Success criteria. Conditions, factors and criteria for the successful implementation of the project. On the pathos of coaches

Many organizations are project-oriented. Companies exist by receiving new projects and their successful implementation. Successfully completed projects are the foundation on which an organization builds its future. Whether they're related to creation new products, building construction, increasing production capacity, or introducing a new computer system.

Project management is essential to effectively coordinate and manage an organization, ensuring that the right action is taken at the right time with a full understanding of the implications. The art of project management includes the ability to achieve goals within the established constraints on financial, material, human, time and other resources.

However, in most companies, projects do not always go smoothly. They do not fit into the routine of daily work. Gartner, a world-renowned analyst firm, estimates that 66% of large-scale projects fail to meet their stated business goals, are completed late, or are significantly overspending. The Standish group, which tracks exclusively the success and failure of IT projects, defines failed projects as projects abandoned in the middle, and estimates the failure rate at 15%. At the same time, "defective" projects (defined as projects with cost overruns, missed deadlines, and projects with unsatisfactory results) account for 51% of all IT projects.

Why So Much Projects Continue to Fail even with an increasing focus on quality project management and an increase in the number of experienced and competent leaders projects?

The St. Gallen Institute and the International Institute for Learning Organizations and Innovation in Munich have conducted research into the causes of successful and unsuccessful projects. They concluded that the reasons failures are less industrial-economic or technical in nature, and are largely related to the culture of entrepreneurship, communication and information processes on the project .

According to A. Golovin, the project will fail on three occasions :

when unrealistic plans are developed or not revised if necessary. This means they will be ripped off;
when the project developer is not familiar with project management and is managing the project as a normal activity. Then the heads of departments do not know what to do: the main work or tasks for the project;
when the project developer, when creating a project team, focuses not on personal qualities, but on positions. Then the project team members are unable to complete the project assignments.

Inaccurate deliverables and scope, lack of organizational commitment, poor allocation of resources and risk control, poor project management with components that are not fit for purpose, etc. - any of these reasons can cause the project to fail.

The main cause of project problems is the ability of the project manager to deal with problems while reducing risks. He must be a strong leader, able to communicate with the management of the company and meet expectations in resource management.

Poor project definition is also the main reason for its failure, starting from the approval stage. Insufficient level of accountability and responsibility at the appropriate higher level negatively affects the success of the project throughout its entire life cycle... If the customer does not manage the project or is not particularly interested in it, the project is likely to fail.

In general, it should be noted that the main reasons for project failure are:

Requirements: Unclear, lack of understanding, lack of priorities, contradictory, ambiguous, imprecise.
Resources: Lack of resources, conflicts over resources, turnover of key resources, poor planning.
Timing: Too concise, unrealistic, too optimistic.
Planning: based on insufficient data, not everything is taken into account, not enough details, erroneous calculations.
Risks: Unidentified or invented, lack of control.

The Standish group is confident that from the most important factors for the success or failure of a project are, in order of importance:

Customer involvement.
Top management support.
Experienced project manager.

According to research by both foreign and domestic experts, most of the obstacles to fix a failed project, this is :

convincing the owners to accept the changes necessary to bring the project to a successful conclusion, regardless of changes in scale, budget, resources, etc .;
poor communication and owner involvement, lack of clarity and trust;
conflicting policies and priorities;
the problem of finding enough qualified resources to complete the project;
lack of methodology or processes to get the project back on track.

During the research, many factors were identified that affect the success in correcting the situation with the project, but the most important is the project manager, who is the most important member of the team who can influence the result, reducing risks or getting rid of them altogether. Usually it is the project manager who is responsible for rescuing the problematic project.

Other factors in successfully completing a problem project included the existence of a standard methodology for running or rescuing a problem project, the size of the firm, and the industry in which it does business.

The key to saving a troubled project is effort. Once a firm decides to channel its energy into solving problems that put a project at risk, the chances of a successful completion increase.

The decision to rescue the project is made by: top management (in 50% of companies), sponsor (16%), department head (16%) or project manager (13%). In smaller firms, the sponsor (24%) or project manager (24%) has much more power to vote to save the project. Less often, this decision is made by the head of the department (5%).

Generalization of practical experience in project management shows that most often steps to save the project , this is :

modernization of communication and management (62%);
revision of project objectives - reduction of its scope, revision of funding (60%);
adding or removing resources (58%);
solving technical problems (49%);
replacement of a project manager or hiring a consultant (36%).

Firms that do not have a methodology are more likely to choose to replace the project manager than those that have mastered the methodology (22% and 9%, respectively). They are also more likely to use outside consultants to save the project (26% versus 11%).

Usually, rescue operations on a problematic project are quite successful. Almost three quarters of problem projects (74%) have been completed successfully, 18% are still in progress, so the final results are not known. Only 4% are really botched and 3% are closed for business reasons.

There are two essential factors for the successful implementation of the project. First of them is rather technical side of project management... It deals mainly with planning and cost estimation, project management and control, risk management, quality management, project documentation and results evaluation. The second factor is an managerial competence project manager.

Companies that do not have a standard project management methodology do not always value these skills than those that have such a methodology (78% of the former spoke about the importance of project manager qualifications and 96% - the latter).

Almost all responding organizations (92%) indicated that the skills of the project manager are very important (64%) or simply important (28%) for the success of the rescue operation of the problem project.

It is important that the responsibility for the implementation of the project at all stages of management (planning, implementation, control, analysis, changes) is borne by one person - project manager. This will help to focus the area of \u200b\u200bresponsibility and improve the efficiency of the decision-making process.

Successful project implementation depends not only from project managers and superiors, but also from many other members of the project team. Their actions should also be regulated, motivated and aimed at obtaining not only a timely, but also a high-quality result.

An important component is holistic role-based concept of management of each individual project and the entire portfolio... Roles, their place in the organizational structure, rights and responsibilities should be defined, qualification requirements... An example of project roles might be: Project Manager, Project Assistant, Development Specialist, Construction Manager, Construction Specialist, Construction Coordinator, Design Specialist, Estimator, etc.

More one criterion of success on a project - this is the ability to choose the "main point of application of efforts", the ability to focus on priority tasks, the solution of which leads to significant progress towards the goal.

Project goals are achieved by action. The project manager is obliged to constantly monitor the implementation of the project stages on time and the consumption of resources. Wasted time cannot always be made up, even by increasing resources.

It is surprising that even the most skillfully planned project can reach a point where it is difficult to determine how things are going. But this is exactly what you need to know in order to direct efforts towards the goal. Without one or another monitoring system - tracking the progress of work - it is impossible to be sure that the manager "keeps his finger on the pulse" of the project.

Timely and accurate action is at the core of the success of any project , the foundation of which is organizational discipline - the ability to act “here and now”. Experience project activities shows that adherence to discipline and commitment by all project participants increases the chance of success by an order of magnitude.

Among the others success factors of project management should be called:

introduction of an experienced project manager and delegation of sufficient rights to him to make the necessary changes;
attracting additional, qualified resources;
increasing the budget;
open communication, defining expectations and assigning responsibilities among decision makers;
redevelopment of the project.

Interviewing experienced project managers to find out if what is the most important component of a project's success, showed that it is its implementation... It is far more common for projects to be stalled by default than by any mistake in planning or resource assignment.

It all starts at the top. Management must be aware of the cost and scope of the project. It is not enough to approve the project estimate. For the success of the project, all its participants must know that the management fully supports this event, the project has the highest priority, and its success is directly related to the future of the enterprise.

Leadership, due to its position, can have an important positive influence on the process of thinking about the use of resources in a project. It can help you make sure, even before starting a project, how smart resource planning is. May insist on developing additional scenarios to catch up on what is and is not possible.

Without the formation of a certain culture of project execution, the project manager is powerless to influence his progress towards the goal. Target dates are set, then skipped - the project schedule becomes a wish rather than an action plan. At the same time, everyone loses, but most of all - the company. The obligations of the executors should be aligned with the corresponding obligations of the management.

The manager cannot move forward without real coordinated actions of the project team. Depending on the scope of the project, this agreement can be replaced by assigning work to the project participants. In many cases, the project team consists of employees from all departments of the company. If team members do not pay enough attention to the work on the project, considering this work less important than their daily duties, the project will drift, and imperceptibly, but naturally, it will come to disaster.

If obligations are met, then the project moves forward. But, in order for everything to happen on time, it is necessary to prepare a project schedule. A work plan is a timetable that serves as a realistic model of expected project behavior .

For project managers, the term “schedule” has a very specific meaning. From their point of view, a project schedule is not such if it does not contain a detailed analysis of all the activities required to complete the project; realistic estimates of the time required for each activity; and, finally, thoughtful relationships between different types of work.

Although project management uses terms such as start-finish, the terminology is nowhere near as important as the content: how the work relates to each other (what the technology is).

Obviously, researching the time / cost curve before starting a project allows the company to adopt correct solution when approving the project schedule.

Taken together, these elements provide an answer to the question: what needs to be done and by what date? Equally important is the question of how, what resources - people, equipment, structures, etc. - are required for each job? Will they be available when needed? How can resource conflicts be resolved?
If the project manager knows the plan's actual resource requirements and how to deal with resource constraints, then the project planning portion is complete.

Project planning requires the ability to determine how long it will take to complete a task, especially if it involves creative or intellectual activities, regardless of the amount of resources required for it. Unfortunately, the miscalculations of the project duration during initial planning are often taken too calmly, mistakenly assuming that everything will be completed on time, and the wasted time can always be made up by reallocating resources.

The schedule of some projects is based on the theory that you can endlessly increase the number of people and reduce the work time to achieve the desired results. In some situations, increasing the amount of resources helps. Sometimes not. Sometimes it does more harm than good.

Frederick P. Brooks, senior project manager for the operating system for the IBM 360 operating system, believes that in most cases, planning "man-months" is a myth. If the development project does not meet the deadline, the increase in the number of resources actually lengthens the duration of the project - due to training additional employees, tracking their work and communication problems. This is tantamount, according to Brooks, to using gasoline to put out a fire.

When working with a project behind schedule best option Is a change in the timing or scope of the project. The worst thing is to insist on making up for lost time. It's easy to be persuaded that some jobs can be accelerated without compromising quality. The quality remains on paper. In reality, the requirements are simply reduced.

A report by management consulting firm McKinsey published in Fortune magazine estimates that some projects completed on time but over budget are 140% more profitable than if they were on budget but were late. six months .

As a conclusion summarizing the above, one should cite the data obtained by the Institute of St. Gallen and the International Institute for Training Organizations and Innovation in Munich after conducting research on the reasons for the success and failure of projects, and reflecting project success criteria :

General readiness for change... Successful organizations are dominated by a philosophy based on the following principles: "live and learn", "the one who does nothing is not mistaken", "there is no such problem that we could not cope with."
Conflict culture... Successful projects deal with conflicts in a constructive and open manner. Free exchange of information and opinions, as well as openness to criticism, prevail.
Personal responsibility of the project staff... The success of projects is directly related to the degree of personal responsibility of the project staff and the possibility of self-organization. The more powers each individual has, the sooner he is ready to take responsibility, and the more is his personal initiative and motivation. Small powers, on the other hand, promote passivity and even resistance.
A culture of trust... A humanely pleasant climate of openness, sincerity and honesty in communication with each other increases the likelihood of project success. With a culture of trust, there is less error-making and decisions are made by everyone and then implemented.
Lack of hierarchy... Projects were particularly successful back then when project work took place in a team, where hierarchy plays no role in project organization, or at least is minimized. A rigid hierarchy blocked creativity and motivation of project staff in unsuccessful projects.
Communication and information culture. The projects were especially successful when the atmosphere of intensive information exchange and open communication reigned in the team, i.e. high degree of publicity. Good communication in this respect means good cooperation, and vice versa. Intense communication between different functional areas leads to the fact that mutual understanding grows, and employees can look beyond the "plate" of their own sphere, which leads to more informed decisions.

Thus, the generalization of the experience of project management showed that the competitiveness of the project should be constantly increased, achieving the maximum correspondence of its consumer and cost characteristics to the existing and potential demands of the customer. The realization of competitive advantage is based on the essence of value, which is the source of obtaining the advantage (material, intangible, monetary, social and other values), and depends on its content, source of origin, dynamism of manifestation, scale of distribution and other conditions.

To be continued...

Today I want to briefly tell you about the criteria for the success of projects and project managers.

But first you have to answer the question “what is a project” :)

What is a project

This is the first question any manager needs to answer.

Not obvious, but project management more complicated than “normal”, so called “regular management”. Managing a department or subordinates is one thing. Project management is another matter entirely.

Most project management methodologies are voluminous. For example, the latest edition of the “bible of managers” PMBoK is almost 1000 pages, manuals Prince2, IPMA and others (about them - some other time) are also not small.

In the life of a leader, it is important to learn to quickly understand “the project is in front of you or not” so as not to waste energy (and attempts to pull 1,000-page methodologies where you can get by with a little blood).

One of the first discoveries to be made is that top management itself, as a rule, does not understand well where projects are and where not. Those. There is no need to hope that you have been entrusted with something, called it a project and have already thought well. In practice, projects are called anything, it is you (the project manager) who needs to check what was said for adequacy.

We need a definition that will help sort the tasks into those that require a project approach and those that (fortunately) can be solved more easily using “regular management” more familiar to most people.

Definition of the term

Let's remember or google a more or less classic definition. We come across something like: "A project is an event to achieve some goal, limited resources in time and associated with the achievement of a unique result."

Such wording is common. Including in PMBoK itself. Problem: They're unfortunate. Of these, the main thing is not clear - how a project differs from a “non-project”.

Don't believe me? Try to find at least one example of any activity that does not fit this definition?

Explaining with an example

You go to work or make yourself scrambled eggs for breakfast in the morning.

Are these activities to achieve the goal? Of course, the goal is quite specific (arrive at your destination, get enough).

Time limited? Certainly! You can't have breakfast for half a day or spend a day on the road.

Are resources limited? Again, yes. You have a clear amount that you can spend on the road. Or in the case of scrambled eggs, just a dozen eggs in the refrigerator. If you use them up, you will be left without breakfast.

Should such work be called a project? Of course not! What are there 1000 pages of methodologies to fry eggs. You can cope with one intuition and common sense.

If you were not cooking fried eggs alone, but with your family, passing a frying pan to each other, then cooking breakfast would still not turn into a project, intuition would still be enough.

On the pathos of coaches

Many project management coaches love pathos and tend to exaggerate. Sometimes they say “everything in the world is projects”. Or “project management is a very ancient skill, the first projects are thousands of years old - here, the Egyptian pyramids ...”.

I dare to say that the construction of the Egyptian pyramid by the ancient Egyptians was not just a project, as was the preparation of scrambled eggs. There are (fortunately) much less projects around us than it seems. And in the normal, modern sense of the word, full-fledged project management was formed about 50-70 years ago (hardly more).

However, back to the scrambled eggs.

Now imagine that you have a more difficult task. Making more than just scrambled eggs for breakfast for yourself (or your family). Some event is coming (the birthday of the child). You want to make a surprise - take on ostrich eggs.

The rates are skyrocketing. There are still time limits (for example, the birthday is coming soon). There is only one egg, you bought it from an ostrich farm. You know very little about ostriches and you are not sure if it will be possible to cook it properly. It is not even clear whether it will fit in a normal frying pan and whether the shell will break correctly. You really don't want to make a mistake and spoil the surprise for your child.

And in such a situation, your activity begins to more and more resemble a project. You start planning more carefully (compared to your usual breakfast) - surfing the Internet, figuring out “how to fry”, “how to break”, choose a special frying pan (or even buy a suitable one in the store, calculate the time. Not necessarily all 1000 pages of PMBoK will be used in this approach, but there are many elements that you would not even think of using for a regular breakfast or a trip to the office, you will apply here.

What changed

Let me offer my definition.

We call a project a work on a task, which is inherent at the same time:

limb,
high uncertainty.

Finiteness is a "framework", a limited time and resources.

High uncertainty means that it is not completely clear how to solve the set task. Only when BOTH conditions are met - apply project management.

Think of the major industries and industries where project management is prevalent, such as IT or applied science. When a development and implementation project is launched software product or to launch a new farm on the market. drug - they usually have a frame. The company has a certain budget and can afford to invest in development for a certain time. But then the money must come back. At the same time, the task that software engineers, technologists and scientists will solve - often does not have a clear algorithm, it is poorly predictable, and many risks can work (we have to partly adopt the principle of “get into battle, we'll see there”).

It is at this juncture that approaches from regular management work very poorly. When there are both very rigid frameworks (finiteness) and high uncertainty at the same time.

That is why (in my opinion) the construction of the Egyptian pyramids by the ancient Egyptians is not a project. At least one of the parameters is missing. And this is the finiteness.

The construction of the Egyptian pyramids is not a project

The construction of the pyramid began when the pharaoh was born. It had to be finished by the time of his death. If there was no death in infancy, then, most likely, the construction took at least 20-30 years. Resources (people, materials) were also not in short supply. Opinions differ - whether the pyramid was built by slaves or free mercenaries, but, in any case, the principle worked - “did something go wrong? Let's bring in more people. ” If you don't limited time and / or budgets, then sooner or later you will cope with any task. Even with a very complex one. And very incomprehensible to you. From the fifth, tenth or twentieth time, after huge expenses - everything will work out for you.

An example of the "Egyptian pyramids" in modern world - some state. projects. Or the work of some product companies (more often in the IT field). When a company has made a certain IT product and then for years refines and improves it, selling more and more new customers, expanding the number of services. Until such a company reaches a new level of development, but it is already very rich - it does not need project management (imagine Google or Facebook). Now these are giant corporations engaged in a variety of projects from creating cars and satellites to medical and financial startups. But they once had 1 very successful product (search engine or social network), and could set its development as their only task (on which they could spend at least an unlimited amount of money). Such Google and such Facebook would not need project management.

Operational activity is what

Sometimes the so-called "operational activities" are mentioned. This is the most obvious example one can imagine when project management is not required at all.

Operational activity is characterized by a violation of both principles: (infinity) and (absence of) uncertainty.

An example is the work of a car assembly plant. The plant where the conveyor operates. Cars move along it. Someone is engaged in painting the body, installing wheels, headlights, seats and so on. This activity is conditionally endless (it will be repeated from day to day until the plant is closed or the production of this brand of cars is curtailed). It is extremely predictable (it is well known how many cars can be produced per shift, what will be the “exhaust” at the end of the day, week, month, year). Applying the principles of project management in such conditions will not provide any benefit (it will only complicate and confuse everything).

Another example of operational activity is work technical support in the IT field. The call center or site accepts applications, they are distributed according to a certain algorithm among the employees who either give oral recommendations to the user, or eliminate minor defects. This kind of work reminds us of an assembly line: small, most often the same type of input requests, a predictable algorithm for processing them. At least until it comes to large-scale restructuring of the system. In such conditions, project management is also useless.

However, when you are faced with a task that has high uncertainty and finiteness (scope), project management is the best (with a few reservations) way to solve it today.

Project success criteria

When talking about defining a project, it is important to mention the criteria for success. What is a “successful manager”? What is a “successful project”? And what is considered a failure?

The answer has long been worked out by methodologists.

A successful project is one that met a predetermined deadline, cost (and other resources), provided the customer with what he asked for and at the same time the key stakeholders are satisfied.

It sounds cumbersome, but easily conveyed in one picture. Imagine a triangle (they have stopped drawing it in PMBoK for some time now, but the essence has not gone anywhere). The triangle has three sides \u003d time, money, content. In the center is a smiling emoticon. Everything.

These are the criteria for your successful project.

Edge - what is agreed with the customer before the start of the project. Usually - such agreements are high-level, in general terms, but they are also inviolable. Have you promised to build a brick house, 9-storey, within 12 months and with a budget of $ 1 million? Do it!

What will this house look like, how the balconies will look like, which company's elevators to install in it - the second question. This has yet to be agreed upon, possibly during the course of the project. But framework agreements - immediately. Before starting the project. Usually they are recorded in a hyper-laconic document called "project charter" (about it some other time).

So, the three facets of the project you must define BEFORE you start working. Terms (“we will finish no later than”), money (“the project budget is not more than ...”) and content in 2-3 sentences (“what we do and what we don’t do”). These faces are symbolized by the triangle in the picture.

They need to be achieved so that the key (not all, but key) stakeholders of the project (key users and customer representatives, your management, key regulators and some others) are satisfied. This satisfaction is symbolized by a smiley face inside the triangle.

How to Become a Good Manager

A good project manager is different from bad topicsthat falls into the triangle at completion and the key stakeholders are happy.

All methodologies, by and large, are focused on how to form a triangle at the start of the project with sufficient accuracy and what to do along the way when deviations arise (missed estimates, new requirements appeared, customer representative changed, etc.).

The manager is not successful if he does not know how to keep the project in the triangle (which he himself agreed at the start). Or if his projects are completed “on budget and on time and strictly according to the technical specification,” but the customer remains deeply unhappy and disappointed (a smiley face in a triangle with the corners of his lips down). Another example of failure: the project is completed within the originally designated triangle, the customer is satisfied, but the team overextended itself - people in it are demotivated, many, having received a project bonus, filed a letter of resignation. The internal reputation of the company is spoiled, it is difficult and expensive to look for new specialists in the labor market. In this case, the top management of the company will probably be unhappy. And these are also interested key parties (after all, the project was done with their money - they were the ones who paid your salary as a manager and all staff members).

Project management is a balancing act: how to define and not fail the triangle (time-money-content) and achieve the satisfaction of the key project stakeholders. This is the key thing to remember about the criteria for project success.

This article is based on the project management training course.

Question 3 - Objectives and strategy of the project.

Project goals - the desired result of the activity, achieved as a result of the successful implementation of the project, in the given conditions of its implementation.

Project strategy - describes the results that must be performed to achieve the totality of the project's objectives.

The project objectives describe the full range of major issues related to the project across all functional areas.

Project goal indicators:

1. These are the results of a product or service of the required quality;

2. Time (duration and specific date);

3. Costs.

The project definition describes the tasks facing it and the main conditions for its implementation. A goal becomes a task if a deadline for its achievement is specified, and quantitative characteristics of the desired result are specified.

Finding project objectives is tantamount to defining a project and constitutes an important step in developing a project concept. After finding the goals of the project, they begin to search and evaluate alternative ways to achieve it.

Requirement for the formulation of project objectives:

1. Clear definition and clear meaning;

2. The results obtained in achieving the goal should be measurable;

3. The specified constraint and requirement must be met (time, budget, resources and required quality of the result).

Goal setting Is an ongoing process in which the current situation, trend is analyzed and, if necessary, the goal is adjusted.

The project strategy defines the direction and basic principles of the project, is characterized by a set of qualitative and quantitative indicators by which the project is evaluated.

Requirement for strategy formulation:

1. Should be developed at the initial stages of its implementation.

2. Must be comprehensive.

3. All major aspects of the project should be covered.

4. As the project is developed, the strategy should be updated and revised accordingly.

The criteria for the success and failure of a project is a set of indicators that make it possible to judge the success of a project. The main requirement and criterion is their unambiguous and clear definition. For each project and each customer, success criteria must be defined, evaluated and analyzed.

The main types of criteria:

1. Traditional - "on time within the allocated budget in accordance with the requirements for quality and project results";

2. Specific - leading in the organization's project;

3. Benefits for project participants.

Examples of criteria for the success of projects:

1. Providing the required functionality;

2. Fulfillment of the client's requirement;

3. Benefits for the contractor;

4. Meeting the needs of all project participants;

5. Achievement of the previously set goal.

Examples of failure criteria:

1. Exceeding the limit of costs and time;

2. Non-compliance with the quality requirement;

3. Ignorance or ignorance of requirements or claims.

What is a successful project?

On June 8, within the framework of the 3rd International Week of Project Management, organized by Spider Ukraine Management Technologies, a seminar "Project Success - Criteria, Management, Corporate Culture" was held.

The simple question "when is a project to be considered successful" can often be answered with an obvious answer. A project is successful when the objectives of the project are met and at the same time it is completed on time and within budget. However, it is not always possible to give a simple answer to a simple question. In any case, at many events where the topic of project management is discussed to one degree or another, there are sometimes heated discussions about what should be considered a successful project. At the seminar, organized by the company "Management Technologies Spider Ukraine", Honorary President of the Moscow branch of PMI, cEO Spider Control Technologies (Moscow) Vladimir Liberson presented his point of view on this topic.

Project types

According to V. Liberzon, first of all, it is necessary to take into account the fact that projects may have different goals and criteria for success. From this point of view, all projects should be divided into three types.

Business projects focused on obtaining maximum profit (for example, a contract project).
Organizational (infrastructure) projects aimed at improving business processes and implemented using the internal resources of the organization (this includes IT projects).
Social or political projects - they are not aimed at making a profit.

Projects compete for resources, and this is an important aspect of assessing their success.

Project luck lies beyond

Correctly assessing the success of a project is not a trivial task. The problem that arises in this case is that the profit of a business project arises from the use of the project product, i.e. it occurs outside the life cycle of the project itself. This means that the project must be focused on maximizing profits throughout the entire product lifecycle. But the size of the profit itself still says little, you should focus on economic efficiency investment in the product life cycle. It should be borne in mind that the project is just one of the first stages of this life cycle.

Success will be evaluated by NPV and IRR

If we assume that the success of a project is assessed by the efficiency of investments in the product, then the indicators of such efficiency are known. Business metrics are often used for these purposes.

Net Discount Income (NPV). If NPV\u003e 0, then investing in a project is more attractive than just keeping money in a bank.
Internal Rate of Return (IRR). IRR shows how effectively money is used.
Payback period. The further we look into the future, the less accurate our estimates and the greater the risks. Therefore, it is interesting to know if our investment will pay off and when.

Which of the indicators will be given preference, it all depends on the policy of the organization. As for political projects, they are not directly oriented towards making a profit. Their goal is indirect profit - for example, building a reputation (for receiving future orders). Indirect effect we also get from organizational projects. In both of these cases, V. Liberson recommends giving estimates of future income (even if expert estimates).

Run a project like a business?

Based on the business assessments of the project's success, the speaker quite reasonably concluded that the project manager should, in fact, be a businessman and evaluate the far-reaching business results of implementation. This can work well in business projects, for example, investment ones. However, it seems that a number of questions should be asked here. First, which is better: train a businessman in project management or train a project manager in business. Secondly, how to combine in one official the functions of a project manager at the project site of the product life cycle; and the function of a process manager at the stage of product operation. In principle, this is possible if we consider the project at the highest level of the business according to the ideology of how individual lines of business are managed in holdings. Then a business project manager is needed, who is responsible for the project-oriented type of business, he must then conclude contracts. In this case, in the series organizational structures a situation may arise when the classic role of a project team member - a project sponsor - is largely combined with the role of a project customer - a top manager who must balance resources between different project areas. Thirdly, the business project manager is not suitable for all cases. For example, in factories, as part of the preparation of production, many organizational projects are being carried out, the managers of which are various leaders and specialists.

There are so many of these projects that there are simply not enough factory businessmen for each project. Fourthly, even in a construction business project in which a building for a store has been commissioned, the project manager cannot be responsible for the further efficiency of the retail space operation.

Non-business assessments

However, in fact, the answer to the above questions was a different approach, more universal, not necessarily tied to the above-mentioned business performance indicators. A list of indicators is compiled that the company considers suitable for assessing efficiency. Each project on this list is evaluated (for example, on a 10-point system), while each indicator is multiplied by the assessment of the importance of the project, and the resulting points in the list are summed up. Thus, projects will be ranked by efficiency in accordance with the adopted list of indicators. If there is no need to use NPV and IRR, it means that a businessman-project manager is not necessary, which means that an ordinary project manager does not "bite" into the product life cycle, but "cooks" in the context of the project life cycle.

How to link team success and project success

Along with the question of the success of the project, there is also the question of the success of the project team. It is quite obvious that a team in a project can be successful, but the project itself cannot; the opposite is also possible. In fact, the team met the project's limitations, but it turned out that the project was unprofitable - its goals were set incorrectly for the team. Or, on the contrary, the team achieved the result with a delay and budget overruns, but at the same time the project was successful in terms of profit. In order for the project to be successful, it is necessary to combine the interests of the project team and the organization executing the project. This is determined by the accepted criteria and the motivation system. The criteria should be such that the appropriateness can be assessed at the kill points. management decisions... For example, is it worth spending money to speed up the implementation, or saving money, but being late - how it will come back to haunt in the future.

Success and failure criteria

To combine the interests of the project team and the organization, V. Liberson proposed the following approach as a success criterion. A certain level of profit (loss) is set at a certain point in time in the future. The success of the project is determined by the excess of the predetermined level of profit (loss reduction). This will allow all current decisions to be determined depending on whether we are increasing or decreasing profits by this future moment. In fact, this means that the cost of one day is set in terms of being late or ahead of the project. Bringing a complex process of multifactorial decision-making to the assessment of such an easily understood indicator greatly simplifies project management and increases its reliability. This approach also simplifies portfolio management, as it allows you to evaluate the results of resource transfers from one project to another. Similarly, the criterion for project failure should be defined. For example, the minimum level of profit at a certain point in time translates the project into the category of economically unattractive. It is very important that the corporate culture does not associate project failure with team failure. Moreover, it is imperative that the timely termination of the project and the replenishment of the company's knowledge base of failures is credited to the team. In accordance with the criteria of success and failure, the motivation of both the team as a whole and its individual member should be built. At the same time, it is necessary to keep track of the time spent by employees on the execution of tasks.

"Three scenarios" against project risks

Initially, any estimates used in project planning should contain ranges of possible values. But no matter how good the evaluation criteria are, it must be borne in mind that there is always an element of uncertainty in them. The uncertainty of events and conditions leads to project risk. Therefore, project management requires risk management, and a dedicated section on risk management processes has been introduced in the PMBoK Guide (PMI's Project Management Body of Knowledge). V. Liberson presented his version of the interpretation of this section. In general, it coincides with what is presented in the classic courses on risk management of the enterprise as a whole. After all, the nature of many of them is the same in project management, finance, IT, and production. As for the method of risk modeling, the reporter suggests replacing the Monte Carlo method, beautiful in theory and poorly implemented in practice, with the approach of "three scenarios" (optimistic, most probable, pessimistic), while assessing risks not by the probabilities of success themselves, but by their trends. The Three Scenarios are used to assess resources and critical paths. In this case, the critical schedule is drawn up taking into account insurance reserves (buffers). During a conversation with the author of these lines, V. Liberson expressed the idea that all project management ultimately comes down to managing these reserves. Therefore, "in an amicable way" at the expense of reserves of different levels of "responsibility", it is necessary to provide for five (!) Budgets - performer, team, management, contract and points of cancellation of the contract.Computer simulation is the key to success

V. Liberson supported his point of view on the success of the project with examples that he presented in computer program project management Spider Project. He demonstrated how to define the criteria for success and their role and place in the formal project model. The same was true for risks. And when the program generated trends, it turned out that formally correct actions led to a loss, and actions aimed at increasing costs and missed deadlines led to profit. Without software tools for project modeling, it is completely impossible to see the underwater part of the iceberg of project risks. According to the speaker, no program has a mechanism for managing insurance reserves and risks, except for the Spider Project.

The information presented at the seminar was very topical, since during the seminar the listeners asked a lot of questions (asked for advice) - "according to the painful" from their practice. "Debriefing" of real situations of the listeners added a lot of specifics. This allowed those who came to the seminar, along with deep theoretical material, to receive and practical advice how to make a project successful.

- Boris Zhdanov, chief Editor magazine "Corporate Systems"

Have you ever wondered what the criteria for project success might be?

What is a successful project and what are the criteria for the success of project managers?

Every project manager or specialist who deals with project management and wants to increase labor productivity has its own measures and criteria for success. However, many of them will probably agree: to get an answer to this question, you need to evaluate not only the result itself, but also the process of preparing a project with all its methods, technologies and tools used.

If you are at the very start of your project and are going to draw up a plan and work schedule for all stages and deadlines ... If you plan to use convenient calendars and design optimal processes and correctly set tasks for the whole team ... And, finally, if in the end you want to get a project that will contain real criteria for success ... Then it's time to get acquainted with the application that allows you to create, plan projects and build online Gantt charts.

GanttPRO has quality and useful features and tools for the successful planning of any project. With GanttPRO, anyone can apply Gantt charts to any project, regardless of the level of project complexity.

Who is GanttPRO designed for?

“Project managers are the most creative professionals in the world. We have to solve all the problems before they happen. ”

Fredrik Haren

Project management software solutions can be applied various companies in different areas. According tolast year's study, the list of companies that use software for project management, most often represent manufacturing (10%), medicine (9%), technology (8%), construction (8%), banks / financial institutions (8%), developers software (7%), business services (7%), and the rest (43%).

This material will help to highlight the TOP-5 features of GanttRRO, which can identify the criteria for project success and achieve high results.

Key features of GanttPRO to successfully manage your project

Automatic planning for a good start of the project

If you are used to planning everything manually, notice how you can improve the success criteria of a project using the automatic planning program.

Automatic scheduling with GanttPRO allows you to plan and track each stage of the project and determine the duration of each task.
The user can set the desired parameters and schedule the execution time taking into account working hours, weekends and holidays, etc.
Automatic project scheduling allows you to speed up project implementation processes and significantly save your time, for example, by quickly moving tasks or attaching files directly to tables.
Using auto scheduling and Gantt charts, project managers can recalculate deadlines and change task schedules, for example, in case of a shift in the project start date.

Now you can forget about a lot of routine computing processes, - automatic system will do everything for you.

Smart calendar as the main tool for business management

"Never leave for tomorrow what you can do today."

Benjamin Franklin

When planning their project, managers must consider many factors that can affect tasks and deadlines. GanttPRO offers to use a convenient calendar to create a suitable work schedule for any process and business purpose, taking into account workdays, weekends and holidays, etc. Gantt charts are great for those project managers who want to detail their tasks carefully.

The smart calendar contains many benefits for improving the project success criterion that can assist you in predictive planning.

This type of planning assumes that you forecast tasks and when to complete them in advance. It takes a little more time to develop, but its clear advantage is in a more realistic project timeline as it reflects the real model, including dependent tasks and available resources.

Smart calendar and predictive planning will help you manage project teams because:

Start and finish dates for tasks will be based on team performance;
Each person in the team will know the impact of their work on the project;
Project managers will easily predict project completion dates. Even if one of the employees is not available.

Teamwork that unites all efforts

Managing your own affairs is half the battle; to control the work processes of the whole team means to win!

Using GanttPRO, you can plan projects with your team and collaborate with Gantt charts.

If you would like to create a project team, select the settings in the upper right corner of your page. There you can also invite members to the group by entering their email addresses and clicking the "Invite" button.

Do you remember the last match of your favorite basketball team? As a rule, the results of matches are directly determined by a close-knit, interacting and responsive effective team. The same happens during the planning and implementation of any project.

The best proof is in a striking example.

Let's take a look at how GanttPRO can help organize a team's workflow when preparing a marketing project.

For example, a marketer works in large company and plans to implement a global project at a certain time and with certain results. This could be, for example, a marketer trying to schedule a conference or exhibition. Let's assume that he needs to define all the deadlines and schedule the tasks of the project for different departments or colleagues:

For chiefto approve participation;
For logisticiansto arrange delivery to the place;
For lawyersto prepare everything required documents and help;
For purchasing departmentto purchase necessary goods during;
For marketersto provide visual advertising and brand awareness during the project;
For PR specialists, to provide information support and promotion in media channels;
For designersto develop the required attributes;
For content departmentto create all messages for the project, and so on.

And there can be many more such interactions.

As you can see, planning and organized team processes can significantly speed up the results of any project. Rest assured that nothing gets lost with good structure.

Tracking the status in the GanttPRO settings for high-quality project implementation

There is one more important feature GanttPRO, which helps to track the progress and status of the project. Tracking status allows you to check the status and progress of each stage since the start of the project, as well as make planning more convenient.

You can easily check the status of a project or task by knowing the start of the project and the end date. In addition, you can track the percentage of completion of any stage of the project and how much time was spent on it. This allows you to decide how to schedule tasks, even if your company has flexible working hours or different shifts. Therefore, project managers can always manage resources efficiently and be aware of all tasks and issues. It will be difficult to miss something with GanttPRO.

Time-saving templates

Using previously completed projects, you can create a template for your future goals. This will save time and avoid repeated steps when creating another project from scratch.

This feature will be useful if your last project is completely finished. The reasons for this may vary, but it is very convenient to have a basic project template always at hand. All you need to do to start a new project is adjust the settings and get started. Here you can archive and save as a Gantt chart template.

These five functions of GanttPRO look perfectly acceptable and easy to apply, don't they? Want to know more about the criteria for project success?The easiest way is to read the information on the GanntPRO website as well as on youtube channel.

We hope that this material about the useful features of GanttPRO will help you succeed in project management.

We are always glad to receive your comments and wishes!