Of course we all want Serendipity to visit us on our projects, we welcome help from any source. A Project Manager can increase the chances of our friend Serendipity visiting the project by:
- Being alert,
- noticing what others do not see,
- putting together the project jigsaw as the new pieces emerge in the form of issues, ideas etc...
How does this all relate to project success?
Successful projects do not just happen. A Project Managers career is going to be a short and painful one if they do not understand how to set up their projects to be successful.
Before we get into how to make the conditions right for project success let's look at project success from the traditional project perspective.
Success from the Project Perspective
Traditionally project success was measured against delivering against the Iron Triangle - basically project management efficiency.
We often hear the mantra "delivered on-time, within budget and what was specified" as the project manager doing what is necessary to be successful. The whole PM industry has been focused on driving for this performance.
To help us meet these three key performance indicators we have developed more PM processes and best practices than you can shake a stick at, but we seem to continually struggle in our search for success. Despite all this effort project statistics still show that many projects are recorded as unsuccessful.
Success from Business Perspective
This published whitepaper at PMI Research is rethinking the triple constraint, it clearly shows the profession is changing its perspective on what constitutes a successful project, moving away from the project outputs based on the Iron Triangle, towards Business outcomes.
"Projects are the vehicles of change. Projects are provided funding and resources not so they can simply be delivered on time, within budget and according to scope; but because they help drive the necessary changes, both individually and organizationally, that create value for the organization."
I agree with this thought, and I believe that organizations require project to be successful beyond meeting the basic iron triangle. I also believe that PMO's should be striving to establish the environment and conditions to ensure every project is successful, before the project is even launched.
Why are Projects Unsuccessful?
We have known for years what factors contribute to making project unsuccessful. The National Audit Office and the OGC in the UK published a paper identifying the top reasons why project fail (see box three extracted from British Computer Society Report).
None of these reasons are new, and the sad fact is they are as valid today as when they were published over 12 years ago. The main problem I see is that despite knowing these factors to be true, somehow executive leaders do not believe that they apply to their projects....
So what can be done about this?
As PM Professionals we have a duty to help shine a light on what project success is, and we should be promoting how to help our organizations improve the success of their projects.
In Chapter 12 of "Project Planning and Project Success: The 25% Solution" (P Serrador) brings together an impressive collection of literature review and research on the linking of project planning to project success. He sums it up with the follow statement:
"... the preponderance of the literature has found that planning and the level of completeness of planning are important for project success.From the literature review alone we can answer the question: Is planning important for project success? The answer is yes.".
This would appear to also bear out the influence of point 7, and partially point 4 from the OGC table above.
In "Reinventing Project Management" Shenhar and Dvir point to integrating the project success dimensions (see previous post) in to project planning (p.33). They include a view that project managers are responsible for achieving success in all dimensions. On page 35 they identify Key Points and action items for developing the environment for success.
I have included links in this post to white papers / reports and other sources of information to help you understand the conditions and factors for enabling the successful environment for your projects. I hope you find them useful to back up your arguments / actions by demonstrating they are based on solid evidence.
Look Forward
In the next post I will explore the project success factors, and how they fit with different types of projects.
Additional Sources / Research
The Relationship Between Project Success And Project Efficiency (you can get this well researched paper for free if PMI Member it is a paper in the Project Management Journal)
Conditions for Project SuccessFactors in Project Success
Interesting Paper on Serendipity in Product Development
Complete collection of Project Management Statistics
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