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project success

How to Measure Project Management Success

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There are several factors to consider when measuring project management success. Yes, the primary goal of every project is to meet the deadline and stay within budget. However, whether or not the project delivered value to the business is also an excellent gauge for success.

Measuring the success of a project once it has come to completion should be routine practice in every organization. A proper assessment of the project’s effectiveness will offer valuable insight and lessons that can be implemented in future projects.

Here are six factors for measuring the success of a project

Stick to the Schedule

If a product launch date or budget relies on the project, there is typically a hard deadline to meet. Ultimately, the success of a project is based primarily on whether it was completed on time or not.

Indeed, there are clients that may be more flexible with deadlines as they view a quality product is much more important than being on schedule. However, committing to a timeline is still ideal to keep team members productive.

Complete the Scope of the Project

The scope is the intended result of the project and everything required to bring it to completion. Your success can be measured based on whether the project was achieved based on the objectives within the given framework.

Get Weekly Satisfaction Ratings

Start by asking the clients how satisfied they were with the results and if their needs were met. To avoid taking up too much of their time, ask them to rate your weekly performance rather than asking them to provide you with a lengthy description of their findings.

Succeed as a Team

Don’t overlook your team. How they feel the project went tells you a lot about its level of success. And because they were closest to the project, they may be able to provide you with insight about roadblocks and how they can be avoided in the future.

Related Content:
Building PMO Success

Stay On-Budget

Completing the project within budget is probably one of the biggest indicators of whether a project was a success or not. Your team should always be aware of how the money is spent and the roles they play in ensuring they stay on-budget. Clients are typically given a quote at the start of the project, and they expect that you stick to it.

Exceed Quality Expectations

The goal shouldn’t be just to meet expectations but to exceed them. With all projects, do track quality so that you can make adjustments for your future projects. Consider the value of your work as a way to advertise your capabilities. Let the quality of your completed projects be your calling card.

An excellent way to guarantee that you are not only completing your projects but also measuring your progress along the way is by using project management software. Project management software such as TeamHeadquarters provides project management services for all areas of your organization – not just IT.

With TeamHeadquarters, you’ll have total control of project ticket queues, integrated email agents, sophisticated and comprehensive resource management, task scheduling, project groups, portfolio dashboards, integrated status reporting, integrated and customizable reporting, the inclusion of customers on project tasks and tickets and a Customer Self-Service Portal.

For a free demo of TeamHeadquarters, click here

How to Negotiate Your Way to Project Success

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We wear so many hats as project managers over the course of our projects and our careers. I don’t want to make PMs sound like superheroes because we aren’t. But we often have to be a ‘jack of all trades.’ And if you lack the ability or confidence to do that…to take on multiple roles (often several at the same time)…then perhaps the PM world isn’t for you. We must be resource managers, task masters, financial planners, conflict resolver, workflow managers, documentation specialists, business analysts to some degree, tech gurus on some projects (or at least talk the talk), wise and on-the-spot decision-makers and sometimes we have to be master negotiators. It is this last one that I’d like to discuss in this article.

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Using Project Milestones to Stay on Track

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You know the drill – you get a new project, you prepare for kickoff, you draft a project schedule, put together a budget and resource plan, kickoff the project with the customer and then start managing the project and all it’s tasks (and your team working those tasks) for the next 6 months, 12 months or however long your project runs. What if it could be easier? What if you could more successfully manage portions of the project rather than always having to look at the big project picture? Well, you can…sort of. But you may already be doing that – knowingly or unknowingly with project milestones.

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6 Things that Make a Good Project Manager Great – Part 1

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Most project managers are pretty good or they just aren’t able to stay in the profession long. Poor project management usually leads to failure and failure is only tolerated for so long before you get replaced on enough projects that you get shown the door. Your career will flourish if you become a great project manager.

And a good project manager can be a good project manager for a long, long time. Look at me….I think I’m a good project manager and I’ve been doing this for more than 20 years. I wouldn’t call myself a great one though (although if any of my past or current clients feel that way I’m ok with it). But what makes that good project manager a great one? Let’s look at what I consider to be six factors or characteristics that separate the good project managers from the great ones. And I’m not saying that most or all good project managers lack these qualities or practices. Not at all. It’s just that they seem to be more apparent in the great project managers. Let’s consider… [Read more…] about 6 Things that Make a Good Project Manager Great – Part 1