Project Success Factors

Project success affected by many factors such as communication problems within team members, unclear goals and objectives, unrealistic time, lack of top management support and inappropriate skills, stake holder engagement, risk management, financial estimations. The main source for the reason points to the project management.

The paper is divided into three sections, the first of which will establish a timeline of events. This project background will serve as a case study for the analysis in the following section that will be structured such that each of the previously mentioned facets will be independently analyzed and contrasted with project management principles. Finally the paper will conclude with a summary of the analysis and recommendations based on

In the current business environment, the demand for project managers is ever growing. In short, project management is a provisional project constrained by time, cost and scope (A guide to the project management body of knowledge, 2013). Between the immense organization, optimization, and communication assets skilled project management brings to a project, it is easy to see why project management is a booming field of study. Furthermore, project management can be both financially and personally rewarding when long term milestones and goals come to fruition.

Executive Summary Project management is the science of planning, organizing, executing, and managing the resources needed to achieve a specific goal. Effective project managers (PM) strategically facilitate the entire project management process to ensure the project’s success. To do this the PM must adequately meet the specific requirements (i.e., time, scope, quality, and cost) set forth by the project and its stakeholders. It is theorized that PM must possess a set of core competencies in order to successfully manage a project. Those competencies are development of project management knowledge areas, application of appropriate project management tools and techniques, understanding of the project

Project management provides reasonable scientific solutions in order to overcome difficulties and achieve success. Each project has a variety of objectives have to achieve, these objectives are vary and can be for organization objectives or for social objectives. However, the project objectives could face some obstacles could be lead to limited success. The attempt to discover the factors of project success and project failure was not easy task for both scholars and expertise. These definitions can provide a close understanding and explanation for these terms. Many project management literatures have variety definitions of project success. (Adinyira, 2012) pointed out that Pinto and Slevin (1988) defined the success as delivering projects on proper time, cost and quality. Others like westerveld, elizabith have different ideas regarding the success that are related to the judge of stakeholders and organizational management. However, nowadays success become more complex issue to determine, it is not only meeting the costs and time it is belonging to the typology and sector of the project

This paper was prepared for Fundamentals of Project Management, Module 2 Check Your Understanding taught by Dr. Levern Eady.

successful IT project. These factors include: plan, people, communication, risk management, and the balance between time, quality and budget.

Many researchers have made an important distinction between project success criteria and success factors. Typically, success criteria are defined as result areas and success factors are defined as organizational areas (Westerveld, 2003). Furthermore, the terms are used to differentiate between project success and project management success (Cooke-Davies, 2002). In general, researchers believe that making a clear distinction between factors and criteria will lead to increased project success (Munns & Bjeirmi, 1996). This can also be looked at as the difference between efficiency and effectiveness, which are often

While time, cost, and performance present the most tangible measures of project success, the academic literature offers more vigorous metrics for success. Baker et.al., advocate that the stakeholder perceived performance is what should be measured (Baker & Murphy, 1983). They go on to provide at least 10 factors ranging from clarity of project goals, to the capacities of the team members (including the Project Manager), and robust project management practices are followed for planning and scope control. The limitation to the work presented by Baker et.al, as Mantel et., al suggest is that it was limited to only R&D projects and may have limited implications for other type of projects (Meredith & Mantel, 2012). An alternative framework for measuring and determining project success was presented by Belassi & Tukel, who proposed that success could be determined by four groups of factors; 1: Factors related to the project; 2: Factors related to the project manager and team; Factors related to the organization; and Finally, 4: Factors related to the external environment. In this model they argue that the factor groups are interrelated and depending on the project can greatly impact the different success of each or failure of each grouping and ultimately the project (Belassi & Tukel, 1996).

Although it is clear through research that nearly all project managers agree that establishing critical success criteria is important to providing satisfaction, benefits, and value for a project, it is just as clear that this process is often overlooked. There may be several reasons for this. One, based in historical views of project management, is that project success is directly tied to the iron triangle of requirements, namely time, cost, and quality. Another reason may be that it is very difficult to accurately define meaningful success criteria. It appears that the only thing most, but not all, researchers can agree on is that true project success encompasses more than just project management success.

One of the most investigated and often deliberated areas in project management is the mysterious definition of project success. In order to adequately identify the necessary factors that contribute to a successful systems implementation, parties involved must clearly identify what constitutes a successful project. Many opinions revolve around delivering objectives within a specified timeline by consuming projected budgeted resources while simultaneously managing risk, change, and stakeholder expectations. Ultimately delivering a solution that truly meets the needs of the organization in the allotted time by leveraging planned available resources.

In order to achieve their business objective, project management and the used methodology are key factor which will be responsible for the success or failure of this project.

Researchers have recognized noteworthy and consistent factors to explain project success to some extent but the primary contributing factors to project success are still unrevealed (Hobbs and Besner, 2006).

Based on E. Westerveld’s research in 2002, the Project Excellence Model link project success criteria and critical success into one coherent model. Given that PEM Model was adapted from EFQM-model whose essential characteristic is it distinguishes RESULT AREAS and ORGANISATION AREAS. With this in mind, the project success criteria can be regarded as results area while the success factors as organizational areas.

An effective project management approach is key to obtaining successful projects. In this study, a review of the