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Have a look at the drawing above.  We'd like your opinion...we have been looking at a bunch of definitions of "project susccess", and serendipitously, this month's issue of PM Journal featured this topic.

One of the articles, "A perspective-based understanding of Project Success", covered the topic very well.

But we couldn't leave well-enough alone.

We think the authors did an outstanding job of capturing how we must, as a discipline, move from PROJECT to PRODUCT to ORGANIZATIONAL dimensions as we think about our work and our projects' successes.  But we think we, as project managers, have to think even further.  This is represented by the "breaking through" of the dotted line we show on the right of the diagram.

The intent is to show that even if we think beyond the project, and to the product in steady-state, and the portfolio of projects, and the organization, we still need to think in terms of the overall environment, and long-term effects of the product of the project.

We assert that this even-further-extended thinking will assist project teams in doing an even better job at identifying and handling environmental risks, amongst other things.

At this point, we just would like your opinion(s) about this visualization of thie issue.

What do you think?

Is it a success?


Posted by Richard Maltzman on: October 06, 2012 09:57 PM | Permalink

Comments (4)

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Anonymous
As you and the PMJ article point out, success, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder: the project manager sees success in meeting the triple constraint; the customer and/or users in the usefulness of the product created; the organization in how well the results add value. The question, however, is how do we get each of these valuable players in a project to appreciate the other's sense of success? Management must take a more active role in defining not just what they want, but why-what value must be derived for the organization to see it worthwhile? Then, true project success will be achieved.

Anonymous
Stephanie, I believe you have hit it on the head. Whose success is it? The customer, the user, management, the project manager, team, PMO,..? While one of these may see the results as success others may not. A hugely failed project is the Hubble Space Telescope (incorrect mirror) but is also a huge success with unimagined information about space and time. When we talk about project success, we need to define it early in developing the concept or product of the project, and from the multiple points of view involved. An excellent article (A Perspective-Based Understanding of Project Success) in the most recent Project Management Journal explains this idea and hopefully will help drive better evaluations of project success.

Anonymous
My critique is purely from a visual, since your points above cover some of my thoughts. The arrow points to the right as the dimension expands. However, the shapes of each box contracts to the right. Either reverse the box shape to expanding or reverse the content and relabel the arrow.

Anonymous
Silke, Jon, Gerald, Stephanie, thanks so much for your comments. We're glad to see people are not only reading and paying attention, folks like you are adding value with thoughtful and considered comments. Thanks again.

Rich and Dave

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