How to measure success
Talking with a CEO last week, he asked for my guidance on how he could keep his IT project portfolio on schedule and on budget. He was laser focused on hitting the delivery metrics and scathing of scope changes.
I asked him “is your measure of success aligned to what you really want”, is ontime/onbudget going to deliver the results you need. He was quick to recognise that many projects ended up with long lists of post go live change requests or failures to adopt new solutions and how this often then ended up delaying other projects.
A project is successful if it delivers above and beyond the original value proposition created for it. If it drives revenue and cost savings far beyond its costs, if it empowers and facilitates its stakeholders. A project delivered on time and budget that changes nothing is a failure, plain and simple.
Let’s focus on what we set out to achieve, if it takes more or less time, more or less budget, is only relevant when it significantly changes the value proposition. Changing scope that doubles the value of the output is often worth a few weeks slippage.
If you like the thoughts, click ‘like’, if you want to let everyone know your thoughts ‘comment’, if you think it could be useful for others in your network click ‘share’
