Overview Success Criteria and Critical Success Factors in Project Management

This paper covers a thorough overview of project success, project success criteria and critical success factors for projects. There is no consensus among researchers of what constitutes projects success. Also considering that a project is successful or a failure, depending exclusively on whether it meets or fails the criteria for time, cost and quality is outdated and it’s the narrow view, also in fact criteria for project management success. The surest way to perceive project success is examining its alignment with strategic organizational objectives. In order to achieve both project management success and project success it is important to identifying project success criteria and critical success factors at the initial stage of a project. Sustainability is becoming a critical topic and attracting researchers in recent years. The traditional criteria clearly put the emphasis on economic aspects and the social and environmental pillars get less attention because companies survival in the long-term depends on their ability to be profitable. The harmony between economic, social and environmental are required in project management. The purpose of this chapter is mainly to investigate the criteria for measuring the success of a project and the key factors of project successes, which practitioners can make use of to eliminate failures and thus improve project success.