Capturing Success: It’s a Matter of Clarity
By Sheryl Olguin on September 7th, 2010
Family vacations have always seemed like a great metaphor for topics in project management. The topic “capturing success” is a case in point. On one family vacation I hiked with my Dad to a backcountry lake in the Sierra Nevadas. At least, that was the plan. We were going fishing. Our plan was to hike in, catch a limit of trout, then hike out and meet up with the rest of the family. I was 9 years old. We set off on the trail, and about 10 minutes into the hike we took a short-cut Dad knew. We climbed off trail up over a series of ridges to where he thought the lake was. About an hour into the hike there were no people to be seen, there was no lake in sight, and we were standing in the middle of an ancient looking stand of pine trees that had been shattered and burned by lightning. “Are we lost?” I voiced the question while visually scanning the slightly scary skeletal trees. “I know where we are” my Dad answered confidently. We hiked a little while longer and he finally admitted that he didn’t think we’d be finding the lake that day, and that we should head back to meet up with the rest of the family. I really didn’t care that we never found the lake or caught trout, because I was having so much fun hiking off trail, seeing areas completely untouched by civilization, and talking with my Dad. We managed to find our way back to the trailhead, and before we rejoined the rest of the family my Dad made me promise not to tell them that we’d gotten lost. He didn’t want Mom doubting his navigational capabilities! When my Mom asked why we didn’t have any fish, Dad simply said that we hadn’t caught any. I just smiled. Dad and I had shared a fun adventure.
To the casual observer, the trek might have seemed like a failure. Not a single fish was caught, and we never even found the lake. But my Dad had a completely different set of criteria for success on that trip, and by his criteria, the trip was a total success. When I was old enough to understand, my Dad explained his goal for every family vacation was to spend enough time with us to be a positive influence in our lives. He had complete clarity regarding what success was for these vacations.
Having clarity on success for a project is elemental, it’s fundamental. Those who fail to gain clarity on this point put their project at risk for a number of maladies from overruns to organizational conflict, to completing something that totally misses the mark intended by key stakeholders. Many times people think they have clarity on what success is because they have a well defined scope or definition of requirements. But this is not always enough.
So how do you capture the kind of clarity on your success criteria you need to insure your project gets off on the right foot? Simply ask your key stakeholders. Then ask again. Keep asking until nothing is left to add. And don’t always take what is said at face value. Be willing to go beyond the “what” questions into the “why” questions. The “why” questions often reveal the real success criteria.
Imagine a conversation between a key stakeholder (KS) and a project manager (PM):
PM: What would you consider success for your web redesign project?
KS: A really edgy design that would help grow my core customer base of 18-24 yr old men.
PM: So success would be growth in your core customer base. Why an edgy design?
KS: Several months ago our main competitor launched a redesigned site with a very edgy almost video game-like look and feel. We’ve been seeing our market share erode and theirs grow ever since. We ran some comparative research studies and found that the participants were far more engaged at our competitor’s site than at ours, and that it was the level of engagement more than the product features that led to them choosing our competitor over us.
PM: So success would also be to create something that’s as engaging or even more engaging than your main competitor’s site? Anything else?
KS: I think that’s it.
PM: So if the usability research during this project reveals a design and interactions that are extremely engaging to your core customer base, but isn’t really edgy, you’re more concerned with the overall customer experience than just being edgy, right?
KS: Yes, definitely.
PM: Anything else?…
And so on.
By pursuing this deep digging into the real success criteria you accomplish a few things:
- You capture a body of guiding principles that will inform the project scope and requirements.
- The project team can use the success criteria to make better decisions throughout the life of the project.
- When the project is finished, you know whether or not you’ve achieved success, because success is well defined.
Here’s a quick good news/bad news note: The bad news first. This line of questioning will often reveal disconnects or differing priorities among key stakeholders. The good news is, for the project to be successful, these will be discussed, negotiated and agreed upon before the project starts and will result in a more successful project by everyone’s agreed upon criteria.









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