closing the communication gap between executives and project managers remains a critical issue in the profession today, and PM Network addresses the topic with the launch of this quarterly column.
A few years ago when I discussed the success of the AXA/Sun-Life merger with Jon Bassett, AXA Life's U.K. implementation director, he told me that the establishment of critical success factors (CSFs) was key.
When seeking support and funding for your program or project, you must convince executives that you will deliver meaningful benefits. CSFs and their key deliverables offer a powerful means to market your program or project. By defining CSFs, you will ensure that you meet stated benefits and that resources will be focused on the actions that achieve business results. There are basically two types of CSFs:
1. Generic CSFs are capabilities that always should be present and usually are linked to the organization, such as effective communication, top management support or user involvement. “If absent [they] are likely to lead to project failure, or at least suboptimal project achievement,” says Max Wideman, PMI Fellow, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, B.C., Canada. “Their presence, however, does not mean that the project will be successful, just more likely to be successful.”
2. Specific CSFs are actions that are required to achieve a specific program or project strategy in its determined context or circumstance, such as improve IT system performance or develop new financial product. These must be determined for each program or project because they are in direct correlation to the program's or project's success. CSFs should be “focused on success for that particular manager in that particular job,” says James H. Dobbins, program manager, ANSER Inc.,
Washington, D.C., USA, who is working on the Joint Staff Process Improvement contract at the Pentagon. (The U.S. Department of Defense describes them as “key success indicators.”)
Generic CSFs provide meaningful project guidance and a framework for communication. Specific CSFs are the core of communications between program and project managers and their sponsors. CSFs must be directly related to stakeholders’ needs and expectations (expected benefits) and expressed in measurable terms (deliverables).
The tasks associated with CSF delivery must be at the highest level of the work breakdown structure. Reporting, then, can be focused around the few key deliverables that are linked directly to a sponsor's expected benefits. In the Axa/Sun-Life merger, a list of prioritized CSFs enabled project managers to make effective decisions and fend off gratuitous changes or “management” decisions that didn't correspond with the CSFs.
Ideally, CSFs are derived from strategy. Therefore, when you use CSFs to communicate with management, you are talking their language. Link expected benefits with key deliverables and adapt your rhetoric when necessary. Don't be afraid to ask about business benefits and translate your main deliverables into actions that support the “why” of the project.
when you use CSFs to communicate with management, you are talking their language.
If CSFs are well-defined and prioritized at initiation, executives and project managers can make more effective decisions during execution. They support vital project management processes: reporting, marketing, change management and risk management. PM
Michel Thiry is the author of Value Management Practice and regularly writes and reviews for the International Journal of Project Management.