I am using a client's project charter that has a section called "Key Success Factors". I interpret this as factors that need to be in place to allow the project to be a success, e.g. trained resources being available. After a Google search and discussion with peers, two other interpretations emerge: 1) what does success look like at the end of the project, or 2) quantify that success, e.g. operational costs of xyz process are reduced by 10%. Point 1 sounds like deliverables to me. On the other hand, in the resource example I use, I have identified that as a risk, so isn't stating it as a ksf being redundant?
As an aside, the project is the upgrade of the client's Office 2003 suite to Office 2010, including file conversion strategies, etc.
What do you interpret this to mean? Saving Changes...
I would take it as more being about outcomes than deliverables, with the emphasis being on "key". They are something I would agree with the project sponsor & board, especially as these may well link back to the reasons for the project's existence - the "why" the company has decided to do an upgrade - maybe it's a cost saving so a KSF could be that there is a 30% reduction of licencing costs achieved this year.
Other outcomes may relate to things that are important to the company overall, so for instance, you're upgrading Office, so it could be a KSF that the Corporate Dept have Word 2010 installed with all macros converted in time for the company's 2012 annual report to be produced.
I agree "trained resources being available" is more of a risk, however a KSF related to this may be for example that all staff have access to 10 hours of conversion training.
In any event, what is also important is that once you have agreed these KSFs you then need to introduce measures into the project to enable you to monitor their achievement.
Will be interesting to hear others' views on this too. There is a lot of overlap between KSFs and objectives, I tend to think of KSFs coming from the more subjective end of the scale and taking the bigger picture into account.
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I agree with Tim. The project's KSF's should reflect back to the project's objectives, taking into account the bigger picture and ultimately reflecting all the way up to the company's business strategy.
In other words: what are we trying to achieve as a company, how is my project contributing to that and so when can I say that my project has been successful?
Ideally the KSF's should be translatable into KPI's so that you can keep track of how you are doing against them.
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My only advice would be to find out what "Key Success Factor" means for your company / client. In my experience, there is no Grand Unified Dictionary of Business Lingo, and I've seen the same acronyms and buzzwords means completely different things to different companies.
Around here, a KSF means: "what you need for your project to be successful" (so I'm in line with your original interpretation of the notion). So in project slide decks you'd find things ranging from the hardly quantifiable (e.g. "KSF 1: employee engagement"), to very concrete intermediary deliverable (e.g. "KSF 2: software X version y needs to be rolled-out before ").
Hope that helps. Saving Changes...
Elizabeth HarrinDirector| RebelsGuideToPM.comLondon, England, United Kingdom
I agree with Julien. KSFs mean different things to different people, but we use your second definition. We also call them Critical Success Factors (CSF)s, but it's the same thing. Saving Changes...
