative approach. Let me explain the idea.

The first step is acknowledging and agreeing that a universal definition of project success is unattainable. Instead, it should be treated as a concept. The complexity of this concept must then be explored and systematised. Many works have already been done in that direction.

Global project management organisations should lead this exploration, with global project management standards aiming to:

• Describe various project success factors
• Provide methods for measuring each one

These methods could range from simple to complex, objective to subjective, and broadly applicable to highly specific. A “one size fits all” approach should not be forced. Each method’s relevance, concerns, and potential drawbacks should be clearly explained. References to relevant papers, books, and presentations should be collected and shared. The initial list may not be exhaustive, but it will grow with new discoveries and refinements.

At the organisational level, portfolio standards can select and adapt relevant criteria as needed.

Project success can be viewed from four distinct perspectives. Three are related to Project Delivery Success (PDS), and one is Project Management Success (PMS). 

The Project Initiator’s perspective: These are the individuals, groups, organisations or governments who have committed resources – both time and money – to achieve a specific outcome.

The Delivery Beneficiaries’ perspective: This group benefits from the process of delivering the project, gaining material or intangible rewards through their involvement in the project’s execution.

The Output Beneficiaries’ perspective: These are individuals or communities that benefit from the project outputs.

A project stakeholder may benefit from more than one of these perspectives.

In addition to these perspectives on project delivery, there are also Project Management Perspectives, which are essential for analysing and improving the efficiency of project management processes. This perspective includes project performance metrics. Apart from commonly used ‘on-time’ and ‘within budget’, it includes less popular metrics: “team morale”, “cash-flow”, “resoucre utilisation rate”, “idle cost”, etc.

This classification demonstrates that projects have competing priorities! Competing priorities are within each perspective and between them.
For examples:
– Focusing on time may increase project cost and reduce team morale. 
– Focusing on project initiator benefits may decrease delivery beneficiaries’ benefits.

Achieving success form from all perspectives is challenging, or even may not be possible. 
A typical project succeeds from some perspective but not from all. Most projects fail considering all factors together, and most projects succeed considering only some of them.  

Any statistical numbers of overall project success/failure is a speculation. We can only talk of success rate in the context of a particular success factor or the context of a particular porfolio.

Portfolios typically include multiple relevant criteria, each with varying degrees of importance. These criteria can be prioritised and weighting factors applied to calculate an overall project success score.

To achieve this, methods for calculating an overall score (project success criterion) based on multiple criteria are required. Some existing methods can serve as a foundation.

For instance, some portfolios already calculate project Return on Investment (ROI) by factoring in delivery time, cost and expected benefits.

Scoring methods should also be incorporated into the global project management guidelines.

While this approach may sound complex, once the methods are developed and supported by tools, they will become more accessible to apply in practice.