Significance + Success

Beth Spriggs' professional career began in information technology in 1999. As a certified PMP with over a decade of project management experience, she has combined her love for tech and project management by focusing her career on managing technology projects and portfolios. She is author of The Project Manager's Little Book of Cheats.

  Stakeholder Management   Talent Management   Teams   ProjectsAtWork  

A project’s goals and a project manager’s success measures are often conflated, but they’re not the same thing. Goals come from stakeholders; they are outcome-driven and focused on organizational impact. Success measures demonstrate the work achieved. Here’s a closer look at this key distinction.

In order to better understand, have insight into, and demonstrate the work of project managers on my team I ask them to track two things: 1) Project Goals and 2) Project Success Measures. These are defined in the following ways. Goals are the objectives of the stakeholders. Success measures are how I know the project manager did a good job.

Goals and success measures are often conflated, but they are not the same thing. A stakeholder’s objectives or goals might look like this:

• 10 boxes filled and delivered by Friday
• System built with x y z requirements
• 25% increase in revenue
• 500 new customers using our product or service

These goals are outcome-driven and focused on organizational impact.

A project manager’s success measures might look like this:

• Managed scope by communicating impact of change requests and securing all necessary approvals
• Managed stakeholder expectations through weekly status updates
• Adjusted project tasks if a milestone is missed in order to keep the project on time

These success measures are driven by the work …

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