Project Success Indicators

Project Success

• Achieving specific objectives is the primary measure of success.
• Additional indicators of success include user/client satisfaction, operational efficiency, lessons learned and documented, team development and morale, and alignment with strategic goals.

Project Failure

• Project failure can occur due to poor project and program management discipline, lack of executive support, no linkage to business strategy, wrong team members, no measures for evaluating success, and lack of robust risk strategy.

Project Phases

• The 5 Process Groups or Phases are: Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring and Control, and Closing.
• Initiating phase defines the mission and objectives of the project through the Project Charter.
• Planning phase develops the project plan, including scope, schedule, budget, resources, and quality requirements.
• Create WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) breaks down the project scope into smaller, manageable work packages.
• Validate Scope formally confirms with stakeholders that the defined scope meets their expectations and objectives.
• Control Scope ensures ongoing project scope management by monitoring changes, assessing their impact, and approving or rejecting them through a formal change control process.

Effective Project Scope Management

• Clearly defined scope avoids confusion and keeps the project team on track.
• Improved cost and schedule control: Scope determines project resources and effort, making it easier to manage costs and timelines.
• Reduced risk: Controlling scope helps prevent unplanned work and mitigate risks associated with scope creep.
• Increased stakeholder satisfaction: Delivering agreed-upon deliverables leads to satisfied stakeholders and Project success.

Controlling Scope

• Key tools and techniques include Scope Management Plan, Scope Statement, and Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).
• Scope Management Plan outlines how scope will be defined, validated, and controlled throughout the project.
• Scope Statement defines project objectives, deliverables, constraints, assumptions, and acceptance criteria.
• Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a hierarchical decomposition of project tasks and deliverables into manageable components.

Development Modes

• Choosing the right development mode is crucial for accurate effort estimation.
• Factors to consider include project complexity and size, development team experience and skillset, technology maturity and level of integration, development process and methodology, and quality and reliability requirements.
• Development modes include Organic, Semi-Detached, and Embedded, each with different characteristics and effort multipliers.

Risk Management

• Project risk management is a systematic process to identify, analyse, prioritize, and mitigate potential risks that could affect project success.
• Key steps include Risk Identification, Risk Analysis, Risk Evaluation, Risk Control, and Risk Monitoring.
• Risk control strategies include Mitigate (reduce the impact of a risk), Reduce (lower the likelihood of a risk), Transfer (pay someone else to accept the risk), and Accept (accept the risk and its consequences).
• Risk monitoring involves implementing measures to detect risk occurrence during project execution.