Learn about ways to evaluate project success.

Hello, and welcome to our impactful projects

and Planning series.

I'm Jami Yazdani.

In today's session, we'll talk about ways

to evaluate project success.

So what is project success?

How do we know that a project has been successful?

So is it if we have delivered everything we've

promised?

Is it if our users or clients are happy with

and can actually use what we've delivered?

Or is it if the team worked well together

and different voices were included?

So project success can mean a yes to all of

these questions, and more.

So one of the first steps in evaluating project

success is understanding what success means

for your organization, and your project.

Some common measures of project success in

mission driven environments include that the

project and project deliverables are completed

on time and under budget, which may also mean

meeting grant or other funding requirements

that the promise deliverables meet established

quality measures, and that the deliverables

are usable, and users are satisfied with them.

For many projects, we also want to consider

whether the deliverables are sustainable.

So did we create a program or service that

we can maintain?

What are the long term impacts on our community

and our users?

We may also want to consider the project itself.

So did we plan well, to include all relevant

stakeholders?

Did we create a collaborative working environment

that meets our organization's values?

As a project manager, it's often on us to

determine which of these measures are relevant

and important to our project.

Only then, are we in a position to evaluate

project success.

So let's dive into some of these measures.

And I'll share three ways we can evaluate

project success.

So one way is something called Earned Value

Management or EVM, which is a common practice

and project management for evaluating success

during the project timeline.

So now before your eyes, glaze over EVM is

actually much simpler than it sounds, it's

a big name for what is really a simple concept.

And so essentially, EVM involves setting a

baseline for your project scope, schedule,

and budget, and measuring progress throughout

the project against those baselines.

So it's really just about monitoring whether

your project stays within scope, is completed

on time.

And within budget.

Part of EVM.

Best practice includes that If changes need

to be made to your scope, schedule, or budget,

you have a formal process for making and then

communicating those changes.

And so I've done a whole session in the past

on project scope.

But with EVM in mind, we essentially set our

baseline during project planning by having

a written scope statement that clarifies our

projects purpose, we monitor our project to

avoid scope creep, making sure we aren't exceeding

scope by adding deliverables, features or

elements.

And if we do have to make changes to our scope,

we rewrite our scope statement and communicate

the new scope to our team and stakeholders.

Similarly, with schedule, our baseline is

our project schedule with those key deadlines

and milestones.

We monitor these throughout the project to

avoid delays.

And if we need to make changes to the schedule.

Again, we want to document those changes and

communicate that.

Same with project budget.

I recently did a session on budgeting that

offers a lot more information on creating

and tracking project budgets.

But our baseline is just that estimated budget.

We track our spending throughout the project

and we document and commute communicate any

changes.

So do note that EVM goes beyond just setting

a plan or baseline and monitoring progress.

It also asks that we document changes and

communicate those so it's clear Where we've

deviated from our plan.

The idea with EVM is that you can chart what

you expect from the project, monitor how the

project is performing against those expectations,

and anticipate future performance.

So many project management tools will allow

you to set baselines for your schedule and

budget.

And because the tool is already helping you

monitor progress, it can show you how far

off your baseline or your plan you actually

are, and what that might mean for future performance

and the project.

Now, for a great many mission driven projects.

This level of reporting may not be necessary,

but Earned Value Management is still important

to consider when evaluating project success.

At its core.

EVM is about making sure we are monitoring

project progress, so that we can mitigate

any delays or problems and make changes to

our plan as needed.

So planning for and paying attention to scope,

schedule and budget are usually critical to

project success.

And so they are a way of evaluating project

success throughout the project timeline.

Another way to evaluate project success is

by establishing quality measures for your

projects, deliverables.

What quality measures to use will depend on

your project and deliverables of course, now

for many projects, a quality measure might

be a key element or feature that must be included

in a deliverable or deliverables.

There might also be industry standards, government

regulations, acceptance criteria that the

deliverables must meet.

Or we may be planning to test our deliverables

with users and get their feedback.

As an example, for a project to develop training,

we may assess our training materials deliverable

by a list of topics the training must cover.

We may also assess the training materials

and our delivery methods against accessibility

standards.

And we may plan to do an attendee satisfaction

survey after a demo training session to measure

satisfaction with the training.

So for many mission driven projects, these

quality measures may be part of your funding,

or grant requirements.

If there are quality measures that are commonly

used to assess project deliverables in your

organization, I recommend creating a quality

assessment template.

So this could be a simple checklist or rubric

to help your project managers determine how

project deliverables meet standards, criteria

or regulations.

If you typically assess quality by gathering

user stakeholder feedback, sample surveys

or forum questions could also be shared as

a template as well.

Another way to evaluate project success is

through Project retrospectives.

And so, Project retrospectives are debriefs

involve considering what went well during

a project and what didn't to determine are

lessons learned so that we can apply those

lessons to other projects, and initiatives.

While there are a lot of approaches out there

to conduct in retrospectives often recommend

that project teams and key stakeholders at

least consider the following questions.

So first, what did we set out to accomplish?

So what was it that we were planning to do

when we started this project?

What did we actually accomplish?

So what was it that we ended up doing?

What went really well?

So what were the things that went exactly

as planned?

What was really easy?

What were our successes during the project?

And finally, what would we do differently

next time.

And so this question often leads us to what

didn't go so well.

So points of failure or delays, miscommunications

or ineffective planning.

Sometimes the things that didn't go well,

were outside of our control, and we couldn't

have planned for it.

But often, there are things that could be

improved if we were doing this project or

a similar project.

Again, Project retrospectives can be useful

tools for evaluating project success.

But we don't have to wait until the end of

a project to conduct a retrospective.

We can use project retrospectives during the

project.

So at the end of project phases, or iterations

to help us evaluate success when we can still

make changes.

So creating a culture of continuous improvement.

If we use standard templates for Project retrospectives,

and document and share those lessons learned

across our org conversation, we can also begin

to evaluate our project environment as a whole,

so that future projects are better and formed

and manage.

While project retrospectives help us consider

the past, they're actually very forward thinking,

nudging us toward how we can improve future

projects, and collaborations.

So that's a really quick introduction to three

ways we can evaluate project success across

the project timeline, we can use Earned Value

Management, or EVM.

To set a baseline monitor progress, and forecasts

the future of our project scope, schedule

and budget.

We can also measure the quality of our deliverables,

and we can conduct retrospectives during an

after our project.

If you'd like ideas for conducting a project

retrospective download our simple project

retrospective worksheet.

This free download is available at Yazdaniconsulting.com.

Resources.

If you need more hands on support, leading

and evaluating projects, visit our project

solutions page at Yazdaniconsulting.com projects

to learn about how we can help.

Great, so I'm happy to take any questions

you have about evaluating project success,

please add them in the comments.

I'm going to give folks a few moments to add

their questions.

There's always a bit of a streaming delay.

If I'm not able to answer your question live,

I am happy to respond later.

In the comments, you can also find all of

the ways to contact me at Yazdaniconsulting.com.

Contact.

So do please reach out to me if you'd like

to talk about projects.

Okay, so a question is I noticed that some

of the ways to evaluate success may occur

after a project and surveys sustainability?

What's the responsibility of a project manager

for what happens after the project?

And so this is a really great question.

While a project manager may not necessarily

be accountable for what happens after a project,

and I do think it's something we absolutely

want to consider, especially in nonprofits

and other mission driven environments.

If the project is creating deliverables folks

are going to use or we're designing programs

that will be ongoing, we really need to be

thinking about what happens after the project.

As we are planning for the project.

Beyond kind of delivering quality deliverables,

we may want to include training or documentation

or some kind of handoff process.

As a deliverable in our project, we may be

in a position to recommend assessments or

surveys that folks can use after the project.

Okay.

Another question is, how do we balance the

need for project evaluation, things like retrospectives

and surveys with the ethical considerations

of working with vulnerable populations?

So this is a really complex question that

probably deserves a more complex answer than

I have time to give here.

But I would really start with thinking about

why you want to evaluate Project 60s, are

you doing it to make sure that the project

deliverables are usable and valuable?

Is it to improve future projects, both are

valid, both are kind of best practice.

But my instinct is that we probably want to

be really careful about burdening folks who

aren't being paid with the latter type of

evaluation.

And so I do think, including users and user

input throughout a project, so not just waiting

till the end, can really help us make sure

that our deliverables are higher quality and

that they're usable.

And that's probably a better use of time and

kind of only manage measuring satisfaction,

and asking folks to give us more time at the

end of a project.

So great.

I would love to hear your thoughts on any

of these topics.

Feel free to comment or reach out with any

additional questions, or even share your experiences.

So thank you for participating in our impactful

projects and Planning series.

Visit Yazdaniconsulting.com/IPP to view all

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