Tags |
|
|
Links |
|
|
Answer Upon - Analysis of Project Success Criteria and Success Factors
When people think of businesses often they do not think of Industrial Mechanical type businesses and yet much of the wealth generated in this country comes from such non-thought of businesses. Most folks do not realize that making things that run our civilization is big business and there is lots of it. Consider if you will the current economic condition in the United States. Things are really hopping and there is a lot of money to be made for those who can get things made on time and right the first time.Consider all the needs for new refineries, pipelines, ethanol plants, wind generators, construction materials, bridges, aircraft and up-grading all the tooling to make Harley Davidsons, GM Automobiles and Peterbuild Trucks? What about all those tractors, locomotives, tanker cars and military vehicles too? Some one has to design, make and manufacture all these things.There are structural pieces, ball-bearings, fittings, valves and hundreds of thousands of machined moving parts, which must be built at specific tolerances otherwise well they just will not work. This is something that America is well suited for, getting the job and the parts right the first time. Find a need and fill an important customers desires and you win. There are a million niches to fill too from Space Shuttle parts to the next cruise ship. So, do not sell industry short when considering a business category to hang your hat on.
All the above success criteria "should be simple and attainable and, once defined, they should also be ranked according to priority" (Right Track Associates, 2003). Straightforward criteria are easy to understand by everyone involved in the project and therefore commitment is guaranteed. Unrealistic criteria can put a ‘failure’ label on many projects because of the unreachable standards, can generate low team esteem and team performance in future projects and finally generate unfair disappointment among stakeholders. As for priority issues, it is inevitable that things will go wrong and the project manager will be in a tough situation where he must make the right decision having in mind that he has to sacrifice the least important success criterion.
Success Factors
As mentioned earlier, "success factors are those inputs to the management system that lead directly or indirectly to the success of the project or business" (Cooke-Davies, 2002, p185). Some project managers "intuitively and informally determine their own success factors. However, if these factors are not explicitly identified and recorded, they will not become part of formal project management reporting process nor they become part of the historical project data" (Rad & Levin, 2002, p18). Belassi & Tukel (1996, p144) classified these factors into 5 distinct groups according to which element they relate to:
1. The project manager
Having a project manager is not g
The ability to make good "people" decisions is today's most important source of competitive advantage. All factors of production are easily available and accessible to all organizations but what separates the best from the rest is the people resources. Top leadership talent has always been hard to attain and this has only aggravated in recent times due to globalization, growing worldwide competition, aggressive headhunting practices etc. With growing demand and limited supply top level executives are so much in demand that companies are paying extravagant salaries, bonuses, perks whatever it takes to attract the best brains from across the world. Newly developing economies such as India and China are also giving fierce competition to business leaders who can now earn top dollar working in these countries as well.Companies are in need of capable leaders who can steer their firm steadily into the future. Here is where the role of executive search firms comes into play. An executive search firm is a specialist talent acquisition service provider who enables companies to get their dream candidate on board. Executive search firms have come a long way and are today considered crucial participants in a companies recruitment strategy. Also it’s not the big boys of executive search who are in the limelight but also small and efficient players such as Servnet which is a specialist firm helping companies hire top talent from India. Normally a smaller firm is able to devote more time and resources for a search assignment resulting in faster and better results.
One of the vaguest concepts of project management is project success. Since each individual or group of people who are involved in a project have different needs and expectations, it is very unsurprising that they interpret project success in their own way of understanding (Cleland & Ireland, 2004, p2). "For those involved with a project, project success is normally thought of as the achievement of some pre-determined project goals" (Lim & Mohamed, 1999, p244) while the general public has different views, commonly based on user satisfaction. A classic example of different perspective of successful project is the Sydney Opera House project (Thomsett, 2002), which went 16 times over budget and took 4 times more to finish than originally planned. But the final impact that the Opera House created was so big that no one remembers the original missed goals. The project was a big success for the people and at the same time a big failure from the project management perspective. On the other hand, the Millennium Dome in London was a project on time and on budget but in the eyes of the British people was considered a failure because it didn’t deliver the awe and glamour that it was supposed to generate (Cammack, 2005). "In the same way that quality requires both conformance to the specifications and fitness for use, project success requires a combination of product success (service, result, or outcome) and project management success" (Duncan, 2004).
The difference between criteria and factors is fuzzy for many people. The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary describes a criterion as "a standard by which you judge, decide about or deal with something" while a factor is explained as "a fact or situation which influences the result of something". Lim & Mohamed applied those definitions to project success and illustrated the difference as show in Figure 1. It is clear now that critical factors can lead to a series of events which ultimately meet the overall success criteria of the project, so they shouldn’t be used as synonymous terms.
Success Criteria
Many lists of success criteria have been introduced in the previous decades by various researchers. Primal success criteria have been an integrated part of project management theory given that early definitions of project management included the so called ‘Iron Triangle’ success criteria – cost, time and quality. (Atkinson, 1999, p338)
Atkinson continues that "as a discipline, project management has not really changed or developed the success measurement criteria in almost 50 years". To meet the urgent need of modernizing the out of date success criteria, he suggest the ‘Square Route’ (figure 3) success criteria instead of the ‘Iron Triangle’, where he groups the criteria that other academics have proposed. The main change is the addition of qualitative objectives rather than quantitative, namely the benefits that different group of people can receive from the project. These benefits are seen from two perspectives, one from the organisational view and one from the stakeholders view. It is obvious that each part will have benefit differently from projects. For example one organisation can gain profit through achieving strategic goals when a project is completed and at the same time these goals have a serious environmental impact in the stakeholders’ community. This means that a successful project must bargain between the benefits of the organisation and the satisfaction of end users. The fourth corner of the ‘Square Root’ is the Information System which includes the subjects of maintainability, reliability and validity of project outcomes.
One of the "Square’s root" corners, organisational benefits, drew much attention because of it’s significance and it was further analysed. Kerzner (2001, p6) suggests three criteria from the organization perspective in order for a project to be successful. The first is that it must be completed "with minimum or mutually agreed upon scope changes", even though stakeholders constantly have different views about projects’ results (Maylor, 2005, p288). Second, "without disturbing the main work flow of the organization" because a project has to assist organisation’s everyday operations and try to make them more efficient and effective. Finally, it should be completed "without changing the corporate culture" even though projects are "almost exclusively concerned with change – with knocking down the old and building up the new" (Baguley, 1995, p8). A project manager’s main responsibility is to make sure that he delivers change only where is necessary, otherwise he is doomed to find strong resistance from almost all organisational departments (Kerzner, 2001, p158) which ultimately could lead to project failure.
A more structured approach to project success is grouping the criteria into categories. Wideman (1996, p3-4) describes four groups, all of them time dependent: "internal project objectives (efficiency during the project), benefit to customer (effectiveness in the short term), direct contribution (in the medium term) and future opportunity (in the long term)". The characterization of ‘time dependent’ is based on the fact that success varies with time. Looking at the future benefits of the organisation can be really difficult, because in some cases they don’t even know what they want, yet is vital to know what the project is trying to achieve after completion time so that success criteria are clearly defined in the early stages. This is quite a different approach, because the focus moves from the present success criteria to the future, in a way that a project can be unsuccessful during execution if it is judged by criteria like cost and quality, but in the long term it can turn to be a thriving story. A good example of this hypothesis is hosting the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, which received mass criticism both during the planning period, due to delays in construction time, and when it was finished, due to huge cost. But the benefits that Greece will gain from the Olympic Games can be fully understood after 5 or maybe 10 years from the hosting year (Athens2004.com).
All the above success criteria "should be simple and attainable and, once defined, they should also be ranked according to priority" (Right Track Associates, 2003). Straightforward criteria are easy to understand by everyone involved in the project and therefore commitment is guaranteed. Unrealistic criteria can put a ‘failure’ label on many projects because of the unreachable standards, can generate low team esteem and team performance in future projects and finally generate unfair disappointment among stakeholders. As for priority issues, it is inevitable that things will go wrong and the project manager will be in a tough situation where he must make the right decision having in mind that he has to sacrifice the least important success criterion.
Success Factors
As mentioned earlier, "success factors are those inputs to the management system that lead directly or indirectly to the success of the project or business" (Cooke-Davies, 2002, p185). Some project managers "intuitively and informally determine their own success factors. However, if these factors are not explicitly identified and recorded, they will not become part of formal project management reporting process nor they become part of the historical project data" (Rad & Levin, 2002, p18). Belassi & Tukel (1996, p144) classified these factors into 5 distinct groups according to which element they relate to:
1. The project manager
Having a project manager is not go
1. Develop excellent work habits – for example, meet deadlines and don’t procrastinate.2. Read extensively about your primary career area. “Own” your profession by developing a disciplined reading program, so you’ll be aware of trends and developments.3. Practice team playing – learning from colleagues and sharing your knowledge.4. Know both your job and your organization’s expectations, and be sure they’re on the same track.5. Set goals, write them down and evaluate your progress.6. Focus on understanding your client/customers. Come up with strategies that add value from them.7. Don’t dodge administrative tasks – it upsets most supervisors.8. Volunteer for outside activities: Accept assignments to speak to outside groups, lead professional panels and write articles for professional journals.9. Build executive communication skills and cultivate an executive persona by reading books on the subject and attending seminars.10. Take risks with personal development, acknowledging both strengths and weaknesses; build on strengths and correct weaknesses.11. Seek out notables both inside and outside your profession, and watch and learn from winners.12. Always seek opportunities. Success is not a sweepstakes waiting for the knock at the door.13. If your employer does not emphasize learning and achievement, move on.14. Think big – but always manage the details.15. Take manageable risks. Remember, without occasional failures, success is unlikely.
The difference between criteria and factors is fuzzy for many people. The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary describes a criterion as "a standard by which you judge, decide about or deal with something" while a factor is explained as "a fact or situation which influences the result of something". Lim & Mohamed applied those definitions to project success and illustrated the difference as show in Figure 1. It is clear now that critical factors can lead to a series of events which ultimately meet the overall success criteria of the project, so they shouldn’t be used as synonymous terms.
Success Criteria
Many lists of success criteria have been introduced in the previous decades by various researchers. Primal success criteria have been an integrated part of project management theory given that early definitions of project management included the so called ‘Iron Triangle’ success criteria – cost, time and quality. (Atkinson, 1999, p338)
Atkinson continues that "as a discipline, project management has not really changed or developed the success measurement criteria in almost 50 years". To meet the urgent need of modernizing the out of date success criteria, he suggest the ‘Square Route’ (figure 3) success criteria instead of the ‘Iron Triangle’, where he groups the criteria that other academics have proposed. The main change is the addition of qualitative objectives rather than quantitative, namely the benefits that different group of people can receive from the project. These benefits are seen from two perspectives, one from the organisational view and one from the stakeholders view. It is obvious that each part will have benefit differently from projects. For example one organisation can gain profit through achieving strategic goals when a project is completed and at the same time these goals have a serious environmental impact in the stakeholders’ community. This means that a successful project must bargain between the benefits of the organisation and the satisfaction of end users. The fourth corner of the ‘Square Root’ is the Information System which includes the subjects of maintainability, reliability and validity of project outcomes.
One of the "Square’s root" corners, organisational benefits, drew much attention because of it’s significance and it was further analysed. Kerzner (2001, p6) suggests three criteria from the organization perspective in order for a project to be successful. The first is that it must be completed "with minimum or mutually agreed upon scope changes", even though stakeholders constantly have different views about projects’ results (Maylor, 2005, p288). Second, "without disturbing the main work flow of the organization" because a project has to assist organisation’s everyday operations and try to make them more efficient and effective. Finally, it should be completed "without changing the corporate culture" even though projects are "almost exclusively concerned with change – with knocking down the old and building up the new" (Baguley, 1995, p8). A project manager’s main responsibility is to make sure that he delivers change only where is necessary, otherwise he is doomed to find strong resistance from almost all organisational departments (Kerzner, 2001, p158) which ultimately could lead to project failure.
A more structured approach to project success is grouping the criteria into categories. Wideman (1996, p3-4) describes four groups, all of them time dependent: "internal project objectives (efficiency during the project), benefit to customer (effectiveness in the short term), direct contribution (in the medium term) and future opportunity (in the long term)". The characterization of ‘time dependent’ is based on the fact that success varies with time. Looking at the future benefits of the organisation can be really difficult, because in some cases they don’t even know what they want, yet is vital to know what the project is trying to achieve after completion time so that success criteria are clearly defined in the early stages. This is quite a different approach, because the focus moves from the present success criteria to the future, in a way that a project can be unsuccessful during execution if it is judged by criteria like cost and quality, but in the long term it can turn to be a thriving story. A good example of this hypothesis is hosting the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, which received mass criticism both during the planning period, due to delays in construction time, and when it was finished, due to huge cost. But the benefits that Greece will gain from the Olympic Games can be fully understood after 5 or maybe 10 years from the hosting year (Athens2004.com).
All the above success criteria "should be simple and attainable and, once defined, they should also be ranked according to priority" (Right Track Associates, 2003). Straightforward criteria are easy to understand by everyone involved in the project and therefore commitment is guaranteed. Unrealistic criteria can put a ‘failure’ label on many projects because of the unreachable standards, can generate low team esteem and team performance in future projects and finally generate unfair disappointment among stakeholders. As for priority issues, it is inevitable that things will go wrong and the project manager will be in a tough situation where he must make the right decision having in mind that he has to sacrifice the least important success criterion.
Success Factors
As mentioned earlier, "success factors are those inputs to the management system that lead directly or indirectly to the success of the project or business" (Cooke-Davies, 2002, p185). Some project managers "intuitively and informally determine their own success factors. However, if these factors are not explicitly identified and recorded, they will not become part of formal project management reporting process nor they become part of the historical project data" (Rad & Levin, 2002, p18). Belassi & Tukel (1996, p144) classified these factors into 5 distinct groups according to which element they relate to:
1. The project manager
Having a project manager is not g
"Great individuals often seek their own interests and the accolades of others . . . but immortals seek to stir the hearts, strengthen the spirits and stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves." Mary Lou Harvey (Mama)Buried in the center of every organization is an institution called the Human Resources Department. Depending on the company, it fills a variety of responsibilities. What distinguishes a great Human Resource Department from an Immortal one is how they view employees: are employees a resource or are they human? All kidding aside, what you believe about the employees who work in your organization is the harbinger for the health of your organization. If you see them as malingerers, malcontents or miscreants, do not be surprised if they meet your expectations. Immortal leaders see their workforce in a far more positive light.Like my Mama, they recognize that the magic in the human spirit is a boundless reservoir of possibility. Mama had the ability to see the good in people, regardless of what they looked like on the outside. She saw beyond their off-putting conduct and somehow managed to touch their heart. Whether it was mean ol' uncle Mike, or Marvin the bristling butcher, she melted them with her overwhelming faith in their worth as human beings. Somehow in her presence they were more than they thought they could be - she believed in them.In the past I told my graduate students the story of a retired teacher who was called in during the middle of the semester to take over a very troubled class of students who had succeeded in running off four teachers before the Thanksgiving break. The principal tried to find a highly qualified teacher, trained in all the latest strategies and techniques, but in the end found nobody willing to take on this raucous crowd of rebels. Finally, the principal called on Ms. Anna Sumption. He knew that if he told her what had been going on she'd refuse the task, so when he invited her to take the position he neglected to tell her about the previous four teachers and the student subterfuge that led to their demise. In
One of the "Square’s root" corners, organisational benefits, drew much attention because of it’s significance and it was further analysed. Kerzner (2001, p6) suggests three criteria from the organization perspective in order for a project to be successful. The first is that it must be completed "with minimum or mutually agreed upon scope changes", even though stakeholders constantly have different views about projects’ results (Maylor, 2005, p288). Second, "without disturbing the main work flow of the organization" because a project has to assist organisation’s everyday operations and try to make them more efficient and effective. Finally, it should be completed "without changing the corporate culture" even though projects are "almost exclusively concerned with change – with knocking down the old and building up the new" (Baguley, 1995, p8). A project manager’s main responsibility is to make sure that he delivers change only where is necessary, otherwise he is doomed to find strong resistance from almost all organisational departments (Kerzner, 2001, p158) which ultimately could lead to project failure.
A more structured approach to project success is grouping the criteria into categories. Wideman (1996, p3-4) describes four groups, all of them time dependent: "internal project objectives (efficiency during the project), benefit to customer (effectiveness in the short term), direct contribution (in the medium term) and future opportunity (in the long term)". The characterization of ‘time dependent’ is based on the fact that success varies with time. Looking at the future benefits of the organisation can be really difficult, because in some cases they don’t even know what they want, yet is vital to know what the project is trying to achieve after completion time so that success criteria are clearly defined in the early stages. This is quite a different approach, because the focus moves from the present success criteria to the future, in a way that a project can be unsuccessful during execution if it is judged by criteria like cost and quality, but in the long term it can turn to be a thriving story. A good example of this hypothesis is hosting the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, which received mass criticism both during the planning period, due to delays in construction time, and when it was finished, due to huge cost. But the benefits that Greece will gain from the Olympic Games can be fully understood after 5 or maybe 10 years from the hosting year (Athens2004.com).
All the above success criteria "should be simple and attainable and, once defined, they should also be ranked according to priority" (Right Track Associates, 2003). Straightforward criteria are easy to understand by everyone involved in the project and therefore commitment is guaranteed. Unrealistic criteria can put a ‘failure’ label on many projects because of the unreachable standards, can generate low team esteem and team performance in future projects and finally generate unfair disappointment among stakeholders. As for priority issues, it is inevitable that things will go wrong and the project manager will be in a tough situation where he must make the right decision having in mind that he has to sacrifice the least important success criterion.
Success Factors
As mentioned earlier, "success factors are those inputs to the management system that lead directly or indirectly to the success of the project or business" (Cooke-Davies, 2002, p185). Some project managers "intuitively and informally determine their own success factors. However, if these factors are not explicitly identified and recorded, they will not become part of formal project management reporting process nor they become part of the historical project data" (Rad & Levin, 2002, p18). Belassi & Tukel (1996, p144) classified these factors into 5 distinct groups according to which element they relate to:
1. The project manager
Having a project manager is not g
Cheap business phones and phone systems are available from several U.S. as well as international manufacturers. Most business telephone systems essentially consist of several internal telephones, fax machines and other devices, connected to each other and to the outside world by a switching system. Switching systems, called PABXs or PBXs are distinguished from smaller systems by the fact that external lines cannot be normally selected at any individual extension.Smaller systems are called "key systems" and are cheaper than PBXs. A specific outgoing line is selected to make a call and external number is dialed on a key system. To make a call on a PBX system, the user needs to dial 9 or 0 followed by the external number. Requirement of 0 or 9 dial will differ, depending on that particular system. PBX automatically selects an open outgoing trunk line to complete the call.A PBX performs three basic functions, namely, establishing connections between the telephone sets of two users, maintaining the connection as long as the users need them and providing information such as call duration, for accounting purposes. In addition to these basic functions, PBXs used in business usually need to have many other capabilities. Different business telephone system manufacturers provide different features in an effort to gain competitive edge. Some extra capabilities include call transfer, direct inward dialing, speed dialing, voice mail, call forwarding on absence, call forwarding on busy, music on hold, automatic ring back, night service, call distribution, call waiting, call pick-up, call park, call conferencing, custom greetings, shared message boxes, automated directory services and call accounting. It is important to note that many of these extra capabilities also need to be provided by the service provider to which that company is subscribing. Merely having them on PBX and telephone handset is practically useless.Many agencies throughout United States offer cheaper new or reconditioned telephone systems. A large variety of cheap business phones is also available online, through the Inte
A more structured approach to project success is grouping the criteria into categories. Wideman (1996, p3-4) describes four groups, all of them time dependent: "internal project objectives (efficiency during the project), benefit to customer (effectiveness in the short term), direct contribution (in the medium term) and future opportunity (in the long term)". The characterization of ‘time dependent’ is based on the fact that success varies with time. Looking at the future benefits of the organisation can be really difficult, because in some cases they don’t even know what they want, yet is vital to know what the project is trying to achieve after completion time so that success criteria are clearly defined in the early stages. This is quite a different approach, because the focus moves from the present success criteria to the future, in a way that a project can be unsuccessful during execution if it is judged by criteria like cost and quality, but in the long term it can turn to be a thriving story. A good example of this hypothesis is hosting the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, which received mass criticism both during the planning period, due to delays in construction time, and when it was finished, due to huge cost. But the benefits that Greece will gain from the Olympic Games can be fully understood after 5 or maybe 10 years from the hosting year (Athens2004.com).
All the above success criteria "should be simple and attainable and, once defined, they should also be ranked according to priority" (Right Track Associates, 2003). Straightforward criteria are easy to understand by everyone involved in the project and therefore commitment is guaranteed. Unrealistic criteria can put a ‘failure’ label on many projects because of the unreachable standards, can generate low team esteem and team performance in future projects and finally generate unfair disappointment among stakeholders. As for priority issues, it is inevitable that things will go wrong and the project manager will be in a tough situation where he must make the right decision having in mind that he has to sacrifice the least important success criterion.
Success Factors
As mentioned earlier, "success factors are those inputs to the management system that lead directly or indirectly to the success of the project or business" (Cooke-Davies, 2002, p185). Some project managers "intuitively and informally determine their own success factors. However, if these factors are not explicitly identified and recorded, they will not become part of formal project management reporting process nor they become part of the historical project data" (Rad & Levin, 2002, p18). Belassi & Tukel (1996, p144) classified these factors into 5 distinct groups according to which element they relate to:
1. The project manager
Having a project manager is not g
The Internet is the most powerful employment tool on earth. Hands down.With the Web, you can access millions of job openings on thousands of sites. With email, you can quickly contact employers and ask for interviews.Yet, if used incorrectly, the Internet can actually prevent you from being as productive as possible in your search for work.How? Why?Here are four mistakes that commonly befall job seekers using the Internet. Avoid them, and get hired faster.1) Don't Email Your Resume WrongI've written before (http://www.startribune.com/stories/1416/4371900.html) on how to create a text version of your resume for emailing to employers. Because not everybody has Word or WordPerfect, the only way to be sure employers can read your resume is to email them a version in plain old ASCII text.Make sure the resume you email looks good upon arrival, with no funny line breaks or garbage in the text. How? Use yourself and at least two friends as guinea pigs.It's easy. Practice formatting and emailing your resume to yourself and others. Open the email. How does your resume look? Good? Good. Garbage? Reformat and repeat until your resume goes through cleanly every time.2) Don't Forget The Email Cover LetterWhen emailing your resume to employers, don't dash off email cover letter as an afterthought or, worse, fail to include one. Treat email as you would postal mail -- always email a solid cover letter with your resume.Your cover letter has many functions. Chief among them are telling the reader what job you're applying for, where you learned of the job, and your specific qualifications for doing it.And don't get sloppy with tone or punctuation in email cover letters. You're not banging out an instant text message to buddies. You're writing a letter to the person you want to work for. There's a difference.3) Don't Be PassiveIt's easy to sit back and wait for postings to appear on the big job sites, like Monster. But if you confine yourself to this passive technique, you're missing out.That's because most jobs
All the above success criteria "should be simple and attainable and, once defined, they should also be ranked according to priority" (Right Track Associates, 2003). Straightforward criteria are easy to understand by everyone involved in the project and therefore commitment is guaranteed. Unrealistic criteria can put a ‘failure’ label on many projects because of the unreachable standards, can generate low team esteem and team performance in future projects and finally generate unfair disappointment among stakeholders. As for priority issues, it is inevitable that things will go wrong and the project manager will be in a tough situation where he must make the right decision having in mind that he has to sacrifice the least important success criterion.
Success Factors
As mentioned earlier, "success factors are those inputs to the management system that lead directly or indirectly to the success of the project or business" (Cooke-Davies, 2002, p185). Some project managers "intuitively and informally determine their own success factors. However, if these factors are not explicitly identified and recorded, they will not become part of formal project management reporting process nor they become part of the historical project data" (Rad & Levin, 2002, p18). Belassi & Tukel (1996, p144) classified these factors into 5 distinct groups according to which element they relate to:
1. The project manager
Having a project manager is not going to guarantee the success of a project. He must have a number of skills to use during the project to guide the rest of the team to successfully complete all the objectives. In the 2001 CHAOS report (The Standish Group International, 2001, p6), business, communication, responsiveness, process, results, operational, realism and technological skills are mentioned as some of the most important skills a project manager should have to deliver success. However, more resent research by Turner and Muller (2005, p59) has concluded that "the leadership style and competence of the project manager have no impact on project success". It is very interesting to investigate why a highly respectable professional body for project managers published such a contradictive position. A possible answer could be found in the fact that project manager’s results are difficult to prove and even more difficult to measure. If the project is successful, senior management will probably claim that all external factors were favourable. On the contrary, if it turns to be a failure, project manager easily becomes the scapegoat.
2. The project team
Project managers are very lucky if they have the option to choose their project team. More often, their team is inherited to the project from various sectors of the organisation. It is vital to have a good project team to work with, with core skills that can be evolved to core competences and capabilities for the whole organisation. All members of the project team must be committed to the success of the project and the overall mission of the company. Apart from their skills and commitment, project team members should have clear communication channels to access "both the functional manager and the project manager within a matrix organization. Effective management of this dual reporting is often a critical success factor for the project" (PMBOK Guide, 2004, p215).
3. The project itself
The type of a project underlines some factors that are important to success. For example, if a project is urgent, the critical factor in that case is time. The Wembley stadium is expected to be fully operational due to May's 2006 FA Cup Final and that is the primary target. However, the increase of cost "that has thrown the management's calculations out of kilter" (Evans, 2005) was not a big issue at that time. The size, value of a project and it’s uniqueness of activities can be a puzzle for the project manager who is used to planning and co-ordinating common and simple activities (Belassi & Tukel, 1996, p144).
4. The organization
Top management support is the principal success factor for many independent research groups (Tukel & Rom, 1998, p48) (CHAOS Report, 2001, p4) (Cleland & Ireland, 2002, p210) (Tinnirello, 2002, p14) , which means that no project can finish successfully unless the project manager secures true support from the senior or operational management. It is extremely difficult to work in a hostile environment where nobody understands the benefits that the project will deliver to the organisation. "Stakeholder management and contract strategies (number of and size of the contracts, interface between the different contracts and the management of contracts) are separate success factors which are also considered part of organization issues" (Torp, Austeng & Mengesha, 2004, p4).
5. The external environment
External environment can be the political, economic, socio-culture and technological (PEST) context in which the project is executed. Factors like the weather, work accidents or the government’s favourable or unfavourable legislation can affect the project in all of its phases. "Note that if a client is from outside the organization, he should also be considered as an external factor influencing the project performance" (Belassi & Tukel, 1996, p145). Competitors should also be accounted as external factors which can undermine project success because the original project could be overshadowed by a more glamorous and successful project launched by another organisation.
Conclusion
It is critical for a project manager to understand what the stakeholders consider as a successful project. In order to avoid any surprises at the end of the project, there is an urgent need to identify the different perspectives of what success means before the project goes live. It is also vital to remember that success criteria are the standards by which a project will be judged, while success factors are the facts that shape the result of projects. Success criteria have changed considerably through time and moved from the classic iron triangle’s view of time, cost and quality to a broader framework which include benefits for the organisation and user satisfaction. An additional framework to capture success criteria depending on time was also described. As for success factors, they were grouped into five distinct sets and the literature views were find to contradict on the issue of how critical a project manager is to the final success of the project. A common factor mentioned by many authors is senior management support for the project and it is recognized as one of the most important factors of all. In conclusion, early definition of success criteria can ensure an undisputed view of how the project will be judged and early detection of success factors will guarantee a safe path to deliver success.
References
1. A Guide to Project Management Body of Knowledge, 2004, 3rd Edition, Project Management Institute, USA
2. Atkinson, 1999, Project management: cost, time and quality, two best guesses and a phenomenon, its time to accept other success criteria, International Journal of Project Management Vol. 17, No. 6, pp 337-342, [Electronic]
3. Baguley, 1995, Managing Successful Projects: A guide for every manager, Pitman Publishing, London UK, p8
4. Belassi & Tukel, 1996, A new framework for determining critical success-failure factors in projects, International Journal of Project Management Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 141-151, [Electronic]
5. Cambridge University, The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, 2005, 2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press, UK
6. Cammack, 2005, Principles of Project Management - 1st session, MSc in Project Management, Lancaster University
7. Cleland & Ireland, 2002, p2
HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.hubyou.info/article/23117/hubyou-Analysis-of-Project-Success-Criteria-and-Success-Factors.html">Analysis of Project Success Criteria and Success Factors</a>
BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.hubyou.info/article/23117/hubyou-Analysis-of-Project-Success-Criteria-and-Success-Factors.html]Analysis of Project Success Criteria and Success Factors[/url]
Related Articles:
Car Wash Fundraisers and Towel Inventory Allocations
Most Meetings Should Last Less Than an Hour
Bookmark it:
|