Question

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Subject: Project Management

①

Consider the criteria for successful IT projects. Why is IT project success often so difficult to assess? Make a case for some factors being more important than others.

Answer 1

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Following are the criteria to measure the success of an IT project

• The golden triad (Time, Cost and Scope): For an IT project to be successful, it should be able to meet the desired outcome in terms of time, cost and scope, i.e., the decided scope must be completed within the budgeted cost and the agreed timelines
• Customer satisfaction: While delivering a project, it has to be seen that the client had a satisfying journey and end. Most managers are micro-scoping in their approach and focus narrowly on the golden triad and ignore this criterion
• Benefit to business: Finally, an IT project is only successful if it is able to justify the investment and deliver greater value to the business. This is the single most important criterion. Only if IT project is able to deliver business value, it becomes an asset. Otherwise, it is an expense.

While the golden triad criteria are easy to measure, it is difficult to measure the success in terms of the other two criteria. Client satisfaction is not only qualitative, it is also very subjective. For example, the reason of client dissatisfaction may be due to the project, the team or the client itself. A client with unrealistic expectations is bound to be dissatisfied.

Moreover, the single most important criteria - benefit to the business , is also very difficult to measure. Not only the benefits may be intangible and indirect, but some benefits may also only be realized over a great length of time. The team, managers and even management may change before the benefits are realized. All these factors make it difficult to ascertain the success of a project.