Maximizing Project Success

More than ever, successful projects are essential to addressing urgent global challenges and driving sustainable growth. This report offers a modern, shared definition of project success that builds on long-standing views of what defines project success—and the role that Project Professionals can have in delivering it.

We conducted ambitious research with a goal of developing a definition, measuring project success rates globally, and understanding which factors are predictive of success.

The result was reframing project success to build upon the traditional metrics like schedule, budget, and scope—the hallmarks of project management success—to a broader perspective that encompasses stakeholder value and accomplishment of desired outcomes.

This creates four implications for how the community should think about and execute their work:

1. Manage perceptions: Help stakeholders to see value relative to the resources invested and feel aligned on objectives with measurable outcomes.
2. Own project success: Be accountable for the project’s value, not only its execution.
3. Reassess parameters: Projects evolve. Adapt as needs, technologies, or goals change to deliver value and manage perceptions.
4. Expand perspective: Consider how the project integrates and aligns with broader business goals and impacts the world.

Maximizing Project Success outlines the categories of measurement, actions, conditions, and capabilities that are predictive of success —so you can learn what project success means and the factors that can help to maximize project success.

As the report sums up, increasing project success will not only produce positive outcomes—it will also demonstrate the value projects and our profession bring to the world.