Jan 2, 2008

Hierarchy of Objectives

Project success is defined in terms of meeting project objectives.  One example of an objective is meeting the project schedule.  If the project meets that schedule, then the project is a success.  What makes things tricky is that projects have more than one objective.  The project is required to meet this schedule, but within this budget, and without having any scope left behind. 

Besides the traditional constraint triangle, there are other objectives: ensuring the project team is happy, ensuring the the project stakeholders are happy, etc. 

Not all of these objectives are equally important. Some are more important than others.  That is why team members are asked to work on weekends rather than letting the schedule slip.  That is why team members are often asked to work without extra pay -- to ensure the project budget is not exceeded.

In a project, it would be helpful to prepare a list of objectives and rank them in order of decreasing importance. That way, all objectives are kept in mind, yet at the same time clear which objective is more important. 

The list might best be kept private.

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