Critical Success Factors & Project Management

A Software Services Company

The Yash Birla Group 7

the project constraints are Critical Success Factors and

which are Political Success Factors, and then deciding

whether to satisfy the Political Success Factor. The

business analyst can lend invaluable assistance to the

project manager in managing expectations by identifying

the political success factors as early as they are voiced or

suggested.

Various researchers have studied different

types of projects and identified the Critical Success

Factors (CSF) needed for successful project

implementation. One of the main Critical Success Factors

associated with project success is top management

support or involvement. Many of the studies even revealed

that top management involvement “is a main ingredient in

the recipe of project success”. In addition, in the survey

conducted by White and Fortune to determine the current

practice in project management, support of top

management ranked 3rd out of 23 critical factors listed.

Top management support is essential in ensuring project

success. Following the research done by Offer it has

concluded that top management support has been

recognized to have positive impact on project success.

However, senior manager should be mindful in providing

their support and involvement. They should not overstep

and implement their own agenda; otherwise, this might

distress the project and project manager. Therefore, it

gives rise to following hypothesis.

Leadership of project manager is

the key success factor for managing

project in an organization

- Abhinav Sabharwal

Business Analyst

Mumbai

Critical Success Factors (CSFs) are those

outcomes that the project needs to deliver so that

everyone appraising the project will agree that it is

successful, at least in terms of delivery. (A critical success

factor may be the time of delivery.) We define the primary

critical success factors by defining the real problem, the

vision, and the acceptance criteria.

There are also those aspects of the project that

are assessed by individuals or groups within the

stakeholder community. These individual stakeholder

expectations, which may be concerned with a part of the

outcome, how the product is developed, or even how the

project is executed, will lead the affected stakeholder to

consider the project less than successful regardless of the

overall success of the deliverable. These aspects are

called Political Success Factors (PSFs). You can solve the

problem perfectly well without satisfying these factors,

however, the stakeholder will not deem the result

successful in his or her eyes.

While you must meet all Critical Success

Factors as a business analyst or project manager, Political

Success Factors are optional, usually based on the

political clout of the individual voicing that factor.

The project manager has two challenges

regarding political success factors: determining which of

Ref: Key Success Factors for Managing ProjectsNader Sh. Kandelousi, Ooi. J., Abdollahi. A

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