What Does Success Mean to Your Organization?

Organizations of all shapes and sizes have project managers leading projects.  These projects may be servicing internal organizational needs or they may be for service organizations leading projects for external clients.  No matter the company size, the type of projects that you’re leading, and no matter whether they are internal or external projects, success on these projects is still critical.   Success and failure on projects can sometimes mean different things to different organizations.  There is no exact measuring stick standard in the project management world.  There really can’t be that many variations, but since the level of project oversight varies from company to company, so to does the level to which different criteria matters to the powers that be within an organization.  We certainly can’t forget about the project customer – they definitely have a say in whether or not a project is considered a success.  Logically, a project could come in on time and on budget, but if the customer is unhappy for some reason, then the project could easily be designated a failure.

So what are the key determiners of success or failure for a project?  Across different industries, different organizations, different customers, different PM methodologies, and different PM infrastructures within various organizations, there will always be variations of what constitutes a successful project from an unsuccessful one. The bottom line – as far as I’m concerned - is that there are three key determiners of whether or not a project is deemed a success at the end of the engagement.  These three determiners are: on time delivery, on budget delivery, and customer satisfaction.  Let’s look each of these in more detail and discuss ways to help ensure project success through proper management of each.

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