Critical Success Factors in Project Management

Critical Success Factors in Project Management
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Critical Success Factors in Project Management
Projects refer to an organization of people dedicated to a specific purpose or objective and involve high-risk, expensive and large undertakings that must be completed by a certain date. Based on the large amount of money invested in the project, they must all have well-defined objectives and enough resources to carry out the necessary factors. The application of knowledge, skills, processes and experience to achieve specific objectives related to the acceptance criteria of projects, and within the agreed parameters is called project management. All successful businesses and organizations have projects, but for them to succeed, they must be managed properly. The final deliverables in project management are constrained to a budget and timeline. Project managers must ensure the success of the project within the set timelines and the available resources. The factors that aid the successful completion of projects are called critical success factors. Critical success factors refer to activities an organization must do to meet the stated business or project goals to improve performance. Organizations rely on these factors to decide what they will focus on for successful results. Identifying critical success factors is part of effective project management because organizing a project to support these factors leads to positive short and long-term project outcomes based on thoughtful consideration. The successful completion of projects, large or small, requires the alignment of critical factors that include the identification of project requirements, diligent planning, defining critical milestones, utilizing project tools, setting goals and objectives, having a competent team and encouraging open communication.
Identification of Project Requirements
The first thing that a project manager needs to promote success in their project is to give it a strong foundation. This requires identifying all the requirements of a project, and ensuring that stakeholders understand all its expectations. Secondly, based on the requirements, they should build a plan based on its requirements and available resources. Based on the different projects that businesses have, some requirements may be new to them. Before embarking on a project, the manager should ensure that the team has adequate training to minimize mistakes and misunderstandings throughout the project (Costantino, Di Gravio & Nonino, 2015). Additionally, with project requirements, stakeholders in all the departments are provided with one vision and a set of goals. This ensures that every stakeholder understands the requirements and gains realistic expectations regarding the final product.
All project stakeholders are responsible for devising project requirements. Without the input of each individual, the project may lack all its appropriate qualities. The primary stakeholders involved in generating the project requirements are marketers, business managers, mechanical, electrical and software engineers, manufacturing development, quality assurance, manufacturing field service, service management, customer end user representatives and customer service personnel. With each department member contributing to project management, they will have a common understanding of the project outcomes.
The benefits of devising project requirements are that the project will have a cleaner design and fewer defects. Also, identifying the primary requirements will reduce the reworking of projects and mitigate the technical risks before the final product. As the project undergoes all the stages in its development cycle, having all the requirements will reduce costs and the time required to achieve the end product will increase.
Diligent Planning
Planning is one of the most critical success factors of a project because it is an organization's best defense against the challenges that lead to its failure. First, planning minimizes the stress associated with a project. According to a study by El Touny, Ibrahim and Mohamed, H. H. (2021), the project failure rate for companies is 70%, and planning helps reduce the challenges associated with all its associated activities. Without a plan, team members are confused about their responsibilities and roles. Project managers must comprehensively map and organize the goals of the project, schedules, tasks and resources before assigning roles or beginning to execute any plans. Stakeholders can avoid all the challenges that lead to project failure with a diligent plan.
Planning also saves money because a project that is poorly planned can lead to delays, glitches and unnecessary extra budgets. Without a plan, projects may gradually grow in cost, due to changes and unforeseen circumstances. One common way to save money on projects is to negotiate better deals with vendors. This is achievable by working with vendors to get the lowest prices on quality materials and services. Reducing costs in projects is also achievable by improving efficiency through streamlining processes, investing in better technologies and tools, and eliminating wasteful practices. Therefore, planning ensures the best use of resources because it is among the key components of project planning.
Through planning, managers can make it easy to track project goals and outcomes. When a project's goals and objectives are well-defined, it allows stakeholders to translate them into quantitative success measures. For example, if an organization plans to launch a new project, one of its objectives is to generate 1000 sales in the first two months. The project leaders and managers must monitor the goals and determine if they are measurable over the project's course. After attaining the results, they execute the project according to them. Thus, tracking project goals and outcomes is an important part of the planning process because they help determine its true performance.
A plan ensures there is a strategy for how changes will be handled such as a scope budget and the implementation dates. The project plan should be in place to deal with challenges such as a team member quitting their job in the middle of the project or running out of resources. Planning includes a proper strategy to get through strict deadlines and communicate with the team on when and how to review the plan since team members are important contributors to the delivery of a successful project.
All project planning requires support from the organizational and client management, because it adds value to the organization, and makes it easy to solve problems. If any of the management does not see the project’s value, they will be reluctant to support it. With managerial support lacking, the people and funding resources may not be available for the project. Also, if an organization has multiple ongoing projects, the management may offer limited support, primarily if the project has more challenges that make its chances of failure high. Management has a significant role to play in the success or failure of a project, and lacking support leads to failure.
Defining Critical Milestones.
Another critical success factor in projects is identifying the defining moments throughout the project. Projects have various phases such as initiation, planning, execution and closure. In the initiation stage, the managers gather all requirements and understand what they are expected of. In the planning stage, the managers gather a project team and discuss the different possibilities of how to proceed with enacting the project. In the execution stage, the project team works on the decided plan and understands all the tasks they need to prioritize their tasks accordingly so that they can meet deadlines. Lastly, the closure stage entails ending the project on a high note, with all the stakeholders being satisfied with the outcome. For better project execution, project managers should perform evaluation tests at every stage, and ensure that the team exceeds expectations at each.
The above milestones are critical because they help teams focus on the major points of progress in the project because help the managers with planning projects and scheduling them. The milestones break the project into smaller, manageable parts to make the project easier to execute. By marking the critical milestone points, team members and project managers can track important steps in the life cycle of the project and understand better what they need to do and when. Milestones are also crucial because they help in estimating project costs and minimising the wastage of money. They help in developing an appropriate project budget.
Project Management Tools
Tools in managing projects are critical for any organization regardless of size because of their role in the provision of a comprehensive project management system. The tools aid in the reduction of risks and cost control for ongoing projects (Lee & Shvetsova, 2019). They are also important in planning project tasks and all activities in the project cycle throughout its period.
Project tools include network diagrams, the critical path method, the work breakdown structure, Gantt charts, and evaluation and review techniques. Network diagrams are useful in project planning, and are also referred to as arrow diagrams. They consist of arrows that offer direction for various project activities, allowing them to choose what they should prioritize. When project managers want to determine the total project duration, they define four dates for every task, ensuring that it is completed during the estimated timeline. The critical path method assesses and monitors a project's progress in real-time to ensure accurate completion. This ensures that managers remain more vigilant due to the knowledge that the slightest mistake can derail the project.
The most practical way to devise requirements for the projects is the work breakdown structure. The structure breaks down every main project topic and allows at least five sub-content levels. The statement in each requirement should have one of three commands; should, shall and may. The commands determine how important implementing the requirements is for the project to fulfil the function for which it was intended. In the breakdown structure, the requirements containing "shall" must be included, "should" will be included in the project manager's time, and "may" will be considered in the future.
Gantt charts visually represent all the tasks rela...