What are the quantifiable criteria that must be met for the project to be considered a success?

PM 101 — How to Define Project Success Criteria?

• Copper Team
• March 19th, 2018
• Blogs

Project success is determined by different factors. These factors can usually be measured that will define the success of the project. Project managers need to define the success criteria after collaboration with the end customer. Being on the same page regarding project success criteria can eliminate the risk of project failures and improve the odds of project success.

Defining Project Success Criteria

The project success criteria refer to measurable terms of what should be the outcome of the project that is acceptable to the end user, customer, and the stakeholders. In other words, the project success factors consist of activities or elements that are required to ensure successful completion of the project.

In order to deliver project value, the success criteria should be well defined. Defining the project success criteria should be a practice of conciseness. Avoid vague and general terms such as the product should have efficient features that are desired by the customers. Instead, the success factors should be phrased as “the product should contain X features, or “the product should be completed by X days”.

The three key factors that can define project success include the following.

• The Iron Triangle (Cost + Scope + Time)
• Realized Benefits
• Stakeholder satisfaction.

One of the most common problems when defining project success criteria relates to having a myopic focus on the Iron Triangle, especially relating to the cost and time. Most project managers tend to overlook the benefits and also ignore whether the client is happy. However, focusing merely on the benefits or the client satisfaction is also not the right approach.

Instead, a project manager should try to create a balance. While the focus should be on the iron triangle, the manager should also not lose sight of the realized benefits and stakeholder satisfaction. Successful project delivery depends on the requirements of the project. It requires delivering the objectives and goals of the project.

In order to achieve success, you need to be in agreement with the stakeholders regarding the project goals, objectives, and success criteria.

Documenting the Success Criteria

Apart from defining the success criteria, it is also important to document the criteria for success. Make sure that the documentation of the criteria is done at the start of the project. The document should include:

• The success criteria
• How it will be measured
• How often it will be measured
• Who will be responsible for measuring the criteria

Also, make sure that the success criteria are properly communicated to the team. The criteria should also reflect on the work management software through effective project planning.

At the end of the day, the success criteria should not be regarded as a set-in-stone. Instead, the manager should strive to go beyond the success criteria and exceed the expectations of the clients. This is a sure-fire way to project success.

A project can take many unexpected turns on its journey to completion. Helping your project succeed involves detailed planning and organization. Project management software provides a way for project managers to optimize team resources and schedule, using collaboration and communication platforms, task management and delegation, and integrations with other software. Ten of the best project management software are listed below.

6 Ways of Measuring Project Success

Measuring the success of a project once it’s brought to completion is a valuable practice. It provides a learning opportunity for future undertakings, and, the opportunity to assess the true effectiveness of the project. In order to have a holistic view, objective and subjective criteria need to be considered.

1. Scope

This is the intended result of a project and what is required to bring it to completion. To get a real measure of your project’s success you want to determine if it achieved its objectives within the given framework.

2. Schedule

This is easy enough to measure and understand. Were you able to hit your milestones on time? Did your project get delivered on time? And if not, how far behind schedule was it?

3. Budget

Did you manage to deliver your project within budget? Was it over or under? And if so, by how much? I’m sure it comes as no surprise that your ability to deliver your project within budget is usually considered one of the greatest indicators of success.

4. Team satisfaction

This is more subjective in nature and is often overlooked when evaluating project success. But I beg to say that team satisfaction should be at the top of your success criteria. They’re the ones who were deep in the trenches, and they’ll be the ones by your side on the next project adventure too. They also have deeper insights that even the top stakeholders may not have.

5. Customer satisfaction

Along with your team, you also want to get the feedback of your clients. Are they content with the results? Were their needs met? Find a way to track client satisfaction through the project life cycle all the way to delivery.

6. Quality

The point isn’t only to deliver the intended work but also, to exceed expectations. It’s important to track quality and make adjustments where necessary. Even after the project is delivered, quality assurance is often an ongoing piece of the project puzzle.

Ultimately, you want to evaluate if the project hit its target and how smooth the delivery was. Were the results implemented quickly and easily? Are the stakeholders, including your team members, satisfied with the results? Project success isn’t all black and white; there are grey areas that are a little more difficult to measure but are definitely worth taking the time to evaluate. The more you can work out the kinks of each project, the more successful each subsequent project will be.

Check out these Project Management Courses from TechRepublic Academy!

Tools for Implementing Successful Projects

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Wrike is the most powerful work management platform on the market, enabling teams to plan projects and collaborate in real time. Our award-winning software is trusted by 20,000+ companies across the globe, including Sony, Estée Lauder, and Siemens.

Wrike’s customizable features include Gantt charts, request forms, dashboards, cross-tagging, time tracking, and proofing. Integrate with 400+ apps from the likes of Microsoft, Google, and Salesforce. Automate repetitive tasks and achieve 50% faster planning. Work from anywhere with 100% access to your files via our mobile and desktop apps.

Whether you’re a small startup or an established brand, Wrike has the solution for you. Paid plans start at $9.80/user/month. Join our community of 2.3 million — start your free two-week trial today.

Learn more about Wrike

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monday.com Work OS is an award-winning no-code work management platform that helps teams manage projects and workflows more efficiently.

Used by 152,000+ customers worldwide, this fully customizable software lets you plan, manage, and track every project in one place. monday.com offers time-saving and easy-to-use features such as automations, time tracking, document sharing, and real-time collaboration. Multiple board views such as Gantt and Kanban help you structure and navigate tasks and projects the way you prefer, and dashboards give a high-level overview of your progress.

In addition, integrations with apps such as Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Gmail, and Excel, allow you to easily continue working with your favorite tools from within the platform. monday.com also offers dedicated solutions, such as monday dev and monday sales CRM, designed to answer the needs of specific industries.

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Mavenlink is a modern software platform that connects people, projects, and profits. It seamlessly provides project and financial data, so that users always have the needed information and complete view of their operation. Real-time data shows project performance at any given minute, so stakeholders can always make decisions regarding time and budget. They can always on check on costs of delivery, to make sure margins and ROI are on target. It provides overview and details whether it is a single project or a portfolio of projects. Resource management enables users to allocate resources where it is needed, with advanced features such as role-based estimating and business intelligence. Reports include up-to-date view of performance trends, problem areas, upcoming needs, and more.

Learn more about Kantata (Formerly Mavenlink + Kimble)

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ClickUp is one of the highest-rated project management tools today. Use Docs, Reminders, Goals, Calendars, Chat, scheduling, assigned comments, custom views, & more with this all-in-one project management tool.

Used by 800,000+ teams in companies like Airbnb, Google, and Uber, it brings all of your projects into a single app! Built for teams of all sizes and industries, Our fully customizable & proprietary features make it a must-have for anyone wanting to keep project management in one place.

Learn more about ClickUp

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Rocketlane’s collaborative customer onboarding platform helps businesses accelerate time-to-value, streamline implementation journeys, and deliver exceptional customer experience. By replacing generic project management and document collaboration tools with a unique, unified workspace, Rocketlane helps improve communication, collaboration, and project visibility for businesses and their customers. We help businesses consistently hit their goals by making onboarding more delightful and friction-free.

Learn more about Rocketlane

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LiquidPlanner is the only project and resource management tool that calculates when work will be done with 90% confidence. Our groundbreaking predictive scheduling engine is based on ranged estimates to generate best-case/worst-case scenarios to model when tasks and projects can realistically start and finish. As a result, one of the biggest differentiators with LiquidPlanner is how effectively our project management tool helps project teams manage uncertainty and deal with change. LiquidPlanner factors your organization’s priorities into your project plans from the beginning, so teams are always focused on the most critical work.

The availability of your resources is also accounted for, so you can see if your team really can take on a new project. As priorities, scope, or resource assignments shift, the scheduling engine dynamically adapts to change and recalculates impacted projects in the portfolio for real-time visibility into bottlenecks and risks before missed deadlines.

Learn more about LiquidPlanner

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Resource Guru is the fast, flexible way to schedule teams and projects. Manage people, equipment, and meeting rooms in one place. Track availability in real-time and assign work in seconds. Analyze workloads across clients and projects.

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Zoho Projects is an online project management application that helps its users to plan projects, collaborate with employees and clients, keep track of time, manage documents, and generate charts and reports. Users work on a central platform where they can keep track of progress, discuss ideas, communicate easily and stay updated. It is cloud-based and highly accessible, where user data is kept safe with stringent security systems. The software is also scalable depending on the number of projects, with the option to add more features. Zoho Projects is a cloud-based project management tool that helps you plan your work, track it efficiently, and collaborate with your team wherever they are.

Learn more about Zoho Projects

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The PlanMinder is a predictive project planning tool, that uses automatic scheduling to make it easy to keep plans up to date. Time reports are automatically used to update the schedule, and uncertainty analysis gives you insight on risks and lets you make better decisions.

The PlanMinder is best for teams where you need to plan and coordinate, but where estimates are uncertain, and priorities and scope change over time.

Learn more about The PlanMinder