Ensuring Project Success: How to Get Your Next Win

Success is one of the most subjective qualities in life, which we are all trying desperately to measure. 

Is it money that makes us successful? A significant amount of followers on our social media? Or the pride of raising children who know right from wrong? Let’s take a breather here before the panic of existence sets in. 

As project managers, our work entirely depends on how well our projects do. And when it comes to measuring the outcomes of our projects, this idea of success becomes more concrete.

We all have success criteria and project management software in our arsenal, but we must know our goals before walking toward them.

In every stage of the project pre-planning, project managers are responsible for identifying goals, objectives, and deliverables. This helps later determine a project’s success, as we can look back and say, “Did I meet those goals in a meaningful way?”

If you’re still confused and wondering whether your latest endeavor was or was not a complete flop, use this article as a guide to measuring your project’s success.

Elements of a successful project

Before we map our expectations, we need to know our criteria first. What are some areas in which we cannot do without succeeding?

• Understanding your end users’ needs. What do your clients want? No, really. Making assumptions will get us nowhere. Do you have research to back up what you think they want? 
• Take inventory or stock up. Determine the resources, budget, and timeline needed to achieve project goals.
• Craft a project management methodology: Summarize your timelines as per each contributor's bandwidth, talent and resources to arrive at a designated result. 
• Plan for crests and troughs. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will your project. Set a baseline for your team to work with. Having a standard always helps to set expectations in place. 
• Set and monitor metrics. Identify which metrics you’d like to use to measure the success of a project. Check-in with these as often as you’d like.
• Talk the talk. Communicate with stakeholders and your team -- everyone you need to keep in the loop. Knowing their expectations and what’s going great and what isn’t will help you immensely.
• Walk the walk. Taking a leap of faith is much easier when the jump is a mere few centimeters instead of a floor. So, just doing what you set out to do is an excellent measure of project success.

 Once we've set benchmarks, it becomes a lot easier to hit goals. 

How to measure project success?

What are some of the key performance indicators (KPIs) you should be checking? 

Productivity

Consider this metric as a measure of the overall capabilities of a company. We can then check the relationship between our inputs and outputs. This might seem obvious, but we need more output than input.

Gross Profit Margin

Our end goal is always to benefit the business, especially financially. You can tell a lot about how the success of a project based on how it’s affecting this metric.

As a bonus, having a high-profit margin helps us get the resources and budget we need for our projects, plus stakeholder satisfaction. 

Return on Investment (ROI)

The ROI of a project is the dollars earned for the amount invested. This specifically looks at profits made from the project instead of an overall amount.

Actual Cost

This is a pretty simple number. No quick maths is needed to determine how much you’ve spent on a project against the estimated cost.

Checking in with these KPIs is a great way to know where your project stands with the rest of the organization. 

Our KPIs can be simplified based on the expectations we set for them. Having these pointers makes it easier to reach targets.

Best practices for a successful project

Apart from KPIs and expectations, project success depends on what you do every day. No denying that it can get overwhelming - a daily checklist for a monthly goal, for a quarterly review, or for a yearly performance. But having these in mind makes life a whole lot easier.

Schedule and milestones

Your project is more than just a marathon metaphor -- it’s also the sum of your daily sprints. It’s essential to analyze your pace regularly. If you are three weeks into a project and aren’t where you want to be, it’s time to readjust, hire more employees, or develop a new strategy. 

You have succeeded in your schedule if you’ve been able to hit deadlines as predicted. Were your original estimations of project completion correct? If yes, then you can consider this area a success. 

If you still need to, ask yourself why you missed these deadlines and learn from them for future projects.

Project budget

Staying within a project budget is crucial. Many people cannot afford to go over budget and must call off the whole thing if they do. A project’s success depends almost entirely on whether those executing it can stay within the constraints they established initially.

It’s important to examine what you’ve spent regularly. This helps you correct your course if you’re headed down a path of grossly overspending.

After completing a project, use the final budget analysis to measure its success. If you could accomplish the goals and deliverables with the resources you originally predicted, take that as a win. Otherwise, you’ll need to analyze where all that money went – like me, after the Kate Spade Surprise Sale.

Quality of work and scope

This element is also subjective, but as a professional in charge of the project, you should be able to determine whether the completed work lives up to the expectations you set forth. Does the website fit all of a client’s needs, and does it do so in a graphically appealing way? Is it functional, and is the user experience above satisfactory? 

Will the fence built around a house in south Texas withstand hurricane winds? Can the running shoe your team designed help athletes through a full training and race season? 

It’s essential to measure the quality of a product or service against the user’s needs or expectations. If what you’ve made looks good but can’t withstand the elements it’s subjected to - you can consider that project a failure.

Executive satisfaction

All projects have executives at the helm to help make decisions, whether allocating or removing resources. It’s vital to remain in contact with your stakeholders throughout the project and at the close. For one, they’ll be able to help out should you find yourself in hot water six months into the project.

Additionally, their satisfaction will significantly impact whether the project can overall be considered a success.

Comparison against original documents

Before most projects begin, there should be some documentation created promising clients or your company a specific set of results. Frequently check that documentation, such as your business case and your feasibility study, to ensure you’re on your way to keeping those promises.

In addition, be sure to include the business case as part of your final review. Did you or did you not live up to your expectations? A business case is a comprehensive document and should be as much a part of your review as it was in project preparation.

That’s a wrap

Project management is all about reflection. We try, we fail, we succeed, we learn, and then we do it all again the next time around. The only way a project manager can truly fail is by being unwilling to learn from the numerous lessons their projects have in store.

Want to learn more about project management? Read about how traditional project management practices can keep it classy.

This article was originally published in 2019. It has been updated with new information.