What Actually Makes Projects Succeed

Audience: project managers, leaders of PMs, and anyone who works with project teams who wants to sanity‑check the fundamentals.

If you manage projects—or manage the managers—this guide tells you, in under 10 minutes, exactly which questions to ask to confirm the right fundamentals are in place. Skip the buzzwords; here’s a short checklist to confirm the basics are actually in place.

I’ve led and audited enterprise projects for years and recently interviewed dozens of PMs—many with long tenures and PMP certifications—who still weren’t executing the basics consistently. That’s not a dig; it’s a reminder that busy teams drift from fundamentals unless leaders make them explicit.

Those fundamentals are the classic project triangle: scope, budget, and timeline (with quality as a guardrail). Think of it as a three‑legged stool—change one leg and at least one of the others must adjust to keep balance (Adobe: triple constraint explainer). Ignore any leg, and the project tips.

1) Start with clear requirements and estimates

Begin with explicit requirements: a blueprint/spec, a backlog of user stories with acceptance criteria, or a feature list. Then break them down and estimate. Your estimates won’t be perfect (they never are), but having no estimate leaves you with no baseline. Estimation creates the first cut of a plan and schedule, which you’ll refine as you learn.

Create a simple schedule appropriate to your context: sprints and milestones for agile/hybrid; a milestone/Gantt plan for waterfall. The format matters less than the fact that you have time‑phased intent you can measure against later. Even Agile teams forecast sprints based on historical throughput; a rough plan beats flying blind.

Practical tip: require every user story or task to have an estimate (story points/hours) and a definition of done. Unknowns get a spike story. No estimate = not ready.

A healthy project doesn’t just do work; it measures work. The most common gap I see—even with seasoned, certified PMs—is weak progress tracking. Without it, you’re managing by vibes. As one guide puts it: without project tracking, you’re essentially flying blind (Project tracking overview).

Use a burn‑down or burn‑up

A burn‑down chart shows work remaining vs. time. A burn‑up shows work completed rising toward the total scope. Either gives you an instant sense of trajectory: are we finishing on time if we keep going like this? For a concise overview, see Atlassian’s note on sprint burndown and what it reveals about scope creep and predictability (Atlassian: Scrum metrics — sprint burndown). For a plain‑English definition, Forbes explains burndown as a simple graph of work remaining over time (Forbes: What is a burndown chart?).

Burnup:

Ideal line (blue): straight line from total work to zero by target date. Work measured in points or hours.
Actual line: your measured work completed each period.
If Actual is below Ideal, you’re trending late; if above, early.

Track velocity

Velocity is your team’s throughput—how much work it finishes per sprint/week (story points or hours). Treat it like a speedometer for planning and forecasting (Atlassian: Velocity in Scrum). After a few periods, use the average to project timelines: if ~50 points per sprint remain and average velocity is 25, expect ~2 sprints—assuming scope doesn’t grow.

Don’t forget defects & unplanned work

Log defects and change requests as first‑class scope. Estimate work related to bugs in advance, include them in the burn chart, and factor them into velocity. If 20 hours of bugs arrive weekly, that’s 20 fewer hours for features unless you add capacity, push the deadline, or reduce scope.

Weekly ritual: update burn chart → recalc velocity → re‑forecast date → review scope changes → communicate.

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3) Keep the triangle balanced: scope ↔ timeline ↔ budget

The “triple constraint” is simple: when scope changes, either time or cost (or both) must flex to keep quality and success intact. That balance is the heart of delivery (Adobe: triple constraint explainer). Project managers who “lock” all three at once invite failure; good PMs renegotiate one when another moves. See a complementary treatment here (ProjectManager: triple constraint primer).

Scope discipline

Are all SOW commitments explicitly mapped to backlog items or tasks that finish by the end date? If not, address it now—either schedule them, or process a formal change. Mid‑project, do a SOW → plan reconciliation to avoid last‑minute surprises.

Budget awareness (even for fixed‑fee)

Even on fixed‑price contracts, insist on exact dollar figures. Two numbers should be ready at any status review:

Current budget variance ($): planned spend to date vs. actual spend to date (e.g., “$18,450 over”).
Forecast at completion ($): projected total cost vs. approved budget (e.g., “tracking to $418,450 on a budget of $400,000”).

Track these internally every week; they’re standard cost‑control KPIs (Asana: cost variance formula; ProjectManager: budget variance). If 60% of time has elapsed but 80% of budget is spent, act now: de‑scope, add funding with approval, or protect margin by adjusting plan. If you don't, both the magnitude and the urgency of the problem will increase.

Timeline as a living plan

Treat the schedule as dynamic. When the burn chart and velocity indicate slippage, update the plan and communicate options: de‑scope, add capacity, move the date, or some blend. Conversely, if you’re ahead, pull work forward or create buffer. The point is not to “hold the line” on a bad plan; it’s to keep a realistic plan and make trade‑offs explicit.

Sanity‑check questions for PMs and PM leaders

Ask these on any project review. Clear, data‑backed answers mean the fundamentals are in place.

Progress visibility: Can I see a current burn‑down/burn‑up? It should show outstanding work, throughput per period, and whether we’re on‑track for the target date.
Budget variance (exact $): Where do we stand financially—under, on, or over? Report an exact dollar figure now (e.g., “$22,750 under”) and a dollar forecast at completion. Track it even if the client isn’t billed by the hour
Customer sentiment: How is the customer feeling right now? Delivery metrics ≠ success if the client is unhappy. (Related: my article, Why Your Customers Aren’t Buying More.)
Scope coverage (read the SOW): Has the team actually read the SOW line‑by‑line and tied every requirement back to backlog items? Are those items estimated and visible on the burn‑down/burn‑up, and scheduled to complete by the end date? If anything is missing, is there an approved change or a documented deferral?
Trust but verify (non‑delegable for leaders): If you’re an organizational leader or engagement manager over multiple projects, you must speak directly with the customer sponsor on a regular cadence—don’t rely solely on internal status. A brief alignment call surfaces mis‑expectations early (Project tracking overview).

Putting it all together (verify, don’t assume)

Don’t ask “Are we doing this?” Go see it. On every active project:

Open the SOW; map each requirement to a backlog item and due date.
Pull the current burn‑down/burn‑up; confirm scope lines up and the trajectory hits the date.
Check velocity trend; re‑forecast completion using the average.
Review defects/new work intake and ensure it’s included in totals.
Demand exact $ variance now and $ forecast at completion.
Join a customer check‑in this week; confirm sentiment and alignment in their words.

If any of these artifacts don’t exist or numbers are vague, you’ve found your highest‑leverage fix.

TL;DR (bookmark this):

Respect the triangle — keep scope, budget, and timeline in balance.
Plan, then measure — estimates + schedule → burn chart + velocity.
Include defects & new work — treat them as scope, not afterthoughts.
Demand exact dollars — report $ variance now and $ forecast at completion.
Read the SOW & map it — ensure every commitment is estimated and on the burn chart to finish.
Leaders: speak with the customer directly — don’t delegate this.
Related: Why Your Customers Aren’t Buying More.

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