As a vendor or implementor . How Do You Measure Project failure? .
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Mike FrenetteManager, IT PMO| Halifax Water (retired)Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
I prefer to measure project success, but if you look at the inverse of that, you will, I suppose, be measuring project failure.
So, how can you fail? Let me count the ways. You could not define what the project is supposed to be doing in the first place. You could fail to identify the critical stakeholders in the project. You could fail to identify the work required to meet the project objectives. You could fail to identify the specific deliverables required to be produced during the course of that work. You could neglect to identify an appropriate team to do the work, or to shepherd them through the process.
I suppose you could measure these things if you wanted to, but why not just put the processes in place to ensure you don't fail at these things, but rather succeed wildly? Saving Changes...
Melissa HillCEO| GO Journey, Inc.Charleston, Wv, United States
Project deliverable(s) not achievable even with more resources. Saving Changes...
To measure success or failure of a project, first we need to know the project objectives. What exactly have we set out to achieve before starting the project in the first place. And as the project progresses, it is the job of the project manager to compare the current status of the project to the SOW or any document that contains the project objectives. By constantly comparing with the baseline we can understand if we will meet the set pbjectives and if not what should be further course of action.
A project is said to be a failure if the vendor does not meet the objectives set by the buyer. Multiple metrics can be used to understand the project failure. Quality of the deliverables or solution, timeliness (if the project is delayed there are chances the buyer might miss a market opportunity), cost (if the cost far exceeds the baselined costs, even if the buyer is satisfied with the deliverable, the vendor treats it as a failure). In a nutshell, the project constraints should be constantly monitored and even if one of them suffers an inflection point the project is set to failure.
The main job of the PM is to keep these things under check. Each organization has pre-defined templates based on which the constraints are metricised and the variance is measured. This again depends on the orgs' risk appetite and the stakes involved. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
To cut a long story short, failure is deliverables not met within the "agreed" time frame and cost. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
This post has been removed due to a violation of the user guidelines.
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Danie de WaalExperienced Project Management Consultant| KPMG (Pty) LtdFerndale, South Africa
This discussion is as old as project management, and I do not believe that we will find an answer here now. It is however important that we continue to discuss this issue, since this will determine how we as project managers will be measured as well.
Personally, I ALWAYS put the client first: The short answer is, if the client is happy - the project is a success.
This can however never be a simple answer. In many instances the client did not know what he really wanted. Was the Sydney Opera House a success? Often the client changes his opinion midway in a project.
One must ensure the project definition is airtight and that communication with the client is ongoing, so there is absolutely no surprises to him. I have seen projects where there were huge delays, and over expenditure; but the client was still happy, because he was part of the process and knew what was going to happen. Saving Changes...
