Defining and Measuring Project Succes

Traditionally project management and project success have been measured through time, performance, and budget metrics. While these measures are essential and relevant, they fail to provide a complete picture and as a result, limit the scope of learning in a project team. Nuances of the strategic and operational goal of the project undertaking are left out with this perspective. Furthermore, this one-size-fits-all approach to measuring project success misrepresents ‘real’ success for projects that differ in context, size, and goal. Shehnar et al. emphasised that “success means different things to different people” and therefore distinguish success measures based on two broad categories: operational and strategic.

Operational and Strategic Measures

Operational success measures are characterized by being quantitative, having clear targets, being short-term, and being largely focused on project management and technical performance. Strategic success measures are characterized by being qualitative, long-term, broad in scope, and focused on the overall business performance and strategic positioning (Shenhar et al.). Both operational and strategic success measures are important because they serve different purposes and provide different perspectives on project success. Operational success measures help ensure that the project is executed well and meets its short-term targets. Strategic success measures, on the other hand, help ensure the project's result adds value to the business and addresses customer needs.

Hard and Soft Projects

Projects can be categorized based on a dichotomous range between “Hard” and “Soft” wherein hard projects are identifiable as those being more technical, having clear goals and well-defined methods for achieving them. In contrast, soft projects are identifiable as being more subjective, having less well-defined goals and methods, more organic and unpredictable, and having a higher level of ambiguity (Crawford and Pollack).

Long Term Outlook

While operational success measures are important during the project development phase in the short run, it is clear that in the medium and long run after project completion, the strategic measures which included market share, client satisfaction, team performance, and identifying new capabilities enable the company to gain cognizance and plan for the future.

Therefore, projects can yield dividends from the day the project is completed till very far into the future. Incorporating both measures allows project managers and organizations to have a balanced approach to project success that considers both the short-term and long-term goals and benefits