By Dr. Harold Kerzner
June 24, 2026
Decades ago, success in project management was defined as completing project management activities within the three constraints of time, cost, and scope. Today, the two most important words included in the new definitions people are using include “value” and “stakeholders.”
In the newly released 8th edition of the PMBOK® Guide, the following words appear:
- Success appears almost 100 times including “successful” and “successfully”
- Value appears about 200 times
- Stakeholders appear about 380 times
Value and stakeholders are now included in most definitions of success. However, companies are differentiating between project outcome success and project management success.
The definition of project outcome success is different for contractors than for customers and stakeholders, especially in the meaning of value.
- For contractors. project outcome success is the creation of financial value (i.e., profits) and future opportunities.
- For stakeholders, project outcome success is measured by business value received from the contractor’s products and services and frequently measured by value-in-use.
The definition of project management success, which many contractors and stakeholders are using, is now the development of a lifetime partnership between the contractor and the client.
With the above definition of project management success, contractors must be willing to use flexibility, adaptability, and tailoring efforts to customize their processes, tools, and techniques to be aligned as closely as possible to those of their clients as well as their clients’ business models. This helps create continuous trust and close collaboration between contractors and stakeholders.
The definitions above for project outcome and project management success are already being used by companies worldwide and could become standard definitions when the 9th edition of the PMBOK® Guide appears in the future.
Many companies are now adopting their own definitions for project outcome and project management success to build global long-term project management strategic relationships. The processes, tools, techniques, and templates we use are quite often selected based upon our definitions of project outcome and project management success.
So, what are your definitions that you would like to share?
