Project Success

Critical Factors and Behaviours

Emanuel Camilleri

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317074854
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Sviluppo di business
• Index: Business

The issue of what defines project success (or failure) is complex and often elusive, and dependent on the perceptions of different stakeholders. In this enlightening book Emanuel Camilleri examines the key factors bearing on perceived success or failure. This book is not just about project management, it goes much deeper into the topic of project success by prescribing a project success framework. In chapters dedicated to factors such as leadership, teams, communication, information management and risk management, the author shines a light on the key behaviours in which project managers and others engage and how those behaviours predict success or failure. Practising project managers, project board members and sponsors, struggling to manage conflicting stakeholder expectations, complexity and ambiguity, will learn which factors are vital to determining successful outcomes. Finally, having highlighted the particular skills, abilities and attributes identified by the research, Dr Camilleri offers a diagnostic model for assessing an organization's preparedness for undertaking and successfully managing major projects. Project Success provides a valuable contribution to the literature on this subject, and its application delivers practical guidance that will be welcomed by project professionals at all levels.

PART I
In Search of Factors That Facilitate Project Success

The chapters in Part I have the objective of setting the scene and identifying the factors that facilitate project success. They illustrate the importance of the application of project management in organizations and why organizations are motivated to develop project management competencies. Furthermore they provide details of what constitutes a project thus distinguishing project management from operations management. A brief history of project management is also provided so that the reader may appreciate the need for this important organizational tool and how it has developed and evolved through the different industrial development periods.

Finally, project management research studies are examined with the aim of identifying the reasons why some projects succeed and others fail. The various project success and failure reasons are then classified into what is referred to as project success factors. The aim is to offer applied research findings to both the practitioner and the academic researcher. A project success model is proposed which will provide the basis for the remaining chapters, where each project success factor category is examined and discussed in detail.

CHAPTER 1
Introduction

The secret to getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks and then starting on the first one.

Mark Twain, writer (1835–1910)

Project management is an important topic because all organizations, be they small or large at one time or other are involved in implementing new undertakings. These undertakings may be diverse, such as the development of a new product or service; the establishment of a new production line in a manufacturing enterprise; a public relations promotion campaign; or the construction of major building programmes. Whilst the 1980s were about quality and the 1990s were all about globalization, the 2000s are about velocity. That is, to keep ahead of their competitors, organizations are continually faced with the development of complex products, services and processes with very short time-to-market windows combined with the need for cross-functional expertise. In this scenario, project management becomes a very important and powerful tool in the hands of organizations that understand its use and have the competencies to apply it.

The development of project management capabilities in organizations, simultaneously with the application of management information systems allows enterprise teams to work in partnership in defining plans and managing take-to-market projects by synchronizing team-oriented tasks, schedules and resource allocations. This allows cross-functional teams to create and share project information. However, this is not sufficient; management information systems have the potential to allow project management practices to take place in a real-time environment. As a consequence of this potential project management proficiency, locally, nationally or globally dispersed users are able to view and interact concurrently with the same updated project information immediately, including project schedules, threaded discussions and other relevant documentation. In this scenario the term dispersed user takes on a wider meaning. It not only includes the cross-functional management teams but also experts drawn from the organization’s supply chain and business partners.

On a macro level, organizations are motivated to implement project management techniques to ensure that their undertakings (small or major) are delivered on time, within the cost budget and to the stipulated quality. On a micro level, project management, combined with an appropriate management information system, has the objectives of reducing project overhead costs; customizing the project workplace to fit the operational style of the project teams and respective team members; proactively informing the executive management strata of the strategic projects on a real-time basis; ensuring that project team members share accurate, meaningful and timely project documents; and ensuring that critical task deadlines are met. However, whilst the motivation and objectives to apply project management in organizations is commendable, they do not assure project success.

Why are some projects perceived as failures when they have met all the traditional standards of success, namely, completed on time, completed within budget and meeting all the technical specifications? Why are some projects perceived to be successful when they have failed to meet two important criteria that are traditionally associated with success, namely, not completed on time and not completed within budget? The question regarding what constitutes project success is a complex and illusive issue because it depends a great deal on the perceptions of different stakeholders. To reduce this complexity, it is imperative that a critical set of project management success factors are identified and explored. Adherence to these identified project success factors would minimize project risk and maximize the probability of project success in terms of stakeholder perceptions. Therefore, a primary objective of this book is to examine project management research studies so that key factors that affect perceived project success and failure are identified. By doing this, a number of measures that need to be adopted to influence and develop a project success mind-set within the various stakeholders may be prescribed.

What Constitutes a Project?

A close inspection of organizations reveals one obvious common factor between them, they all perform work. However, a closer scrutiny of the work that organizations perform reveals a very important distinction, in that work can generally be classified into two primary categories, routine tasks (or operations) and projects. In some instances these two categories of work may overlap.

A major function of an organization is to be able to manage its work, be it operations or project related. For instance, the management of operations focuses on carefully supervising the processes to produce and distribute products and services. Operations management also refers to all the operations within the organization. Related operational activities include managing purchases, inventory control, quality control, storage, logistics and evaluations. The primary focus of operations management is on efficiency and effectiveness of processes. Hence, operations management is often comprised of considerable measurement and analysis of internal processes. Ultimately, the nature of how operations management is carried out in an organization depends very much on the nature of products or services rendered by the organization. For example, retail, manufacturing, wholesale and a variety of others. Therefore, a primary attribute of operational work includes the repetitiveness of processes over a period of time.

In contrast, a project is seen as a finite (temporary) piece of work that has a beginning and an end (Butterick, 2000). For instance, a factory manufacturing components is predominantly conducting a series of operations or processes on an ongoing and repetitive basis until all customer orders have been completed. However, the same factory may want to establish a new production line to manufacture a completely different component. Hence, the tasks to establish this new production line may be considered as a project since it is temporary. Note that it is the task of setting up the new production line that is temporary. Once the new production line is established, the new components will be manufactured by a series of processes on a repetitive basis until no more orders are received from customers (these process become the core functions of the organization).

However, projects and operations do have some common attributes. They are both performed by people, are confined by limited resources and are planned, executed and controlled. The important element that differentiates projects from operations is the level of uniqueness. The spectrum of human undertakings spans from totally repetitive to totally unique. Therefore, at one extreme is the production of commodities such as beer and at the other extreme is the construction of structures such as the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge or Channel Tunnel linking the United Kingdom with France. In between, there is a mixture of other undertakings, such as the construction of roads, erection of dwellings, the development of new products, such as a new variety of beer and the development of new services in banking, retail or tourism. The Project Management Institute Standards Committee (1996, p. 4) defines a project as a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product or service. The word temporary means that every project has a definite beginning and a definite end; whereas unique signifies that the product or service is different in some distinguishing way from all similar products or services.

When referring to projects, there is often the connotation of something major or grand. However, it must be emphasized that projects may be undertaken at all levels of the organization and may involve only one person or numerous persons; may require relatively few hours to complete or thousands of hours; may involve a single unit of an organization or may cross organizational boundaries as for instance in private–public partnerships. Other examples of projects include developing a new product design; preparing and delivering a report; the installation of new equipment; a new marketing campaign; moving to a new office block; and organizing a conference or a reception. Projects may also be viewed as an agent of change. Thomsett and Thomsett (2000) view this attribute as the key to the difference between process and project work.

What is Project Management?

Projects are not reserved for a particular profession, such as engineers or architects. Everyone at sometime or other has to coordinate tasks. Frequently...