Assessing Project Success Moving Beyond the Triple Constraint 2010

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These three basic criteria are generally used to evaluate the success of a project. (Brewer and Dittman 2010, p. 14)

The most commonly recognized project metrics are time, cost and performance. In combination, they form a set ofpotentially competing project priorities known as the triple constraint. ... [The]

[tjriple constraint definitions ... form a successful program. (Brown and Hyer 2010,p. 9)

Successful project management can ... be defined as having achieved the project objectives:

Within time Within cost

At the desiredperformance/technology level

While utilizing the assigned resources effectively and efficiently

Accepted by the customer (Kerzner 2009,p. 3)

Quality and the ultimate success of a project is traditionally defined as meeting and/or exceeding the expectations of the customer and/or upper management in terms of cost (budget), time (schedule), and performance (scope) of the project. (Larson and Gray 2011, p. 106)

From these definitions, we can see that the received wisdom taught to our students is to be able to hit each of the components of the “triple constraint”: on time, on budget and with agreed upon functionality. Each of these components, the textbooks tell us is to be taken relatively equally with the others and balanced against them. For example:

Managing the triple constraint involves making trade-offs between scope, time, and cost goals for a project. (Schwalbe 2007, p. 9)

Project managers have to juggle the three constraints and come up with a trade-off, based on the priorities placed on the time constraints. (Brewer et al. 2010, p. 15)

An organization must clearly establish the relative priority of triple constraint criteria. (Brown et al. 2010, p. 9).

One of the primary jobs of the project manager is to manage the trade-offs among time, cost and performance. (Larson et al. 2011, p. 106)

Project Success is Relative

However, at the same time, project success is not to be seen as simply meeting the pre-defined triple constraint set as adjusted during the project:

Project success and failure are relative terms. Failure is the condition or fact of not achieving the desired end or ends: success is the achievement of something desired, planned or attempted.

Whether a project is a success or failure is in the eye of the beholders, that is, those individuals, enterprises, agencies, institutions, who are the stakeholders. (Cleland and Ireland 2007, p. 334 emphasis is the authors).

Thus project success is in the eye of the stakeholders. While we would like to say that we have a clear set of goals by using the triple constraint, we see that this varies based on the perspective of the stakeholder.

And the view of the project by the stakeholders is something that can be managed: depending on how the project is represented to the customer, the amount of failure or success may be controlled. For example, a project may be presented to the stakeholders either “pessimistically” or “optimistically” planned (Kerzner 2009). By pessimistically planning, we show that amount of project results which is acceptable to the customer which is within our capability

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to produce thus failure could be seen as only that failure to deliver between what we promised and what was actually delivered. Optimistic planning on the other hand shows how if we promise more than can be delivered, our failure is perceived as much larger. Thus success becomes a matter of presentation and perception between the project manager and the customer.

The Empirical Literature

The traditional view is also the dominant view in the empirical literature (de Bakker, Boonstra and Wortmann 2010). De Bakker and colleagues surveyed the empirical literature on the contribution of risk management to IT project success in peer-reviewed journal publications from 1197 to 2009. They found 29 articles, which discussed how risk management affected project success. They analyzed these articles to determine who they assessed project success. The found that 22 of the 29 articles used all or some the traditional success criteria to operationalize the concept of project success.

Of the others, they found some that extended the traditional criteria by the use of other criteria. Jiang, Klein and Means (2000) extended the traditional criteria with the additional of using technical expertise productively, working well with other parts of the organization, and the overall advantage of having teams. Procaccino and Verner (2006) extended the traditional measures by adding Completing a project, Having that system consist of solid, thoroughly tested code and the System was is easy to use. Han and Huang (2007) extended the traditional measures by adding reliability, ease of maintenance and quality.

Another method was to evaluate project success as the success of the resulting information system. In this case, the study used categories similar to that of Delone and McLean (1992; 2003). For example, Jiang and Klein (1999) used the criteria of satisfaction with the development process, satisfaction with system use, satisfaction with the quality of the IS product, and impact of the IS on the organization. Aladwani (2002) used task outcomes (Efficiency and Effectiveness), Psychological outcomes (satisfaction), Organizational outcomes (added value to business operations).

Additionally, in surveys of stakeholders, it has been found that, unsurprisingly, that different stakeholders have different emphases in success criteria. Internal project team members tend to be internally focused on the traditional criteria being focused on the targets set by senior management. The user community focuses on having a system that meets their needs with the other criteria as secondary to that (Agarwal and Rathod 2006).

Summary

In reviewing the literature, we find that the predominant definition of success is that of the “triple constraint.” A project is successful if the project meets the requirements of on budget, on time and with agreed functionality as adjusted within the project. However, this