Can a Project Fail Because of Good Decisions?

Thank you, Luis. Your distinction between “failing because of a good decision” and “failing despite a good decision” is particularly important.

It also raises another question for me: perhaps the difficulty is not only how we evaluate the decision, but also how we define failure itself.

If a project misses a short-term cost or schedule target but creates greater long-term value or avoids significant future environmental or social costs, calling it simply a “failure” may tell us more about our evaluation criteria than about the quality of the project or its decisions.

I also agree that decisions should be evaluated based on the information, uncertainty and constraints available at the time they were made, while outcomes should remain an important source of learning rather than a retrospective verdict on the decision itself.

Perhaps this leads to a broader question: Should decision quality itself become part of how we evaluate sustainable project success?

Thank you, Farshid.
I think your question about how we define failure takes the discussion to an important next level.

I would, however, be cautious about making decision quality part of project success itself.
A decision can be well reasoned given the evidence, uncertainty and legitimate constraints available at the time, while the project still produces unfavorable outcomes.
Conversely, poor decisions can sometimes be followed by favorable outcomes.

Perhaps decision quality is therefore better kept analytically distinct from project performance and longer-term outcomes, while still being evaluated alongside them.
This would allow us to understand not only what happened, but also how the outcome was produced, without rewarding luck or allowing hindsight to become the standard for judging earlier decisions.

Sustainability makes this distinction even more important because it can expand both the boundaries and the time horizon of evaluation.
A short-term cost or schedule shortfall and a longer-term environmental, social or economic benefit can coexist.
Rather than collapsing these different dimensions prematurely into a single label of success or failure, we may need to make explicit what is being evaluated, against which criteria and over what time horizon.

So perhaps the question is not whether decision quality should become part of project success, but whether a more complete evaluation should preserve these dimensions as analytically distinct while examining how they relate.

Thank you, David. That adds an important dimension to the discussion.

I agree that timing can be part of decision quality. A decision that appears sound in terms of evidence and reasoning may still be questionable if it was made earlier than necessary, especially when waiting could have reduced uncertainty without creating unacceptable risk.
At the same time, I wonder whether the “last responsible moment” is always clear in practice. Waiting may improve the information available, but it can also reduce options, delay action, or create new risks—including longer-term sustainability impacts.
Perhaps this suggests that we should evaluate not only what decision was made, but also when it was made and what information could reasonably have been available at that time.
Would you consider decision timing itself one of the dimensions of decision quality?

Thank you, Hellen. I particularly like your distinction between asking whether a decision produced the desired outcome and whether it was the best decision we could reasonably make with the information available at the time.
Your sustainability example also raises another interesting issue: the time horizon of evaluation.
A decision may look poor at project closeout because of additional cost or delay, yet look very different several years later when environmental, social, operational, or stakeholder consequences become visible.
Perhaps decision quality and outcome quality are not only different concepts—they may also need to be evaluated over different time horizons.
So, when should we actually judge whether a project decision was successful: at project closeout, or when its longer-term consequences become clearer?

Thank you, Luis. I think this distinction is essential.
Your point makes me reconsider whether decision quality should actually become a dimension of project success, or whether it is more useful to keep decision quality, project performance, and longer-term outcomes analytically distinct while evaluating them together.
I also find your point about sustainability particularly important. Expanding the boundaries and time horizon of evaluation means that different dimensions may tell us different stories at the same time: a project may underperform on cost or schedule while creating stronger environmental, social, or economic value over the longer term.
Perhaps the challenge, then, is not to find a broader single definition of “success,” but to develop a more complete way of evaluating projects without losing these distinctions.
This raises an interesting question: Should decision quality be part of project success—or should it remain a separate but complementary dimension of project evaluation?

Thank you, Farshid.
I would keep decision quality as a separate but complementary dimension of project evaluation.

Decision quality, project performance and longer-term outcomes answer different questions.
Decision quality concerns whether a decision was sound given the objectives, evidence, uncertainty, feasible alternatives, legitimate decision authority and actual discretion available at the time.
Project performance concerns delivery against legitimately applicable commitments and baselines.
Outcomes concern what value or harm was ultimately produced, for whom, within which boundaries and over what time horizon.

Evaluating these dimensions together can help us understand how an outcome was produced.
Collapsing them into a single definition of project success, however, risks allowing sound reasoning to compensate for harmful outcomes, or favorable outcomes to legitimize poor decisions.

Sustainability makes the evaluation broader, but not conceptually less precise.
It requires us to examine effects beyond immediate delivery, including their distribution across stakeholders and time, while preserving the distinctions between decision quality, project performance and the value ultimately created, protected or destroyed.

So I would favor a multidimensional evaluation profile rather than a broader single label of success or failure.
The essential questions remain: what is being evaluated, against which criteria, for whom, when, on what evidence, and by whom with legitimate standing to make that judgment?

Thank you, Saleha. I really appreciate this perspective.
Your point reinforces an important distinction: a sound decision should be judged by the quality of reasoning and information available at the time, while the outcome may still be shaped by uncertainty and external factors.
Perhaps this is exactly why decision quality and project outcomes need to be evaluated together—but not confused with each other.