How Do You Define Success?

 

I had a great weekend. I spent four or five hours on the river yesterday thrashing about in the cold chasing fish with a fly about the size of a small piece of lint. The river was running a little higher than last time, which made it a bit more difficult to catch as many fish, but I caught enough to make it a good day (for the middle of February).

The beautiful little stretch of river I was fishing is in the photo at left. I took the picture just before I decided to call it a day and make the drive home. Although my day on the river yesterday did not produce the same results as last time, it was still what I would call a "successful" day.

In my opinion success, whether we're talking about project success or a successful day on the river, can be measured by how well the activity meets or exceeds expectations and provides value. Of course, the definition of value could be measured differently from organization to organization. For some, the success of a project might be measured in terms of ROI gained by income earned with the project, for others it might be money saved or even an increase in the ability to monitor and track processes. (For example, government projects might be less concerned with ROI than they are with governance.)

Whatever business value the project is supposed to provide should be identified and agreed upon before the project begins. If the project fails to provide the identified value, the project failed. This type of measure allows for scope and possible time-line changes, provided they do not negatively impact the project's ability to provide the specified value.

Project leaders who focus on providing business value have a clear measure of whether or not their projects are successful (and this applies to projects that are IT-related as well as those that are not). As project leaders, we need to start thinking more in terms of value if we hope to have a lasting and productive project environment.

In my opinion, there is a lot of value to being on the river casting to a wily trout with a tiny fly—regardless of how many make it into the net.