How to review the communications project effectiveness

Measuring and evaluating the success of a communications project once it’s brought to completion is a valuable project management practice. These two processes provide a learning opportunity for future undertakings, and, the opportunity to evaluate the true effectiveness of the project. In order to have a complete view of what took place in the project, a number of objective as well as subjective criteria need to be considered.

The term ‘success criteria’ are the guidelines by which the project will be judged. These evaluate whether the project was successful in the eyes of your stakeholders. In addition, they’re just as important as the requirements of the business are.

Principles of effective review

Communicate Quality

The end of a project phase is the optimal time for a quality review. This is because, at this time, you can check on both the quality of your project management practices as well as the project deliverables.

A quality review can assist you with evaluating if what you are doing meets the standards that are set down in your quality plans. It is best find out this out – sooner rather than later –  as it might be too late to do anything when the project has progressed too far.

Communicate Costs

Many members of the C Suite would rate cost management as one of their highest priorities on a project. This means that evaluating how the project is doing financially is crucial. Compare your current actual spend with what you had budgeted at this point. If there are variances, look at explaining them. You can utilise a project dashboard to check your actual spend in real-time.

Communicate Stakeholder Satisfaction

Your wider team – as well as your stakeholders – are vital in getting much of the work done. This means that so it’s worth touching base with them. Ascertain how they are feeling about the project at the moment and what you could be doing differently.

Scope

This is the planned result of a project and what is needed to bring it to completion. To get a real gauge of your project’s success you need to determine if it achieved its objectives within the given framework.

Schedule

This is easy enough to measure as well as to understand:

• Were you able to reach your milestones on time?
• Was your project delivered on time? If it wasn’t, how late was it?

Budget

Were you able to deliver your project within budget? Was it over budget or under budget? And if so, by how much? Your ability to produce your project within budget is generally considered to be one of the greatest indicators of success.

Team satisfaction

This aspect is more subjective in nature and it is often overlooked when evaluating the success of a project. Team satisfaction needs to be your number one success criteria. Your team are the ones who were deep in the trenches. They’ll be the who’ll help you on the next project and they will also have more profound insights that even the top stakeholders may not possess.

Customer satisfaction

Get feedback from your clients:

• Are they happy with the results?
• Did you meet their needs?

Find a method to track client satisfaction during the project life cycle.

Quality

The goal of any communications project isn’t only to deliver the intended work but also to exceed expectations. It’s important to track quality and adjust where necessary. Even after the project is handed in, quality assurance is often an ongoing piece of the project management puzzle.

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