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Member You - Analysis of Project Success Criteria and Success Factors
As most of you know, cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants is happily employed at the Krusty Krab - a quick serve seen by millions of kids every day on Nickelodeon. Quite a few funny restaurant experiences seem to happen to the SpongeBob crew - they even made a movie about them.Having an 8- and 10-year old, I recently saw the SpongeBob SquarePants movie and there was actually a valuable restaurant lesson to be learned (that somehow stayed with me after 90 minutes of torture). The second Krusty Krab restaurant was getting ready to open and SpongeBob thought he was going to be the manager, yet he was passed over for a “more mature” candidate. He was crushed. How many times have we done that to our employees?The lesson to take away is this: Think about training from the inside before recruiting from the outside. How many potential management candidates do you have working for you that lack a bit in maturity, leadership skills, or management experience, and you simply pass them over and look to the outside for answers? We continually hire new managers, lose them after 1.3 years, and hire another. How about reallocating our efforts (and dollars)into teaching our existing employees the skills they need to become great managers.Based on data I’ve come across, companies that have a higher rate of internal promotions tend to have longer tenured managers, lower management turnover, and lower employee turnover. Why? These folks are already bonded to the brand—they know what it’s like and they buy-in. They simply need to know there is a career path in the organization and the opportunity to succeed (with employer-directed development provided).Need a new manager? Comb your roster, find out who is interested, see what skills they are lacking, and get them trained, perhaps by a mentor or coach. Numerous assessment tests are available to help you identify what skills your employees need to develop.Courses are available through many companies. Even the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation (www.nraef.org), in affiliation with the Harvard
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, p210, Project Management: Strategic Design and implementation, McGraw-Hill Profe
1. Stay in touch and be there for them quietly.Because you hear nothing from them, it does not mean that they are OK. Because they have come through one bout of unhappiness successfully it does not mean that it will be the last. Call weekly.2. Do they know how best you can support them?Some of us were brought up according to the independence model and have to be introduced gently to the idea of support of any kind being acceptable. Encourage those of this school to reflect on what would be most helpful and communicate it.........And if nothing comes to their minds immediately, do not stop asking.3. Never allow them to complain for more than 2 minutes before turning to solutions.How many times have you felt positively revived, invigorated and inspired by complaining? Righteous, perhaps; justified definitely; but inspired? Positive energy comes from positive behaviours, so encourage focusing on solutions and opportunities and do not allow them to focus on misery for long.4. Endorse their previous achievements and share your expectations of their even greater future.Yesterday's victories are sometimes drowned by the discomforts of today. Remind them of their previous achievements, not just at work but in successful relationships, in volunteering, health and fitness and other areas of their lives.5. Ask about their strategy and its implementation.How fulfilling was their previous work? What do they really want to be and do and is this not the perfect opportunity? What are the next steps and what is their timetable for taking them?6. Are they familiar with the notions of Needs and Values?Unless our unique needs are met we cannot function well. Values are the standards and principles towards which we are naturally attracted. How many of us organize our lives (i) so that our Needs are met and (ii) to be oriented around our Values at work, at home and at play? Being downsized may be the key to a new and more fulfilling life.7. Offer to be someone to whom to report.Dealing with being downsize
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 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, p210, Project Management: Strategic Design and implementation, McGraw-Hill Profes
After identifying the sources of manpower, searching for prospective employees and stimulating them to apply for jobs in an organization, management’s next task is the selection of the right employees at the right time. The guiding policy in general is the intention to choose the best-qualified and most suitable candidate for each unfilled spot, and to avoid commitments to those who will not work well. The objective of the selection decision is to choose the individual who can most successfully perform the job from the pool of qualified candidates.The selection procedure is the system of functions and devices adopted in a given company to ascertain whether the candidate’s specifications are matched with the job specifications and requirements or not. There is no standard selection process that can be followed by all the companies. Companies may follow different selection techniques or methods depending upon the size and nature of the business.The selection procedure employs several methods of collecting information about the candidate’s qualifications, experience, physical and mental ability, nature and behavior, knowledge, aptitude and the like, for judging whether a given applicant is suitable for the job. The selection procedure is not a single act but is essentially a series of methods or stages by which different types of information can be secured through various selection techniques.At each step, facts may come to light which are useful for comparison with the job requirements and employee specifications. Recruitment refers to the process of searching for prospective employees and stimulating them to apply for jobs in an organization. Recruitment is the basis for the remaining steps of the selection process. An application form is widely accepted for securing information from the prospective candidates. It can also be used as a device to screen the candidates at the preliminary level. Many companies formulate their own style of application forms based on the size of the company, nature of business activities, and type and level of the job.
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 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, p210, Project Management: Strategic Design and implementation, McGraw-Hill Profe
Saturday, April 1st is April Fool’s Day. April Fools' Day, sometimes called All Fools' Day, is one of the most light-hearted days of the year. Its origins are uncertain. Some see it as a celebration related to the turn of the seasons, while others believe it stems from the adoption of a new calendar.Depending upon how you look at it, you are either the mastermind of pranks or the butt of corny jokes. Ignore those and think that more importantly, April Fool’s Day presents an opportunity to maximize your personal advantage in the workplace and capitalize on a promotional opportunity with your clients. Take advantage of the chance to play a joke. (Just make sure the joke it’s not at someone else's expense.) When was the last time you had a good laugh? I know I can use a more humor in my life.Think of someone you know who really needs to lighten up or simply isn't any fun anymore. What could you do that would make their week more enjoyable? Do you know someone whose door you have been trying to open? Send them a clever, yet funny, phone or email message. I'm not talking about playing jokes now. I'm talking about brightening someone's day with a chuckle or an interesting tidbit.You need to be professional about this. You can capture someone's attention but you don't want to sound like a numbskull in the process. I'm not advocating the wholesale email of the current round of hot jokes either. That's annoying and not at all funny. A funny or clever card will suffice. Peruse what is available either online or at the card store. Pick something appropriate for that person and send in time for April Fool’s Day.In addition, consider other unique ways to open those doors. For instance, did you know that daylight savings time was 100 years old last year? Talk about trivial pursuit facts or other interesting tidbits! One of my recent favorites, the Ant Farm, just celebrated its 50th birthday. Wow, think of all the people you know that had ant farms and the ants who are busily working away. Using "kitschy" items like this is an excellent conversation starter for those of you who hav
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, p210, Project Management: Strategic Design and implementation, McGraw-Hill Profe
Information Technology is a discipline that has a major influence on how everyone lives. It entails almost all forms of technological advancements which are often used to create, save, interchange and make use of information in its different forms. This may include business data, still images, motion pictures and multimedia presentations. It has proved to be of immense significance, as its presence seems to be apparent in almost every section of life.ApplicationsIt is next to impossible to think of a day without computers and communications. Most of the common applications of information technology includes storage of information, data processing, analysis of statistics, word- processing, communications, designing, accounting, management of information systems, financial forecasts and the control over the manufacturing procedure. There is a continuous development mainly in two sectors, namely, computing and communications.Basic skillsInformation Technology is in a revolutionary phase of development. It is a great industry with respect to employment opportunities. Similar to many other fields, IT recruits hardworking, dedicated, talented and forthright people with some training and working experience. In order to be successful in this field you need to possess the following characteristics. They are:a) Good Communication Skills b) An inclination towards problem solving c) Team spirit d) Creativity e) Respect for deadlines f) Analytical and logical reasoning abilityJob OpportunitiesMany career options in Information Technology are available. People with high as well as medium skills can also find jobs depending on their areas of interest. Some of the main positions in IT sector are as follows:a) Systems Analysts And Designers: Systems analysts and designer’s main jobs are to examine and analyze a business problem, design an appropriate system in order to deal with a particular problem, install and check the systems.b) Software Engineering And Design: It requires a substantial amount of technical experience. Sof
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, p210, Project Management: Strategic Design and implementation, McGraw-Hill Profe
We all have experience with unsolvable performance problems that plague the 20th century enterprise.- Periodic reorganization and upheavals, because the business is not organized- Faulty investment analysis because benefits cannot be itemized- Unbeneficial capital development, because unknown benefits are not managed to gain the return- Unmanaged capital, intangible assets, unknown costs, unknown value, distorted capital worth arising from the focus on cash and accruals- Performance management methods that do not manage performance, because performance is not properly defined- Contrived value management because the creation of value is not understood and managed- Misleading cost management because many costs are not known and costs are charged to the wrong things- Inaccurate and incomplete financial recording because recording is dictated by principles and does not record business reality- Corporate governance based on distorted financial reports rather than an accurate view of business reality- Misaligned strategies, processes, systems, outsourcing, assets, etc. because there is nothing to align with- Quality focused on final products because of hard-to-define performance quality- Barriers to collaboration due to lack of means to determine cost and value- Re-engineered business processes that hamper capital, quality, and cost management and prevent creation of value chains- Business complexity due to various overlaid methods that do not fit together as one whole and obscure the view of the business- Auditing to ensure that rules are followed, and no one looking at how resources are utilized to reach objectives- Insufficient information because information abounds, but is not managed as capital to provide benefit- Unmanaged capital because high-worth information, intellectual, and management capital is labeled as intangible rather than being managed to understand its worth as part of enterprise worth and its costs as part of enterprise costsThese unsolvable problems arise
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, p210, Project Management: Strategic Design and implementation, McGraw-Hill Professional, USA
8. Cleland & Ireland, 2004, Project Manager's Portable Handbook, 2nd Edition, McGraw-Hill, USA, page 210
9. Cooke-Davies, The "real" success factors on projects, International Journal of Project Management vol.20, pp. 185–190, [Electronic]
10. Duncan, 2004, Defining and Measuring Project Success, Project Management Partners, [Online], Available: http://www.pmpartners.com/resources/defmeas_success.html , [2005, Nov.4]
11. Evans, 2005, Overdue and over budget, over and over again, The Economist Jun 9th 2005, [Electronic]
12. Kerzner, 2001, Project Management - A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling and Controlling, 7th Edition, John Wiley & Sons, New York
13. Kerzner, 2001, Strategic planning for project management using a project management maturity model, Wiley & Sons, New York, page 158
14. Lim & Mohamed, 1999, Criteria of project success: an exploratory re-examination, International Journal of Project Management Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 243-248, [Electronic]
15. Maylor, 2005, Project Management, Third Edition with CD Microsoft Project, Prentice Hall, UK, p288
16. Rad & Levin, 2002, The Advanced Project Management Office, St.Lucie Press, USA, page 18
17. Right Track Associates, 2003, Defining project success, [Online], Available: http://www.ittoolkit.com/cgi-bin/itmember/itmember.cgi?file=assess_pmsuccess.htm , [2005, Nov.5]
18. The official website of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, [Online], Available: http://www.athens2004.com/en/Legacy , [2005, Nov.6]
19. The Standish Group International, 2001, Extreme CHAOS: The Standish Group International, [Electronic]
20. Thomsett, 2002, Radical Project Management, Prentice Hall, USA, page 16
21. Tinnirello, 2002, New Directions in Project Management, Auerbach, USA, page 14
22. Torp, Austeng & Mengesha, 2004, Critical Success factors for project performance: a study from from-end assessments of large public projects in Norway
23. Tukel & Rom, 1998, Analysis of the Characteristics of Projects in diverse industries, Journal of Operations Management, Vol 16, pp43-61
24. Turner & Muller, 2005, The project manager’s leadership style as a success factor on projects, Project Management Institute, Vol. 36, No. 1, pp 49-61
25. Wideman, 1996, Improving PM: Linking Success Criteria to Project Type, paper presented to the Southern Alberta Chapter, Project Management Institute, Calgary Symposium
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