After more than 20 years of experience as a hands-on project manager, running project management offices, and as a consultant and advisor to project management teams across many varied industries, I have compiled the following information to help project managers achieve a successful outcome.

But first let's review the definition of Project Management and Successful Project Management.

Project Management is the planning, organisation, and management of, teams, resources, communications, risks and issues to deliver an agreed scope of work, to an agreed quality, within an agreed timeframe and budget, to achieve a desired outcome.

The usual definition of project success is the delivery of the agreed project scope, to the agreed quality measures, within the agreed timeframe and budget.  Technically if you have met all these criteria then you have delivered a successful project.

The significant point here is the emphasis on what has been agreed (with the key stakeholders) in respect to the scope, quality, timeframe and budget outcomes.  This may be organisation or project specific, but it is critical that it is always formally documented so that all parties are very clear as to the agreed outcomes and the measures of success.

However in our experience there are other critical measures of success which are rather more subjective, but which are very important to recognise when managing the total project outcome as listed below.

1. Is the customer happy with the outcome?  Customer Satisfaction is the ultimate measure of success, particularly for vendors.
   • I have observed project managers who have managed to keep the customer happy even when they have technically failed to deliver on-time, to scope, to quality, or to budget.  Usually, the  customer is happy to work with them again.
   • I have also observed situations where the project was technically delivered on-time, to scope to quality and to budget, but, they have not managed to satisfy the customer and subsequently there often problems with assigning the project manager into the same area again.
2. Another aspect of successful project management which is almost totally over-looked is the morale and health of the project team.  
3. Project managers who burn-out team resources are not managing corporate resources effectively and the long-term cost to the organisation is usually totally understated.
4. Finally there is the overall quality of the Project Management
   • Here we are measuring how well did the PM and the team manage the full suite of project management competencies including management of planning, communications, risks / issues, team and vendor.

Project Delivery Success Criteria -

1. Management and delivery of the agreed scope
2. To the agreed quality measures
3. Within the agreed timeframe
4. Within the agreed budget

Project Management Success Criteria -

1. Project delivered to agreed criteria (see above)
2. Effective management of Communications
3. Effective management of the Team (including the health, morale and effectiveness)
4. Effective management of Vendors
5. Management of Risk and Issue to required standards
6. Customer is satisfied with the team performance
7. Project is delivered to the standards and quality as required by the organisation

So to summarise then, successful project management is very much a factor of delivering what was agreed, but must be under-pinned by managing the less objective aspects including all the items listed above.  

Communication is a very major aspect of Project Management, and involves managing expectations and perceptions.

Customer Satisfaction is very much a function of how well we have managed the requirements and customer expectations, how well we have communicated the various problems as they have arisen, and ultimately how we have managed the perception of the project progress and achievement, through the life of the project.