Project Management Strategy

This document discusses project management strategy and the criteria for determining project success or failure. It also analyzes the importance of project scope and provides recommendations for project success.

Running head: PROJECT MANAGEMENT 1
Project management strategy
Student’s name
Institution
Date

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Executive summary
Setting up a successful project may turn out to be a very difficult task if the management is not
conscious and keen on the management process of the project. The project success will always
call for an active and close administration and monitoring until it’s done to ensure that it
succeeds. The aim of drafting this document is to deliver a report on what success or project
failure is and the criteria in which a project will be identified as a successful or failed project.
Further, I will discuss the factors that will lead to project success or failure.

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Table of Contents
Executive summary.........................................................................................................................1
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Iron triangle criteria.........................................................................................................................1
Critical identification and justification of the criteria......................................................................2
Critical analysis of project scope.....................................................................................................3
Planning...........................................................................................................................................
Control.............................................................................................................................................
Closing.............................................................................................................................................
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................4
Recommendation.............................................................................................................................4
Reference.........................................................................................................................................4

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Introduction
During a project initiation phase, the management plans on how various activities will be carried
out successfully, also the management sets a time limit and the budget or any resources that the
project will need in its operation. However; the completion of the project within the time limit is
not guaranteed, and therefore some factors may lead to delayed completion and exceeding of the
budget. These are but few of the possible failed projects. Even if the project return is
exponentially higher than expected and it faced the above failure it will be regarded as a failed
project. Another type of a failed project is the one that has been completed on the expected time,
and the budget, but the return expected has not been realized (Coronado, RB& Antony, 2002).
In this context, I will discuss the success of the Gotthard Base Tunnel project of Switzerland, the
tunnel construction took around twenty years, and it was officially opened on 1st June 2016. This
is the longest tunnel in the world of an estimated length of 57 kilometers. The use of the tunnel is
expected to reduce the time of travel by an average of 45 minutes. These will increase the
convenience and frequency as well as the safety of transport.
Iron triangle criteria
Iron triangle model for the determination of a project success determination, work in
consideration of three criteria; the timeline, the estimated budget and the scope of the project.
The model gauges and measures the success or failure of the project depending on whether the
project was completed within the time, and the budget and whether the project meets the desired
scope. Basically, the project has two ends of consideration, the project management team, and
the client. The management may classify the project as a successful one, but the client zero it

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down if it does not meet the scope desired. Also, the administration may view a project failure
for not having finished it on time and budget, but the client has a view of it as a successful one.
The iron triangle explains that altering with one criterion of the project will automatically have a
need to adjust all the other criteria if all the other factors that affect the project remain constant.
According to the project management team, the project is said to be successful if its completion
is within the time scheduled; this implies that any project that exceeds the expected finish time is
a failed project in the iron standard criteria. It worth to remember the prevalent notion that; time
is money. If the management has an urge to have the project complete before the scheduled time,
then an additional cost on the budget will be a no exception. If the budget can’t be adjusted, then
the scope of the project must be reduced to ensure the project completion is realized at the
expected time. Altering the scope of the project implies that the project will not be able to meet
the initial requirements, that is; if the project was a transport route construction, and the scope is
reduced to suit the time limit, likely the route will either be incomplete or does not meet the
desired quality. Successful projects must be completed within the budget according to the
management stand. The iron triangle explains that if the project completion is not realized within
the budget, the project is simply a failure. It will therefore call for the client to cheap into the
pocket to fund the project. If the budget of the project is reduced, it will call for an increase in the
time of the project submission or reduction in the scope of the project. The budget increase of the
project will enable the management to hire more human resource and machine; this implies that,
the project may be complete before the estimated time.
The third component of the iron triangle is the scope. When the customer wants a certain project
done, he has to give all the details of the project and its features as well as the budget of the
project and the time limit. In case the features of the project are reduced implies that; the time

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limit of the project will be reduced and also the budget of the project will have to be reduced. On
the other hand, if the project scope is increased, then the time limit will have to be increased.
Likewise, the budget for the project will also need to be improved. It is important the
management to keep in mind that, the most important thing is to meet the client’s requirements.
Completing a project that does not meet the clients need on or before time will be of no
significance. Also if the project was done on the budget and it does not meet the scope, the client
will see it as just a wasted resource.
Critical identification and justification of the criteria
Project success has no straight definition; the success is defined in several criteria’s, if the project
has been completed in time, then the project can be said to be successful. In another approach,
then if the project is completed within the budget of the scope, the project is said to have been
completed successfully (Duncan, WR 2004). In a third case is on the scope of the project. The
project is therefore said to be successful if it was completed at any given time and it meets the
need of the customer and it meets the desired specification and qualities is therefore said to be a
successful project.
To the above effect, the client must clearly define the specific criteria for the project; he must
give clear guidelines on the time limits, budgets and the performance of the project. He also must
develop and align these criteria in an appropriate manner.
The most appropriate criteria for the project success identification is the scope; that is, the project
has the capability of attaining its purpose intended. The objective idea of setting and initiating
any project is to serve the intended purpose. The Gotthard Base Tunnel project of Switzerland
took about twenty years to complete; however, this did not stop the project from attaining the

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intended purpose of reducing the time of transportation between the two points covered by the
tunnel (Davis, 2013).
Despite taking long, the Gotthard Base Tunnel project of Switzerland have also moved the
transport industry to another level, the frequency of the movement also increases steadily every
day. All these criteria are under the scope. The tunnels objective was increasing the rate of traffic
flow between the two points joined by the tunnel.
The project was a capital intensive one, but the purpose and the scope were to create a transport
route across the mountain, this implies that in the long run, the return on the project is
exponentially high in comparison of the budget of the project. This is simply because of the
success of the scope of the project is the backbone of the project rather than the budget or the
timeline of the project. The scope of the project and its purpose and ability to serve the
requirements of the is more crucial in the long run to be considered as the vital measure for
success rather than the short-lived criteria like the budget and the time limit.
The client may increase the scope of the project in order to meet the intended purpose; the whole
implication of this will lead to tampering or other criteria of the set amount of various resources,
for instance, the time the project is expected to complete. If the Gotthard Base Tunnel project of
Switzerland increased the scope or the size of the tunnel, the project could take a proportional
increase in time, implying that the project will take longer than 20 years (Cleland, DI & Ireland,
2004).
The cost of the project will also exceed the budget of the project; therefore; the client will be
forced to incur an extra cost. For our case, if the Gotthard Base Tunnel project of Switzerland

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wanted to increase the scope of the project. This means the cost of the project will increase
proportionally to the change in the scope of the project.
Critical analysis of project scope
Scope of the project refers to the functionalities and the deliverables of the project; it is,
therefore, the objective of setting up any project. Project scope therefore requires;
Planning
The scope of the project must be well planned to ensure that the project requirement of the
project. Gotthard Base Tunnel project of Switzerland involved identification of transport
problem across the mountain. This gives the project the purpose or the intention of initiating the
project. The planning panel should be very conscious to ensure the project will be able to meet
the intended purpose on completion. Leaving any detail out in the planning of the scope may
lead to the omission of important features of the project and it will. Therefore, it will not have
adequate capacity to serve its purpose, and hence it will be a failed project.
Control
Defining or planning the project scope is not enough is the managing body will not control the
project to ensure the scope is considered as the main player of the project. The controlling
process involves the documenting track of events, scope creeping as well as approving and
disapproving of the parts of the project where the need may arise.
Closing
The scope of the project is closed after ensuring that all the requirements of the project are met
and the time limit and the budget of the project is clear and achievable. This is ensured by having
defined the needs of the project and the objectives that are to be met.

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Conclusion
To sum up; the most important part of any project especially the projects that are expected to be
effective and give long term solution to a certain problem is the scope. In other criterions the
scenarios the project may be regarded as a failed project despite generating high returns, but it
was not finished on the defined timeline. Also, the project may be said to be a failure if it was
completed on time and it generates high returns if the budget of the project has been exceeded
(Atkinson, 1999).The classification of the project as a failure or success of the project is
determined by consideration of two sides of the project. One end is that of the client or the
customers while the other end is that of the management.
The management is likely to refer a project as failed if he is unable to deliver the project on the
designated timeline or the budget. Although this may make the client refer to the project as fail,
the return on the project may compensate on this in the long run. The client will always refer to a
project as a success if it meets the desired requirements.
Recommendation
It’s therefore recommended to use the iron triangle standard of determining the success or failure
of the project is standing out one. The most important part of the project is the scope. It is
important to note that if the scope of the project is not met, then the project will not meet its
intended purpose at any given time, however, if the cost of the project exceeds the budget, the
incurred cost can be recovered from the return of the project in the long run. Also, if the timeline
of the project is exceeded, the management may view this as a failure, but if the scope of the
project is met, the client may not incur a heavy expense or cost on the same. The biggest

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recommendation is emphasis on the scope of the project, it is important than any other factor of
project development.

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Reference
Atkinson, R 1999, ‘Project Management: cost, time and quality, two best guesses and a
phenomenon, its time to accept other success criteria’. International Journal of Project
Management, vol. 17, no. 6, pp. 337-342.
Cleland, DI and Ireland, LR 2004, Project manager's portable handbook, 2 nd edn., McGraw-
Hill, New York.
Coronado, RB and Antony, J 2002, ‘Critical success factors for the successful implementation of
six sigma projects in organisations’, The TQM Magazine, vol. 14 no. 2, pp. 92 – 99.
Davis, K 2013, Different Stakeholder Groups And Their Perceptions Of Project Success,
International Journal of Project Management, accepted 5 th June currently in press, JPMA-
01512, pp. 1-13.
Duncan, WR 2004, ‘Defining and Measuring Project Success’, Project Management Partners,
viewed 16 March 2017.
Mir, FA and Pinnington, AH 2013, Exploring the Value of Project Management: Linking
Project Management Performance and Project Success, International Journal of Project
Management, accepted 14th May currently in press, JPMA-01545, pp. 1-16.
Thomsett, R 2002, Radical project management, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.