A successful project is defined as one that has achieved its goals and whose result provides value to the customer. It follows that the success or failure of a project is first and foremost a function of its goals. Thus, a clear definition of objectives and success criteria are necessary for measuring project success.
A criteria of success should be clearly defined and should be measurable otherwise it is worthless in examining the success of a project.
A good success criteria will be defined in this structure:
The desired result, its current value, the new value we strive to reach, in how long we will reach the new value. For example:
- A decrease in the rate of customer abandonment from an average of X% per month today to an average of Y%, within six months from the launch date of the new system.
- An increase in the number of new customers from an average of X% per month today to an average of Y%, within six months from the launch date of the new system.
- An increase in employee satisfaction from X according to a recent satisfaction survey, to Y within 3 months from the launch date of the new service.
A success criteria that is not measurable or for which there is no current data to compare with, will not be able to give us an indication of the degree of success of the project.
