The critical factors you need to consider for successful project delivery.

1. 10 Critical Factors to Consider For Success of a Project
1. As Complex As You Make It
Planning and delivering a project can be a fairly complex process. Its complexity can be attribute to:
changing project dynamics- scope, cost, resource requirement; the time & efforts required, forming a
project team to execute deliverables, making everyone understand what he/she is expected to deliver
and what is the schedule of delivery, generally projects have interdependency of project activities,
collecting feedback or trace progress of the project, also during lifecycle of a project, it observes
unplanned issues & risks being surfaced.
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Despite of set of these processes mentioned above makes project management to appear complex; it is
your approach that will make it simple. Try following things.
 Set a clear objective for stakeholders, especially for your team
 Communicate regularly with all stakeholders especially your team
 Get regular feedback from customers as well as project team
2. Project manager is responsible
Well, it is not entirely true, since it is a collective effort, entire team has to work together to make it
happen. Undeniably you will have to accept the fact that: from organizations’ point of view, it is the
role – 'Project Manager' that has been identified to own project & deliver it withstanding risks on
time, within budget. The overall owner of the processes mentioned above, either there is a person
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2. designated as project manager or one who assumes that role. You as a project manager own the
ultimate responsibility to ensure that project is successfully delivered. In short, to carry out project
management activities, organization & customer need project manager.
Overall responsibilities
1. Prepare a project plan – including schedule, communication, risks, etc.
2. Schedule tasks & milestones with respect to agreed timeline
3. Identify, secure & assign appropriate resources
4. Tracking project progress – Tracking milestone achieved & pending status, manage issues and
risks
5. Update stakeholders about project status & deliverables
In today's collaborative environment, it is apparent for project managers to engage his/her entire team
with project management and collaboration tools & techniques to streamline project activities & get
things done.
3. Reinforce & Regain Focus
Don’t have enough fund/ resources?
If you struggle to get enough funds, resources for your project; you need to understand organization's
priority towards project. If you believe that organization need to focus on deliverables of your project;
it requires your organization to relook at prioritization of project portfolio.
Are you loosing track?
Despite of the fact, we have tools and techniques to streamline project progress; we see projects
getting delayed/ de-scoped or abandoned. Not every organizations have portfolio management role
which will take care of assessment & prioritization of projects: planning & execution activities. In such
situation, project teams may find themselves getting dragged because of changing project
requirements, changing environment & project management team without clear focus.
Avoid The Trap:
At times, projects need higher management (as appropriate) buy in & strong support to deliver it
successfully. And to gain buy in for a given project, one needs to build a business case, justifying cost-
benefit analysis by delivering project – highlighting kind of support required: be it in terms of
customer engagement, resources with specific skill sets, space, equipment, project duration, etc.
This exercise will help you & your organization to focus on right set of projects & right kind of support
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3. for project(s).
4. Specific & Quantifiable Project Objectives
Surely, any project has certain objectives which are expected to be aligned with goals of an
organization. When project objectives are being set, it is important to set specific & quantifiable
costs & benefits expected from delivery of a project. E.g. gain 250K revenue for a given product
category which otherwise – is a loss of sale by making products available to store. Thus, these tangible
& quantifiable benefits act as ultimate reference that everyone involved in the project would focus on.
5. Project Plan - Clear & Detailed
First & foremost – Project Planning: it is the most critical factor. The project plan which is carved well
saves a lot of time, cost later. As they say –devil is in the details. So it is critical to the project to carve
out the as much as details as possible. Also the detailing done in project plan, builds up the
confidence of project planner & the team responsible for execution.
Your project plan should have:
a. Mutually agreed & Clearly defined:
I. Distinct Milestones, set of deliverables
II. Timelines to achieve milestones & provide deliverables
III. Detailed resources roles & responsibilities – skillset /& grades of material required
IV. Estimates of project cost with reasonable accuracy based on above parameters
V. Contingency plan with - optimum estimate
b. Establishing a clear mechanism to highlight & manage project issues & risks – (i.e. clear
SLA)
c. To set clear focus for every team member about project activities & processes they need to
follow
d. As team members work on project related activities, you can compare progress of project
with the planned schedule & you should become alert of losing track – which has time &
money implication.
6. Don’t let it leak – Project Scope has to be sacrosanct
Quite often we see, project scope being altered during the course of project execution. It is the same
principle that needs to be followed while preparing project scope: A fix in time, saves nine. Quite often
it has been observed that project scope is broadened; more often than not, such project creep implies
that the project scope was prepared & published pre-maturely.
Alright, it (the mistake?) has happened. What should you do next? Should you agree for any further
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4. changes (& compromise on project cost, timeline) or refuse (& risk customer engagement)? I think
this really needs careful considerations.
Your customer may not appreciate your reluctances (toward accepting any new/major changes) but
generally accepting small scope change & delivering those does not get accounted. I have seen this
happening; at the time of project sign off & also in future, customers may not consider, the extra miles
you have run. You need to note that even though, you run the extra miles, at the end of it, your &
organization’s credibility of delivering project on time & within budget can be at risk.
Essentially your customers also know well that project scope was mutually agreed. Hence delivering
project as defined on schedule within cost may be of his interest too & may accept to contingent plan
to include ‘changed project scope’ in some alternate form/way. You have to get customers’ & higher
management buy in to say NO, if ‘accepting scope change’ is going to hurt project’s objective &
organization’s goal in foreseeable & reasonable future timeframe.
Having mentioned this, it is in best mutual interest that you have a factual discussion with customer.
Be transparent & understand each other’s concerns. Mutually Re-prioritize project deliverables, work
out contingency plan& agree on time & cost estimates.
7. Build Inspired Team – It can save you greatly
The sense of ownership & in turn involvement makes your team to stretch their limits. Yes, we
ourselves have done it & seen examples around. The sense of belonging & ownership instils a healthy
& highly productive environment – benefits of which you should maximize to get things done quicker
& of high quality.
It is not really rocket science to build such team, rather an art: Especially if we have gone through it,
we can relate to it quickly. The least you have to do is:
 Be transparent
 Communication (Be regular & have clarity)
 Listen to their ideas (You never know, they may have better way of doing it. So support them)
 Let them be creative, give them space (generally, it helps you to get returns)
 Get them involved (again, listen to them, get their inputs, make them integral part of process)
8. Issue Management:
Practically, every project deliverable has numerous issues surfacing in its lifecycle. Your organization
needs an effective process & efficient mechanism to manage issues. You need to realize issues as they
surface, recognize their severity, and assign priority as appropriate to the project delivery schedule,
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5. assign resources to work on these.
At times, issues being submitted may appear to be teaser to progress of your project. But it is your
issue management practice which will make it routine job. It is needless to say that you need to make
provision for risk management while planning & scheduling your project.
9. Risk Planning & Mitigation
As they say, Devil lies in the details. At least you would know there is a devil & you can plan
accordingly. So it is in your best interest to document potential risks right from the beginning of the
project, assess & prepare through appropriate response plan to tackle those risks.
You would agree that this exercise really prepares you for the battle: means – as unplanned/ unknown
risks appear during execution of a project, you would know what approach/methodology to employ in
assessing risks and strategy to mitigate risk (re-scheduling tasks, assigning resources, update project
deliverables, estimates)
10. Identify & agree for point of closure of a project
As PMBoK™ states, project is a temporary endeavour. Once project is delivered according
scope, as agreed project resources should be returned to the resource pool (or transferred to other
project), else project is considered as open and then it has project continuation cost associated with it.
Again, it is in best mutual interest to discuss about which all project deliverables are according to
project plan & figure out which project deliverables were not agreed project scope. Through this
discussion you need to agree whether future work will require initiation of a new project or it will be
addendum to existing project (agreement on former option will close existing project & other
option(s) will keep the project status not-closed).
Concluding Remark:
Be transparent. Communicate clearly & regularly with everyone involved in the project.
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