The Question

Here are the results of a survey on critical success factors on a project. 108 people across the world participated and they were asked the following question:

The Results

From the answers of 108 people, the following 3 items were mentioned the most:

1. Clear and agreed objectives and requirements
2. Sponsor/executive/management/stakeholders/team buy-in and support
3. Regular communications to all – internally and externally

After analysing all the answers, I was surprised to find that there were nearly 100 different types of success factors that people mentioned. After the top 3 items above, the next seven were:

4. Clear scope and agreed deliverables
5. Right/best and enough people in team (right skill set)
6. Clear schedule (roadmap, timelines, milestones)
7. Good Monitor & Control and Change management process
8. Risk and contingency management
9. Strong planning (defined tasks, cost, schedule, resources)
10. Clear roles, responsibilities and expectations

Comments

Fundamental to any project is to have very clear objectives. After all, if you don’t know where you are going, how are you and your team going to get there? I completely agree with the number one success factor on any project - clear objectives.

When I analysed the number 2 response from my colleagues regarding ‘getting buy-in and support’, I noticed that a wide variety of people were identified as important for project success. It was clear from the responses that success meant getting buy-in from these people, or stakeholders (people who influence our projects) before the work on the project starts.

Finally, we all know of the importance of communications, and we never can do enough of this. One of the problems is that we are so busy doing work on a project that we forget to actually communicate to others! Simple discipline is important here.

Next Steps

If you found the results of this survey interesting, you may wish to subscribe to my project management newsletter. I go into more depth than the information presented in this article, with more insights and tips to reminding you of the things we all should be doing to manage our projects better. To subscribe, please visit www.itcentre.com or subscribe below.

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With regards