WHEN IS A PROJECT SUCCESSFUL?
Was your last project successful? Is the current one likely to be successful? What makes a project successful? Why should you be bothered with such a question? After all, you have completed the project and handed it over to the end user, and he appears to be happy with it.
As a contractor, whether an internal project team executing projects on behalf of asset owners within the organization, or an external EPC contractor, you need to find a satisfactory answer to that question because it could determine the continuity of business with your clients.
I know of an EPC contractor, who completed and delivered a wellhead platform project for a client, and that has become the last major contract they’ve had with that client, even though the client had another similar project. That contractor has since gone insolvent. Why? I guess one of the major reasons was that, although they won the contract as the Lowest Bidder, it cost the client a lot more money to ensure that the project was completed, effectively making that contractor probably the highest bidder by the time the project was completed.
I also know of another case where one consultant won a contract as the lowest bidder, and probably completed it as such, but the client insisted that future phases of the project would not go to the same consultant, because of the extent of supervision required to complete the project.
So, were those projects successful? Yes, in many respects. But when it results in no future business, then the answer might be otherwise.
So what constitutes project success? The answer would have been an easy matter 50 years ago, when project success was measured merely in terms of schedule, cost and quality or requirements – the so called Iron Triangle. But the times have changed, and so has the definition of project success.
With increasing complexity of projects and factors that affect their delivery, definition of project success has become increasingly uncertain. There is complete lack of unanimity of opinion among project management researchers, academics and practitioners as to what actually constitutes project success. Some are even of the opinion that there is no such thing as definitive project success, it depends on the perspective.
I would like to group these attempts at definition of project success into three broad categories:
The Iron Triangle Success Criteria
There are some who still stick to the Iron Triangle. For instance, the Standish Group, in their Chaos Report of 1995 concluded that a project is successful if it meets the success criteria of schedule, budget and quality or requirements. In other words a successful project is one that has been completed on schedule or with slippage acceptable to the client, within budget or with acceptable variation, and quality or meeting client or owner’s requirements.
Unlimited Success Criteria
This group has enumerated an almost endless list of criteria, in addition to the Iron Triangle, by which project success is defined. This includes acceptance by the customer or client, completion with minimum and mutually agreed changes in scope, executed without disturbing the main flow of work within the organization, and completed without changing the corporate culture, safety and environment, impact on customer that can be measured within weeks of implementation, business success that can be measured a year or two after implementation, and preparing for the future that is measurable within five years, profitability for the contractor and early termination if necessary, satisfaction of beneficiaries with project deliverables, impact on beneficiaries, project reputation among donors, national visibility of the project, and probability of further funding (for international development projects), benefits to stakeholders including customers, users and project team.
Some of the items listed above deserve some comments. For instance, the success of a brown field construction project may be measured by its impact on ongoing production or operations, in addition to other criteria. Often, this contracts are awarded to the contractor who can demonstrate minimum shutdown requirement.
I am of the opinion that judging project success by what happens years after project completion is unreasonable, except the failure can be traced to the project. For instance, while a building project might be regarded as a failure if the building collapses after completion and handover, the same cannot be said of a condominium that fails to attract expected occupancy after completion. The first is a case of project failure while the second is product or business failure.
Individual Perception of Project Success
Yet another group is of the opinion that there is no such thing as absolute project success; it all depends on the party concerned. For instance, one researcher, A. De Wit, in a 1988 paper posited that “when faced with a project failure, it is always possible to come up with some arguments why it is a success.” As if to corroborate the statement, R. L. Glass, in a 1999 essay on project success stated that “project success, when viewed from the perspective of the project team, has a lot to do with what is learnt in the process of project execution, regardless whether the project is completed or cancelled.” You can’t possibly beat that, can you? As if the project was initiated for learning purposes. Well, that is the difference between academics and practitioners!
We have seen from the foregoing that definition of project success depends on who is involved. That should be a serious cause for concern among project teams and contractors. We have also seen that client perception of project success may determine future business relationship with contractors and suppliers.
So, what should the contractor or the project team do? Find out from your client, whether internal or external. Project success criteria should be discussed and agreed by all parties concerned, and documented prior to implementation. Then all parties would go to work knowing exactly how the completed project or product would be viewed. This will not only satisfy the client but will guaranty business continuity for the contractor.
