How do you know when your project has been a success? Surely the measure of success is the one that is defined by the person asking for the project in the first place?

Before we know we have achieved greatness we first need to understand what that person expects the outcome of the project to be and what they would deem as failure or success.

Introducing “Success Criteria”!

Let’s just say we built a hot tub for Bob. How do we know we’ve met Bob’s idea of success if we don’t ask? We think we’ve been successful because a) Bob has his hot tub and b) it works.

As it happens, Bob had a specific idea about his hot tub. He wanted it to produce 40 bubbles per square meter per 30 seconds. He wanted this because it met his requirement of floating his beer in the water without beer spilling into the hot tub.

He also wanted the temperature to always be set to 28 degrees without having to wait for it to heat up.

There are other things Bob wanted for his hot tub – none of them appropriate for this article – but the point is, Bob’s idea of success is now different to ours.

By setting out the success criteria of a project right at the beginning, you know what you’re looking to achieve in your build and the client is happy.

What else?

Luckily, Bob has been quite specific but if you don’t have a Bob, you need to translate their success criteria into SMART expectations. SMART expectations does not mean making an educated guess. No no, just like baking a cake, there’s a lot more to it.