Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling, Tenth Edition

The Variables for Success

9.0 INTRODUCTION

Project management cannot succeed unless the project manager is willing to employ the systems approach to project management by analyzing those variables that lead to success and failure. This chapter briefly discusses the dos and don'ts of project management and provides a “skeleton” checklist of the key success variables. The following four topics are included:

• Predicting project success
• Project management effectiveness
• Expectations

9.1 PREDICTING PROJECT SUCCESS

PMBOK^® Guide, 4th Edition

3.2 Planning Process Group Chapter 4 Project Integration

5.2 Define Scope

One of the most difficult tasks is predicting whether the project will be successful. Most goal-oriented managers look only at the time, cost, and performance parameters. If an out-of-tolerance condition exists, then additional analysis is required to identify the cause of the problem. Looking only at time, cost, and performance might identify immediate contributions to profits, but will not identify whether the project itself was managed correctly. This takes on paramount importance if the survival of the organization is based on a steady stream of successfully managed projects. Once or twice a program manager might be able to force a project to success by continually swinging ...