Success and Failures of Projects and Programs

Large projects and programs, especially those driven by technology, fail at an alarming rate. There is a large body of literature available covering training programs, techniques and skill building workshop available to learn the science of project management. However, over many years, this author has learned at an executive level the art and the science, the nuances and key focus items that make projects successful. From an executive or a project/program sponsor’s perspective, these become the key levers to understand and deploy to improve the chances of successful outcomes.

In a series of articles, we will review these nuances and levers. This first article sets forth the basic success criteria that generally apply to most situations. Fundamentally, there are only three success criteria:

• Did the project/program deliver what was expected?
• Did the project/program achieve the deadline that was agreed upon?
• Did the project/program come in within budget?

If the answers to all three questions are affirmative, the project/program is successful. If two of the three criteria were met, the project/program may be deemed as partially successful. If one or none of the three criteria were met, largely the project/program has failed.

It is important to make a sharp distinction between success of projects/programs succeeding as measured against the above mentioned three success criteria on the one hand, and the success of underlying business value creation, driven by a business strategy. One clearly could have a fundamentally poor business strategy. A successful project/program is hardly likely to correct for a flawed strategy. On the other hand, a sound business strategy execution and the creation of the resulting business value can be badly harmed by a failed project/program. For example, a product or a service may not reach the market at all or not reach it as envisioned by the business strategy. If both the strategy and the underlying project/program are both flawed, of course the entire effort will fail. The best outcome of course is a sound strategy coupled with a successful project/program that enables such strategy. Figure 1 below illustrates the possible outcomes:

Figure 1

In the next article, we will review the basic requirements of setting the proper stage for a project or a program to be successful before it begins or is commissioned.