Project and project management success. Exploring criteria and factors that drive to the success - The Swiss Case

Purpose - The concept of Project Success often creates misunderstanding in the Project Management culture, and a generic and global definition still does not exist. The study, started in November 2016 by the faculty of Project Management of the University of Applied Science of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI), aim to assess if the Swiss companies do evaluate the success of their projects and what are the most important criteria and factors that they retain for their valuation. Further, the study explore the general perception of project success linked to two concepts often confusingly intertwined: Project Management Success and Product Success by asking the Swiss companies if they believe that project management success is the equivalent of the project success itself. Design/methodology/approach - The study is based upon a research study conducted by the Dr. Morteza Shokri-Ghasabeh and Kamyar Kavousi-Chabok (WSEAS Transactions on Business and Economics; (ISSN: 1109-9526)) of the University of South Australia in which they analyze and classify the most important Project and Project Management success criteria (PSCs) and factors (PSFs) according to the literature. Following that study, a multilingual and modelled questionnaire was designed. It has been translated in three different Swiss national languages, German, Italian and French so as an English version. The electronic form has been deployed and submitted to the Swiss enterprises, working and operating in different sectors on the territory. The following knowledge area are the subject of the questions: time, cost, quality, scope, communication, risk, change, HR. management and procurement. For each area, the questions focus on basic project management process. The questionnaire focus also on the perception of the project success versus project management success and some statistic data on the rate of the project that succeed in comparison with those who not. Originality/value - As far as today the Project Management research literature and the widely diffused Project Management methodologies lacks of a globally accepted framework on how to evaluate and what does it mean the concept of Project success and Project Management success. The study will provide a general overview on which are the most important success criteria and factors for the Swiss companies when evaluating their project and the project management performance. Practical implications - This study will be the base for the institution of a Swiss Permanent Observatory for evaluating and improving the capability in project management by means of a variety of tools and initiatives. The observatory will follow up this survey every 2 years.