Getting Clear on Success Criteria

Shalane Williams, 05 December 2019

You’ve commissioned the build of a brand-new CRM, replacing an existing system or upgrading your older version of CRM. It’s been delivered, everyone’s excited to use it but how do you know it’s been a success?

Being on time and on budget is a project manager’s goal and a measure of project success. However, I don’t believe this should be the key criteria to measure the business success of a CRM implementation.

The definition of success will be different for everyone. However, just like having a *SMART goal, a success criterion should be measurable. A couple of examples include:

1. X% increase in overall productivity
2. Improved efficiency of how certain things are done, e.g. reporting

The measures of what success looks like must be defined at the beginning of a project. Usually this is defined in the business case, but I’ve found that these tend to be high level, such as:

1. Products are fit for purpose and meet or exceed user expectations
2. The project delivers the solution as soon as possible

There is an opportunity to flesh these out further during the analysis and design phase with the functional consultant/business analyst. One of the key benefits is that during our development and testing, these will be kept front of mind ensuring that the solution is fit for purpose. This, in turn, will reduce the likelihood of significant changes being raised during UAT which could impact the overall timeline and budget.

Working as one and having clear objectives ensures we’re moving towards the same goal and success becomes more than just a feeling!