I would define a successful project as one that has all its tasks completed. In the medical device industry, this can often be releasing a product to market. The project itself is always set up to complete a certain goal. Defining the success of the project should be fairly easy. Risks that may prevent project success should be defined early on. A good risk plan will have strategies to deal with various scenarios.

One thing that can impact project success is cost. It takes money to run a project. The revenue that the project will generate may not be seen for some time. Delays to the project may affect operating costs and make the project financially unfeasible.

I agree with the comment above. Success can certainly be defined by the completion of all tasks but as stated, success in not equal. The success of a project could be many different things including simply completing all tasks, all phases going as planned, making equal to or more than revenue anticipated, and many more. As stated above, even if the project fails, there’s still success in the lessons learned and knowledge obtained that may be useful for future projects. By this definition of “success”, there’s a high percentage of success in project management whether it is success of the project or the takeaways. 

I think in terms of "success" we want to consider all projects as successful whether they were seen to full completion or not. Ultimately, a project should yield some sort of learning or value to be applied to other projects. I myself have seen projects that particularly did not seem "successful" at the completion (poor feedback, lots of issues) but there were lots of learnings that came from those projects that were then applied to improve various other areas of the company. Even if a project does not go to completion due to roadblocks or other issues, I think there is still worth in the research and information that went into that project. A project can only be defined as unsuccessful if nothing is to be gained from it.

I strongly agree with the second half of your question, that a successful project is not only one that has successfully met all the predetermined criteria for the product. With the healthcare field, having a product fail and not meet the criteria can be just as beneficial as if it did meet the criteria. Most advancements in the medical device field occur by improving upon past devices and learning from failures. While it may not benefit the company having a product not be successful, their work could have paved the road for future projects that can take the results from the project and implement it into future products. I believe that this can be considered just as much of a success for the field as it would be if the product was successful. I believe that whether a product meets the criteria is irrelevant, because as long as you learn from the project and use the results to make better informed decisions in the future you can consider the project a success.  

I highly agree with the comments above, success of a project can be measured in many different scale. I work in a contract manufacturing company and this is a common and frequent experience for me. We have external clients/customers who can reject the best of the projects turning it into a big "failure"  Sometimes it's for their "change of scope", sometimes for budget, and sometimes for no reason. In this case I wouldn't call it a failure since the work and money that has been put in a project can't just go to waste. We take the same project and develop for internal portfolio or present to other clients. At the very least, a "failed" project educates us of taking right actions and actions to avoid. This failure analysis often leads to even greater successful project resulting in greater revenue. 

A project is successful if it is completed on schedule, if it is within the budget and the stakeholders are satisfied. the success rate is not the measure it is how successful is the Project Manager and what type of track record do they have. That would give a accurate rate of success if the PM is in a PM ratings database.  

In most people's assessment, a successful project would mean all goals and business objectives were met within the timeline and on budget. However, this can be subjective. As stated above, even if a project does not meet all deliverables/objectives, if there are lessons taken from the initiative that will further the organizations/PM's next endeavor, it can be deemed somewhat successful. It seems feasible that maybe by a textbook definition, 45% of projects are successful.

Success rates of projects have many variables. The Project manager can have an effect on it, the ability to get materials, resources, and manufacturing effects it. The allocated staff as well as stakeholders and many other factors that can't be controlled such as a pandemic.

The success of a project is different depending on the point of view in relation to the project. If we are talking about a medical device or drug the overall success for the investor can be viewed on a high level of how much total did we invest to make this project and what is the overall profit from the launch and continued sales from this product. If speaking in relation to the project manger role for the project the success is measured on many levels. The project should be completed on time, on budget, appropriate corrections made along the way, were the participants of the project properly managed, and was risk management included in the processes. If all things were planned and managed correctly then a project can be considered a success.

Posted by: @nk434

This past week, we spoke briefly about closing a project. Closing is important (whether the project is successful or not) in order to be able to continue to the future works. 

What would classify a successful project, and what percentage (guess) of projects turn out to be successful (based on your classification of success)?

I feel as though not all success is equal. If the project worked exactly as expected, then it is successful. If the project completely failed, but yielded valuable information, then it is also successful to some extent. If a project failed entirely, but allowed a new project to be formed, then it could also be classified partially successful in my opinion. 

I recently read that a project is successful when it is completed at a cost equal to the budget that was allocated, it's within deadline, and all of the delivery of the required functionalities were met, and I immediately thought, what if the intended audience doesn't use the product or doesn't know how to use the product? Is the project successful if the output isn't used- even if the project was completed at cost, met the deadline and all of the functionalities were met. That doesn't seem like success to me. A successful project would need to meet the three elements of budget, deadline and functionalities and the users should know how to apply it and actually use it.

I feel a project is successful if it completes the task in the dedicated period of time. Completing more in shorter period of time is even more exceptional though not required at all. However a project that may not have completed its task completely can also be deemed successful in the long run if they properly document and share their learnings as to avoid repeating those mistakes again in the future. It also helps ensure other projects don't lose time on mistakes because they are able to learn from yours. Although that specific project may not have been able to meet the deadline, it saved a lot of other projects from missing theirs as well. 

Usually, the success of a project can be dependent on various criteria and can be evaluated on three levels such as result success, project completion success, and development success. The industry in which your business operates, your business itself, and the goals you have in mind will all affect the project success criteria. Nonetheless, they might be the quantifiable conditions or elements required for a project's effective conclusion. The project deliverables and the project benefits serve as the basis for the project success criterion. Project's success can be measured using some criteria as mentioned below:

1. Scope: This relates to the objectives established for the project and the outcomes anticipated after completion. To decide if the success criteria were satisfied or not, you must investigate the project and assess whether the goals were achieved within the allotted time.
2. Budget: Here, meeting project deliverables and finishing the project within the budget allotted to determine the project's success. It would be better if you assessed how financially successful your enterprise is. Comparing your projected budget to your actual spending can help you achieve this. Also, if there are any variations, you must be able to explain them.
3. Team satisfaction: Ask your team for comments to learn if they were satisfied with the project, the way it was handled, and the outcome. As they were actively involved in the project, they have a deeper understanding of it than anybody else. Their motivation to complete the job will also depend on how they feel about it.
4. Quality: here, the project should not only meet the required deliverables but also need to exceed the defined expectations. One must provide the best quality and even more extra by making certain alterations where required. One can also use management practices to measure the project’s success.

A majority of users defined success as the successful completion of the project; they focused more on the internal industry team’s perspective of success. From a business perspective, factors such as adoption of use, investment return, market share, and customer satisfaction are indicative of product success. Rather, I am more focused on the product’s launch. As a business, medical device companies define their success through the success of the product launch. Building awareness of the newly launched medical device allows for its adoption of use, and increased sales performance.