Success in a project can be measured in a number of ways, including completing goals, adhering to schedule and financial restrictions, and pleasing stakeholders. Gaining insightful knowledge or opening doors for new endeavors are some ways to gauge success. Depending on the industry and level of complexity, exact project success percentages might vary greatly, however, some studies indicate that standard approaches yield between 30–40% success. Broader definitions of success, though, might result in higher percentages. Project managers must explicitly identify success criteria and monitor progress in relation to them at all times. Learnings from both successful and failed projects help organizations develop and get better.

While it is easy to constitute a project's success based on if it is completed on schedule, within budget, and whether it adhered to the established scope, there are still many other ways to justify whether a project was successful or not. The first being the quality of the project. In every project, there are specified quality standards that need to met or exceeded in order to satisfy the needs of the stakeholders. Regardless of the project's outcome, if the project's quality is favorable then it will influence the reputation of the business which ultimately leads to more work flow in the future. Another criteria of project success is team collaboration. If the project team is able to work cohesively, communicate effectively, and collaborate to overcome challenges within the project, then that could also be considered successful. While a project may not necessarily meet its expected outcome, having a team that is able to battle challenges promises for success in future projects. As for percentages of project success, it can be hard to proved an exact figure due to varying factors. However, if I were to base it off of my definition of success I would say anywhere from 45-70%. 

I think the success of a project depends on the initial goals set out during project initiation/planning. If the outcomes of the project meet these goals, then the project is successful. If the project is unable to meet the aforementioned goals, then the project should be considered unsuccessful. However, in the real world, "success" is not necessarily as black and white as it may seem. If some goals are accomplished, but a few others are not, should the project still be considered successful? I'd argue that it should be still considered a success because progress was made in achieving all the goals.

The definition of success is definitely not as clear as people believe sometimes. Many times success takes into account many different outcomes and achievements. In other words, if certain things happen along the way or different outcomes could mean some sort of success. Obviously, like what was stated if a project works to perfection and is exactly what is wanted than it is successful, however I think that even if a project doesn't completely meets its goals, but provides a pathway for future innovation and endeavors than it is successful. Failure comes when a roadblock is met and cannot be passed. So, if their is some progress and the project can keep moving forward I think that is successful. I would say a very little amount of project meet all of their goals and are completely successful. However as long as many of the stakeholders needs are met and the scope is mostly followed the project should be successful.  

Overall, I think many projects are unsuccessful and this course has really helped highlight all of the intricacies, knowledge, and skills that are needed to execute a project correctly. Those companies/groups that do take the proper steps with planning and execution are probably the few successful ones. 

Nevertheless, I think you are right about success as a metric can be interpreted differently in certain contexts. For example, if you're a Principal Investigator (PI) in a research lab at an institution, the same project planning and coordination is needed to complete project on time, but the risk is less because most institutional research is federally funded. In this scenario, a set of failed results/experiments is definitely unfortunate, but if they could provide insight into a different solution or approach, then perhaps it was a success and that is the simple cost of innovation. Whereas, if you are part of a startup where success is almost exclusively measured by monetary generation, then a failed project would not be interpreted as successful here, even if they provided insightful potential solutions.

Thank you for your questions. I agree with others. In my opinion, I believe that a successful project depends on so many factors. Initially, projects have different aims and objectives. If the project has 10 objectives and it fulfills 8. then we can not say that this project is a failure. Although, it is not fully successful. However, it is a successful project. Therefore, The success of the project also depends on the complexity of the project. For industrial projects, customer satisfaction is important. suppose the project meets all the objectives. However, the customers are not satisfied with the project. Then we can not say that the project is successful. Therefore, successful terms are very complex. we can not define it clearly. the definition of a successful project may vary. it will depend on the various factors of the project. 

In my opinion a very successful project is one that fulfills every objective perfectly. Also, I think that a successful project is one that is completed within the time limit and within the allocated budget. However, I think a project is also successful if the knowledge gained from this project is applied to improve future projects or processes even if the project does not fulfill all of its original goals.As for the percentage, I'm not sure what percentage a project should have to be classified as successful. However, I assume that the project must be at least 60% complete to be classified as successful.

I think it is always important to do post mortems. From post mortems, you learn what happened, what worked, what didn't work. This will allow you to better approach future projects. This will also help you approach projects that will have a higher chance of being successful, from the beginning. 

I feel like success can be kind of a subjective sense when we try to equate it to a project. When we think of the term in the literal sense, I would categorize success by whether or not the team was able to complete the goals and guidelines that the project asked for. If a team was asked to build a new medical device with specific functions in a given time and was able to do so, then this project would be deemed as a success. However, in a more realistic setting we can use the term success to qualitatively express the device's performance in the world market. The team can do everything that is asked of them but if the device itself is useless or just not a good device then it wont be successful. I think in this context we can say that the project itself is successful with the first definition of literally being completed. I dont think that the team is responsible for the device itself when it goes into the market, especially if they were simply contracted to do the task.

While its difficult to put a number to how many projects are successfully completed in the industry, I remember the lecture mentioning that many projects do not go to completion due to various reasons. Not enough resources, a drastic change in project scope, failed clinical studies causing significant delays in timeline, etc. A successful project is one that is accurately monitored from planning to closing for any deviations to project scope, timeline, or resources. In the closing stage, all the accurate documentation needs to be reviewed and approved before the project is handed over to manufacturing and other departments. If I had to give a hypothesis as to how many projects are successful, I would go as far as to say it would be less than 50%, because the lectures detailed how difficult it is to see a project through from initial planning stage to the closing stage, with some taking as long as a few years.