Overview

Background

Scope

Objectives

Deliverables

Benefits

Success Criteria

It is essential to make sure as far as possible that stakeholders share a common understanding of how they will determine whether this project is successful. Ideally these success criteria should take the form of some clear and definable business objectives. The business objectives define the overarching goals for the project. It doesn’t matter if the project delivers to specification on schedule and budget if its deliverables don’t align with business success.   Some examples are: - the swimming pool will open to students for start of term 2014/15 - the revised store layout will increase sales by at least 20% in the year following installation - the new gym will enable PE provision in local primary schools to be increased by 2 hours per week - the new transport infrastructure will enable a reduction of 40% in town centre car park spaces - the community centre will achieve at least 80% satisfaction ratings in the annual residents survey For any new service, including the IT components,  typical success criteria may include: - delivery by a particular date - delivery within a budget target - delivery of key functionality required by end users - % usage in target audience - target volumes of transactions processed - realisation of cost savings - compliance with legislation - user satisfaction - achievement of a target service levels such as availability or performance These goals should lead to specific project success criteria which are measurable, attainable, relevant  and time-bound i.e. SMART. Where a project has multiple success criteria it will often  be useful to prioritise these. Not all of the success criteria can be top priority at all times and the project may need to make trade-off decisions to ensure that the most important success criteria are met.