CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTOR PART 1
Some projects fail even before they can start because the seeds of success had not been sown right from inception. Starting today, I begin to discuss the factors that must be present for a project to succeed and achieve its objectives. These are the critical success factors. Critical success factors are elements that are necessary for a project to achieve its objectives.
As would be expected, projects rarely fail for a single reason; they often fail because of the interplay of factors that impede project success. Similarly, projects rarely succeed because of a single factor. Thus, project success depends on a multitude of success factors.
Therefore, in this series of essays on critical project success factors, I will be discussing critical success factors that are at the top of the list of factors necessary for project success.
Research, including one conducted by this author, shows that top management support is at the very top of the list of critical success factor. In fact, Mark Kiel and Daniel Robey in their essay on Turning Around Troubled Projects list top management support as one of the top three IT project success factors.
They explain that top management support to the project may be classified as top management action that shows that top management is in full support of the project. Some of these actions may include policies and frameworks that predetermine project success.
Similarly, Meredith and Mantel assert that the development of an organizational structure that supports project execution is one such action that is the responsibility of top management, and critical to organizational performance.
For instance, a 2004 study that this author carried out for his employer, recommended a change in organization structure from Functional to Projectized to ensure better project delivery. One of the critical issues that the study discovered was the delay in procurement because all the project teams submitted their request to the Procurement Department that was not concerned with the urgency of the delivery. This created a bottleneck in the project delivery process. Many projects failed as a result.
In one particularly painful situation, a client cancelled a major pipeline contract and awarded it to our competitor because of delay in delivery of x-ray equipment needed for radiography of welded joints.
Of course, only senior management could remove that bottleneck. Without doing that the projects will continue to suffer regardless of the competence of the project manager and the project team.
Another area that requires top management support is resource allocation, especially in functional organizations, where project teams compete for scarce resources. It often happens, that powerful organizational leaders, because of vested interest in certain projects, tend to ensure that those projects are adequately resourced while those without senior managers’ backing suffer.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons why clients or project owners demand that contractors appoint project sponsors who are senior leaders in their organizations. I saw the value of this in a recent tender clarification meeting. The contractor was required to waive a certain aspect of the qualification to the tender. While the other leaders where considering what to do the CEO jumped in and confirmed the waiver and the meeting proceeded smoothly. Otherwise, the issue would have become a sticking point.
Although there are many other areas that project teams require senior management support, I would just mention the issue of resolving issues with other stakeholders, government agencies or other organizations.
Often, project managers are not the most senior officers in the organization, and do not have the leverage to discuss with parties outside their organizations. This often cause project delays beyond the ability of project teams to handle.
For example, the story below which I received as a comment on an article I shared illustrates this point:
I am currently overseeing a project worth over USD 5.5m, we have finished the civil works but going into the real mechanical fabrication. And now we are stuck because of statutory approval. When I approached management at an earlier stage for all this preparation, they felt it was unnecessary and would be sorted out when the time comes. But as I speak to you, we are about 3 months behind schedule and we are under pressure to recover.
That is a classic example of lack of management support. A project sponsor who is a senior manager in the organization would have taken up the case in time to resolve the matter before the project reached this crisis.
Yes, top management support is critical to project success. They must recognize that it is their responsibility to set up organizational systems and processes that support and enhance project delivery. They also need to ensure adequate resourcing of the project as well as shield the project team from undue political interference.
Top management should not just blame the project manager or the project team for project failure. They need to ensure that the team has adequate management support to succeed. Only then should they bring down the house if the team still fails to deliver.
