Project Success Factors

The work of Murphy, Baker, and Fisher (1974), using a sample of 650 completed aerospace, construction, and other projects with data provided primarily by project managers, remains the most extensive and authoritative research on the factors contributing to project success. Their work has been cited and used in the majority of subsequent research papers concerning project success. Ten factors were found to be strongly linearly related to both perceived success and perceived failure of projects, while twenty-three project management characteristics were identified as being necessary but not sufficient conditions for perceived success (Baker, Murphy, and Fisher 1988).

Important work was conducted on project success factors in the 1980s, notably by Pinto and Slevin (1987, 1988) and Morris and Hough (1993). Both studies draw on the research of Murphy, Baker, and Fisher (1974) and have been regularly cited in later work. While Morris and Hough (1993) drew primarily on literature and case study analysis of major projects, Pinto and Slevin (1987, 1988) based their findings on the opinions of a usable sample of 418 PMI members responding to questions asking them to rate the relevance to project implementation success of ten critical success factors and four additional external factors (Slevin and Pinto 1986).

Further studies aimed at identifying factors contributing to the success, and in some cases the failure, of projects (Ashley, Lurie, and Jaselskis 1987; Geddes 1990; Jiang, Klein, and Balloun 1996; Zimmerer and Yasin 1998; Lechler 1998; The Standish Group 2000; Whittaker 1999; Clarke 1995, 1999) used methodologies similar to that of Pinto and Slevin, with findings based on ratings or in some cases rankings of success factors by project personnel, general managers, or other professionals. Beale and Freeman (1991) identified fourteen variables that affect project success from a review of twenty-nine papers. Wateridge (1996) identified eight most often mentioned success factors from a review of literature reporting results of empirical research relating to information system (IS)/information technology (IT) projects.

Using the ten critical and twenty-three necessary success factors identified by Baker, Murphy, and Fisher (1988) as the starting point, the findings of the twelve other studies listed above were analyzed and compared. Similar factors were grouped and then ranked according to the number of times they were mentioned across the thirteen studies. Factors receiving the least number of mentions were progressively grouped with the most directly related factor receiving a higher number of mentions, and the factors re-ranked. This procedure was conducted iteratively, resulting in the emergence of twenty-four success factors. Rankings were based on the number of mentions identified over all thirteen studies, and calculated separately for those studies relating primarily to engineering and construction projects (n = 7) versus IS/IT projects (n = 6) and for those studies conducted pre-1995 (n = 6) and post-1995 (n = 7). This was done to see whether there was any change in the results concerning the most mentioned project success factors across industries, and with the development and more widespread adoption of project management. The year 1995 was adopted as the break point as reports published prior to that date primarily related to studies conducted in the 1980s. The results of this analysis are shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Project Success Factors Identified in the Literature—Ranked by Frequency of Mention

All studies (N = 13)	E & C (N = 7)	IS/IT (N = 6)	Pre-1995 (N = 6)	Post-1995 (N = 7)
Planning (Integrative)	Planning (Integrative), Stakeholder Management (Other), Team Development	Strategic Direction, Team Selection	Planning (Integrative), Technical Performance	Communication, Monitoring & Controlling (Integrative), Organizational Support, Planning (Integrative), Strategic Direction, Team Selection
Monitoring & Controlling (Integrative), Team Selection, Technical Performance	Communication, Leadership, Monitoring & Controlling (Integrative), Monitoring & Controlling (Risk), Technical Performance	Monitoring & Controlling (Integrative), Planning (Integrative)	Leadership, Monitoring & Controlling (Integrative), Stakeholder Management (Other), Team Development	Leadership, Monitoring & Controlling (Risk), Stakeholder Management (Client), Team Development, Technical Performance
Communication, Leadership, Strategic Direction, Team Development	Organization Structure, Organization Support	Communication, Leadership, Organizational Support, Technical Performance	Communication, Monitoring & Controlling (Risk), Organization Structure, Strategic Direction, Team Selection	Decision-Making & Problem Solving, Organization Structure, Project Definition, Task Orientation
Monitoring & Controlling (Risk), Organizational Support, Stakeholder Management (Other)	Administration, Decision-Making & Problem Solving, Planning (Specialist-Time), Project Definition, Stakeholder Management (Client), Strategic Direction, Task Orientation, Team Selection	Monitoring & Controlling (Risk), Organization Structure, Project Definition, Stakeholder Management (Client), Team Development	Administration, Organizational Support, Planning (Specialist-Time), Project Definition	Administration, Planning (Specialist-Cost), Planning (Specialist-Time), Stakeholder Management (Other)
Organizational Structure	Closing (Cost), Closing (Integrative), Monitoring & Controlling (Cost), Monitoring & Controlling (Scope), Monitoring & Controlling (Time), Planning (Specialist-Cost)	Administration, Planning (Specialist-Cost), Planning (Specialist-Time), Stakeholder Management (Other), Task Orientation	Stakeholder Management (Client), Task Orientation	Closing (Cost), Closing (Integrative), Monitoring & Controlling (Cost), Monitoring & Controlling (Scope), Monitoring & Controlling (Time)
Project Definition, Stakeholder Management (Client)		Closing (Cost), Closing (Integrative), Decision-Making, Monitoring & Controlling (Cost), Monitoring & Controlling (Scope), Monitoring & Controlling (Time)	Closing (Cost), Closing (Integrative), Decision-Making & Problem Solving, Monitoring & Controlling (Cost), Monitoring & Controlling (Scope), Monitoring & Controlling (Time), Planning (Specialist-Cost)
NB: Not all 24 literature-derived factors are listed here. See Appendix A for a full listing of literature-derived constructs and their relationship to Performance Criteria from the Australian National Competency Standards for Project Management.

In conducting the analysis, the importance of planning, monitoring, and controlling at the integrative level, rather than the detailed levels of specialist scope, time, cost, risk, and quality planning was a strong and interesting result, with monitoring and controlling of risk being the only specialist area to be mentioned within the top three ranking categories. Stakeholder management (other) encompasses stakeholder issues external to the parent and client organizations, including environmental and political issues, and it seems intuitively correct that this would rank highly for the success of engineering and construction projects. The increase in mention of communication, strategic direction, and team selection and decrease in importance of technical performance, post-1995, are of interest and appear attributable, at least in part, to the application of project management beyond its strong engineering and construction origins.

With the possible exception of organizational support, organization structure, and team selection, the factors identified in Table 1 call directly upon the competence of the project manager. Although organizational support is a factor that can be addressed by people other than the project manager, a competent project manager could be expected to understand that support of the organization is required to enhance the likelihood of project success and use interpersonal and other skills to achieve it. Similarly, the competent project manager can exert influence over the way in which the project team is structured and how it relates to the structure of the parent organization and others. Team selection draws together factors relating to capability and experience of the project manager and team for the project and is therefore a factor that is directly concerned with project management competence.

This review of research-based literature concerning project success factors therefore clearly demonstrates agreement that the competence, or knowledge, skills, and attributes, of the project manager, are critical to project success.