What is a Project Success Criteria?
Project success is multi-layered and must be defined before delivery starts: project management success (scope, schedule, cost, quality), product success (does it work, is it used), and business success (did the value arrive). The layers can diverge famously — on-time flops and late triumphs both exist.
The modern exam's stance: success is measured against agreed success criteria and realized value, not the iron triangle alone. If nobody wrote the criteria down at initiation, every stakeholder is carrying a private definition — and at closing, all of them get to be right.
Worked example
The Sydney Opera House ran 1,300% over budget and a decade late — project-management failure by every metric — and became the most valuable building its country ever constructed. Meanwhile, countless systems ship on time and on budget into disuse. A charter that states its success criteria ("adoption above 80% by month 6; payback within 3 years") decides in advance which story the closing report is allowed to tell.