So… What Would Project Success Look Like?

You can tell when a project’s in trouble even before the metrics catch up.
Everyone’s “green,” the schedule’s still intact — but people have gone quiet.
You feel it in the air.

Still, quiet isn’t the end it’s the signal that the project’s ready for top up, a cup of coffee and some snacks on the journey.

The old iron triangle: time, cost, scope, measures control, not impact.
Modern thinkers like Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, Harold Kerzner, Edoardo Favari, and Jeremy Nicholls have all evolved their vision of success towards moving the dial for the organisation.

So how do we know what our elevator pitch is and which direction we should get the team rowing in?

1️⃣ Start by Asking Better Questions

Like most complex topics success is often a matter of perspective and sometimes even debate. It looks different depending on where you are standing

So, before you inherit a project or kick one off, spend an hour asking the questions that make people think out loud:

Still, these aren’t checklist questions. They’re listening tools and discussion starters.
Pause after each one. Notice who answers first, who is looking to who and who stays silent. And the good news is once people realise someone’s finally listening, the answers start to fall out on their own. The business always knows what needs fixing they're just busy with their day jobs.

🟢 WorkFriend Tip: If the sponsor and the delivery lead give different answers, the bridge might be out. Time to slow down the train.

2️⃣ Map the Real Decision Makers (Not the Org Chart)

Every org has two maps: the official chart and the invisible one made up of relationships, influence and reputation.

Find the three layers:

• Vision-Setters — people who decide why the project matters.
• Value Translators — managers who turn that intent into daily marching orders.
• Gatekeepers — quiet blockers who can kill momentum without saying no.

It is one of your touchstones so at the beginning/or takeover of a project its worth drawing it. Yes, actually draw it.

Who influences whom? What currency do they trade, reputation, risk tolerance, or resources?

Then connect the dots back to purpose. If each node can see how the project supports their version of success, you’ve just built political alignment the formal plan will never capture.

🟡 Field Test: When meetings drift, ask, “Whose success are we protecting here?” It resets the room instantly.

3️⃣ Negotiate a Working Definition of Success

Fair point sometimes everyone thinks they agree until it’s time to sign.
That’s why you need a working contract, as well as a mission statement.

Write it down. Short. Four lines:

1. Purpose: Why we’re doing this.
2. Boundaries: What’s in, what’s out.
3. Trade-offs: How we decide when constraints clash.
4. Validation: How, when, and by whom success will be measured.

Run a quick calibration workshop with your sponsor and leads.
Fifteen minutes of straigh talk beats six months of re-work or a hearty 'so what' at the project launch party.

🔵 WorkFriend summary: “Let’s define success in a way we’ll still agree with when the dust settles.”

4️⃣ Evidence the consensus

So we can see the pattern here: opinions multiply faster than facts.
The cure is visibility.

• Visualise benefits. Use something like Nieto-Rodriguez’s Project Canvas to get all the whys and hows on one page.
• Show line-of-sight. Every task should trace upward:
  Task → Output → Benefit → Strategic Objective → Purpose.
  It’s what Kerzner calls maintaining line-of-sight — proof that today’s work serves tomorrow’s strategy.
• Translate value. Favari’s idea of management-for-stakeholders reminds us: people back what rewards them. Show how each group wins.

Consensus could mean agreement across the board but you're probably not that lucky. Often consensus is the negotiated peace everyone can live with.

It means everyone sees the logic and decides to row in roughly the same direction.

🧩 WorkFriend framing: “Here’s what we can prove, here’s what we’re betting on, and here’s what we’ll check after go-live.”

5️⃣ Keep Success Alive After Delivery

Seen another way, go-live isn’t the finish line; it’s the hand-off to reality.
Most orgs stop caring the day the slide deck says “done.”
That’s when benefits quietly evaporate. If you can plan early in the project for a 1.1 release of your new solution or project. The business won't know what they really need until they've operated with it for 6 months..

Plan the value-realisation review before you even start. Many orgs run this as part of a pre-mortem.
Name benefit owners. Set check-ins at three, six, and twelve months.
Keep your data sources simple enough that people actually update them.

And don’t forget morale. When teams burn out at delivery, the benefits phase starts with negative equity.

As Anh Dao Pham would say, the glue hardens after delivery.

And you end up with a team that's 'sticky' in the best way for the next project.

6️⃣ Red Flags You’re Chasing the Wrong Definition

• Everything’s green, nobody’s smiling.
• “Value” stops at the deployment report.
• Every exec review resets the target.
• Benefits “belong to the business,” but no one can name them.

When you spot these, pause. Don’t push harder, renegotiate success.

The WorkFriend Definition

Project success is delivering meaningful, measurable value through people who still believe in the work when the Gantt chart is done.

It's the intersection of clarity, courage, and connection.
And if you can keep those three aligned, you'll hear the musical words 'Stacey kep us organised and it was easy and smooth'

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