A Retrospective look at our Evolving Understanding of Project Success

TLDR

Project success definitions have evolved from a narrow implementation focus to a holistic view across the entire project and product life cycle, reflecting the growing importance of projects in organizations where project and process work increasingly overlap. This study examines how the concept of project success has changed over the past 40 years, outlining conditions for success, critical success factors, and success frameworks. The authors review four decades of literature to assess these conditions, factors, and frameworks, offering a holistic perspective on project success and its practical implications.

Abstract

Our views on project success have changed over the years from definitions that were limited to the implementation phase of the project life cycle to definitions that reflect an appreciation of success over the entire project and product life cycle. This paper assesses our evolving understanding of project success over the past 40 years and discusses conditions for success, critical success factors and success frameworks. The paper concludes with a holistic view of project success and its implications for practice. This is an important topic because projects are an increasingly common way of work, and the lines between project and process work are harder to discern. Increasingly, more project managers work in companies using program and portfolio management as a means to organize project-related work. The success of individual projects, therefore, impacts the wider organization in several dimensions and makes the concept of project and project management success that much more relevant. The topic is also important because it has a bearing on the future directions of project management in the strategic context.