6 Ways of Measuring Project Success

Measuring the success of a project once it’s brought to completion is a valuable practice. It provides a learning opportunity for future undertakings, and, the opportunity to assess the true effectiveness of the project. In order to have a holistic view, objective and subjective criteria need to be considered.

1. Scope

This is the intended result of a project and what is required to bring it to completion. To get a real measure of your project’s success you want to determine if it achieved its objectives within the given framework.

2. Schedule

This is easy enough to measure and understand. Were you able to hit your milestones on time? Did your project get delivered on time? And if not, how far behind schedule was it?

3. Budget

Did you manage to deliver your project within budget? Was it over or under? And if so, by how much? I’m sure it comes as no surprise that your ability to deliver your project within budget is usually considered one of the greatest indicators of success.

4. Team satisfaction

This is more subjective in nature and is often overlooked when evaluating project success. But I beg to say that team satisfaction should be at the top of your success criteria. They’re the ones who were deep in the trenches, and they’ll be the ones by your side on the next project adventure too. They also have deeper insights that even the top stakeholders may not have.

5. Customer satisfaction

Along with your team, you also want to get the feedback of your clients. Are they content with the results? Were their needs met? Find a way to track client satisfaction through the project life cycle all the way to delivery.

6. Quality

The point isn’t only to deliver the intended work but also, to exceed expectations. It’s important to track quality and make adjustments where necessary. Even after the project is delivered, quality assurance is often an ongoing piece of the project puzzle.

Ultimately, you want to evaluate if the project hit its target and how smooth the delivery was. Were the results implemented quickly and easily? Are the stakeholders, including your team members, satisfied with the results? Project success isn’t all black and white, there are grey areas that are a little more difficult to measure but are definitely worth taking the time to evaluate. The more you can work out the kinks of each project, the more successful each subsequent project will be.