Project success index for capital facility construction projects

Project management researchers have often measured the effect that specific inputs have on project success. However, the concept of project success is complicated and there is no consensus as to how it should be measured. The research community and project management practitioners need a simple and direct measurement for project success that is based on objective measurements and can be used on projects of different types and sizes. This paper discusses a research project that utilized the data collected from completed projects and telephone interviews to develop an index designed to measure the success of industrial project execution. This index is comprised of four variables: budget achievement, schedule achievement, design capacity, and plant utilization. This success index has been validated using three separate research projects with different data sets and data collection methodologies. Despite the complexities involved in measuring project success, a measurement can be developed that is based on objective project performance and this measurement can be successfully used to compare projects of different types and sizes in order to improve the quality of the constructed facility.