Successful project success criteria

The SMART (Specific, Measurable, Agreed-to, Realistic, and Time-Boxed) model is a standard for defining effective objectives and requirements, and it can also be applied to project success criteria. Beyond SMART characteristics, effective success criteria should also:

• Be tied to the business value used to justify the project. The project’s success criteria should reflect the project’s purpose. This alignment helps keep focus on the project’s core objectives throughout its lifecycle. This also helps ensure that the success criteria address the expectations of key stakeholders, including sponsors, customers, and end-users.

• Reflect different perspectives. Not all major stakeholders have the same expectations of a project. Effective success criteria capture those differing perspectives. For example, the sales team expects new marketing tools produced by a project to increase market share. At the same time, the finance team is looking for the new marketing tools to meet sales goals within a given budget.

• Describe how to achieve regulatory compliance. Project success criteria must include compliance with all applicable laws. Beyond that, success criteria can describe the way compliance will be achieved, because the method may create constraints for the project deliverables, and the processes stakeholders must follow when implementing the project’s products.

• Allow for a stability period. Business benefits are rarely realized as soon as project deliverables are implemented. The project’s success criteria should define a stability period to set appropriate expectations. This period allows for corrections to staff training, resolving issues with new business processes, and validating the accuracy of measurement tool results.

• Define accountability. Business benefits come from suitable project deliverables and operational personnel using new business processes. Success criteria need to reflect a clear understanding of both the project and operational teams’ responsibilities to deliver business value. That is: how do the project team and operational personnel work together to ensure the project satisfies its purpose?

Between SMART and this list, those are a lot of requirements for effective success criteria. Build a checklist for success criteria best practices. Evaluate the success criteria from a current or recent project with your checklist and see whether you would enhance them.

For more about success criteria and the SMART model, check out my Project Management Foundations course.

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