Project Success Sliders

What if your project is “successful” on paper, but fails the business, the users, or the team?  In this episode of Seven Consulting’s Delivery Playbook, Seven’s Thought Leader, Rob Thomsett introduces one of Seven Consulting’s most powerful internal frameworks: Project Success Sliders.

For decades, project success has been defined by the iron triangle of time, cost, and scope. In this conversation, Rob explains why that narrow definition is no longer enough — and how it ignores outcomes, benefits realisation, quality, stakeholder engagement, and the human cost of delivery.

 The Success Sliders reframe project success as a negotiated, multi‑dimensional agreement between sponsor and delivery team. Using seven clearly defined dimensions — including time, budget, scope, value, quality, stakeholder engagement, and team satisfaction — Rob demonstrates how sliders expose trade‑offs, predict risk, and prevent hidden compromises before they derail a project.

 Through practical examples, including high‑pressure “death march” projects and real‑world trade‑off scenarios, this episode shows how the sliders can be used as both a risk‑forecasting tool and a dynamic health check throughout delivery.

If you’re responsible for projects, programs, or PMOs, this episode will change how you define — and negotiate — success.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Seven Consulting's Delivery Playbook, where we share the powerful concepts that make Seven Consulting Australia's best program delivery company. In this session, we are talking with Rob Thompsett, Seven's thought leader.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Hi Simone, great to be with you again. Today we're sharing a really powerful tool that really changed how we define successful project delivery for our clients. It's called the Project Success Sliders. And this topic is uh it's just so crucial. For decades, project management has been sort of shackled by this traditional idea of success. The famous Iron Triangle, right?

SPEAKER_00 0:34

You know the one delivered on time, within budget, and meeting all the requirements you first agreed on. That sounds incredibly disciplined though. I mean, if we hit all three corners of that triangle, shouldn't that mathematically define success? Why do we, as project leaders, need to move beyond such, well, such clean metrics?

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Because the triangle only measures the technical outputs. It completely ignores the organizational outcome, and just as importantly, the human cost. Think about it. We have all seen what happens when you perfectly hit time, budget, and scope, but still you fail spectacularly.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Give us those scenarios again. They're such powerful reminders.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Sure, Simone. So the first one is the usability gap. You deliver the solution. It's exactly what was requested, but you failed to engage the key stakeholders along the way, or the quality of the delivered outputs caused significant costs and disruption to the stakeholders using those outputs.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

It goes live but isn't used as expected.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Correct. They either refuse to use it or they use it so poorly that none of the efficiencies you promised ever happen. The perfect product just sits there, you know, gathering dust.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Which means the budget might have been met, but the value from that investment is zero.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Exactly. Scenario two is the benefit realization failure. You delivered the perfect scope on time, on budget, but the business case itself, the whole reason we started the project, was fundamentally flawed.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

It's a hard lesson. Execution can be flawless and still deliver the wrong outcome.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Yes, as none of the financial or strategic benefits the organization was counting on ever came through. You built a technical masterpiece that delivered no payoff.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

That one is a silent killer, isn't it? And then there's a really devastating one, the one involving the people.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

The nightmare scenario.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

The people with all the knowledge, both technical and organizational.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

All the intellectual capital, they resign en masse and go to a competitor. So you succeeded in delivery, but you've just decimated your future capacity to deliver anything else.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

That immediately proves it. Project success has to be viewed through a much, much wider lens. It's not just about that go live moment, it's about the lasting viability of the solution and the team who built it.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Precisely. We did. And just as a quick refresher, the whole of life model insists we evaluate success by looking way beyond deployment. We have to consider things like operational costs, maintenance, and even eventual decommissioning.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

So we needed a simple way to visualize and negotiate these broader definitions of success.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

And that's where we develop the sliders. It's such a clear way to see a really complex trade-off. The core idea is simple. We represent the dimensions of success not as fixed targets, you know, yes or no, but like dimmer switches for lights. They can be off 25% on, 50%, 75%, or fully on.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

And the key is that these aren't set by the project manager in a vacuum.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

No, absolutely not. They are actively negotiated and agreed upon with the sponsor right at the absolute start of the project. This becomes the definition of success for this unique project. And based on our experience here at Seven Consulting, we identified seven crucial dimensions that really define success. We moved well beyond those simple three. We added stakeholder engagement, add value or benefits, quality, and team engagement or satisfaction. And this framework, which is our intellectual property, allows us to manage risk proactively and set projects up for success.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Let's get into the specifics of those settings because the nuances in those quartiles, that the 25, 50, 75% marks, that's where the real operational agreement happens.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Okay, let's start with that first segment, focusing on the initial foundational expectations, sliders one through four.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

So slider one, stakeholder engagement and ownership. How do we define success there?

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Well, the OF position is controversial but sometimes necessary. You see it with purely regulatory projects where the organization just has no choice.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

So what does OFF mean in practice?

SPEAKER_01 5:22

It means we declare sponsor rules. Only the sponsor gets a vote, they make all the decisions, and they just keep everyone else informed.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

That cuts down on communication overhead for sure, but it must increase the organization risk.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Absolutely. Now if we move it to 25%, all critical stakeholders must be engaged. Their vote has to be heard and actively taken into account, but when you push that to 50%, you introduce a huge operational hurdle. Now you're including essential stakeholders and the criticals.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

And that increases the project's risk, its cost, its communications, its change management complexity. Because you've basically doubled the number of people who can veto or delay things. And if we set this to fully on, meaning all stakeholders have to be fully engaged and happy, isn't that just setting the project manager up for guaranteed failure? How do you even measure happiness?

SPEAKER_01 6:18

And that's why we almost never see fully on. It means you're making a commitment to satisfy everyone regardless of their role. It's a massive and frankly probably impossible drain on resources.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Okay, that makes sense. Let's talk about slider two, scope and objectives. The other sliders are tight. Scope is often the lever you have to pull, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Correct. Add off your committing to delivering the minimum viable product.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

So just the absolute bare essentials to get it working.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Exactly. If you have 100 desired features, you're only obligated to deliver the 25 minimal essential ones by the deadline. The rest are explicitly planned for later phases. You do this when speed to market is everything.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

And 25, 50, and 75% are just corresponding percentages of the features?

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Yes, exactly. And fully on is the most constrained setting. It's non-negotiable. All requirements, including the ones that always emerge during the project, must be delivered. That takes away one of the project manager's most powerful tools.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

Okay, slider three is budget. I have to say, I was surprised to learn that a fully off budget is even a viable setting.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

It sounds terrifying, doesn't it? But fully off just means the sponsor is primarily concerned with other outcomes like hitting a crucial deadline or achieving perfect quality. The budget is flexible, you still track the costs, of course, but if you blow the initial budget by 100%, the project is still a success because the main mission was achieved.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

So the cost of being late is way higher than the cost of spending more.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Or, conversely, fully on means fixed budget, period, no more money available. If you need more resources, you have to negotiate a trade-off on scope or time.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

And the middle positions are about building in that contingency.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

That's your room to maneuver. 25% allows substantial room, maybe up to 75% growth in budget before failure is declared. 50% offers a bit less. These are critical negotiations.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

Finally, for this section, slider four, time. Is it always just about deadlines?

SPEAKER_01 8:28

No, Simone, not at all. If the slider is off, the sponsor is prioritizing high quality or deep stakeholder engagement. They're prepared to let the team take as long as it takes to get the perfect solution.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

And fully on?

SPEAKER_01 8:42

That's the terrifying drop dead date. Missing that date triggers massive organizational, commercial, or reputational damage.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

And for the project manager on the ground, that contingency room in the middle settings must be available. What does that 25% flex practically let you do?

SPEAKER_01 8:59

It gives you monumental flexibility. Let's say three months in you realize your chosen technology is failing. 25% flex might give you the 9 to 12 months you need to completely re-platform without technically failing the project.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

50% might give you six months for a less radical recovery. It's all about building in that resilience.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Let's move to the second segment then, dealing with what often drives the project in the first place value, quality, and people. So slider five, add value or benefits. This slider is fundamentally about the payoff, but unfortunately, it's often treated as binary in practice, just on or off.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Why is that?

SPEAKER_01 9:42

It reflects the fact that most organizations really struggle with robust benefit realization. You know, measuring the true impact of their investments.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

So if it's off, what kind of project are we actually running?

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Off means the project is driven by non-financial benefits, things like mandatory compliance, improved safety, and enhanced staff experience.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

But they still have to be measured.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Oh, absolutely. You still have to prove that the staff experience actually improved. Fully on means the project success is measured entirely by hard financial benefits.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

So the difference isn't no value. It's strategic value versus a quantifiable return on investment, hitting a certain dollar figure in savings or revenue.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Precisely. We're talking tangible outcomes that hit the profit and loss statement. Some sophisticated organizations might use 75% to allow a little delay on financial targets, but practically it's cleanest to separate strategic value from hard financial returns.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Next up, slider six, quality. I imagine every sponsor just says they want this at fully on, zero defects.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

They do, and fully on is that best of breed definition. Zero defect, easy to use, secure, built to last, like modern cars with those seven-year warranties. However, we are seeing the fully off position become surprisingly common, especially in really fast-moving markets.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Fully off quality. That sounds like a recipe for immediate operational pain. A ton of technical debt.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

Further, you need to ensure that senior executives understand that remediating the low quality will cost more later.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Right, so 25, 50, and 75% represent reasonable, good, and very good standards in between. And we'll cover the finer points of how to define and measure quality. Attributes such as usability and maintainability in a future podcast.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Absolutely. Now for the final and I think often the most important slider number seven, team engagement or satisfaction. This one is unique because it starts with a default setting.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

And what's that?

SPEAKER_01 12:22

50%. We call it work-life balance. This is the default expectation. It means the team may work hard during intense periods, but the organization ensures they get breaks, time off in lieu, that vacation time is respected, there's a sustainable give and take.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

And the off position, that's the famously grim one, the boiler room.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Yes, Simone, it is. The sponsor is explicitly setting the expectation that the team's feelings are irrelevant. The project may expect burnout. They intend to push the team for sustained periods of time.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

And they have to know that up front.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Everyone on the team must know this expectation from day one. It's harsh, but at least it's transparent.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

I suppose that is better than the expectation of balance just being slowly eroded over time by creeping demands.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Precisely. It sets a clear, if brutal, boundary. Now 25% means sustained periods of hard work with very little chance to switch off. A tough project, but not quite a full boiler room experience.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

What about the high-end? What's the Google or Spotify experience?

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Over 50%. The organization is committing resources to give the team a better than average experience, the best tools, a great environment, time for innovation.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

And fully on.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Very rare and very expensive means a long-term commitment to keeping that team forever. You're investing in them far beyond what's needed for just this one project. You're optimizing for employee retention, not just project completion.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Okay, we've defined the seven dimensions and their critical settings. This is where the true power of the framework really comes in. Let's shift to the final segment, sliders in action. We need to see how these settings immediately reveal risks.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Let's compare those two projects you mentioned earlier, Alpha and Beta. Project Alpha is pretty comfortable. There's substantial room on scope, some flex on time and budget, but high expectations on quality and stakeholder engagement.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Okay, so maybe 75% across the board for the Iron Triangle parts, but fully on for quality?

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Something like that. And Project Beta is the opposite. It's a nightmare waiting to happen. It has a fixed deadline, so time is fully on. A fixed budget, so budget is fully on. It has 75% mandatory scope. And the sponsor is prepared to push the team hard. So team satisfaction is maybe at 25%.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Wow. Just looking at those fully on constraints on time and budget plus the low-team setting, it immediately looks unsustainable.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

It gives you an immediate predictive risk assessment. Project beta is going to be incredibly difficult to manage. It will need far more intense and frequent engagement with the sponsor just to keep it on the rails. The sliders make that risk tangible before day one.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

And the second key use is as a dynamic health check, right? We recommend tracking these regularly, maybe with a red-green indicator in your normal project reporting.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Exactly. So sponsors can see immediately where the project is succeeding or struggling, but relative to the success definition we all agreed on.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

And this is where their dynamic power really shines.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

It is. Imagine Project Alpha is running smoothly, but suddenly there's a critical market shift. The sponsor comes in and unilaterally moves the time slider to fully on, a mandatory fixed date next month.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

That one change immediately imposes massive pressure. You can't just absorb that without compromising somewhere else.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Correct, it forces an immediate negotiation. We sit down with the sponsor and we use the sliders to make a conscious choice. We might say, okay, to hit that date, we have to move the quality slider down from fully on to 50%.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Or if quality is non-negotiable.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Then we have to look at the team's slider. We have to move it down from 50 to 25% and tell the team they're going into a sustained period of high effort.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

It prevents those compromises from being made in the dark. It stops scope creep or date pressure from silently bleeding the project to death by forcing you to see how everything is connected.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

And this is why it works so well. Based on its application across well over 100 projects, we know that rarely are two projects defined the same way. This tool highlights the uniqueness of every single project.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

It helps project managers anticipate, manage, and explicitly negotiate those critical differences before they become catastrophic failures.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

This framework really elevates project success from just a historical report, you know, did we hit the triangle, to a forward-looking negotiated agreement on what getting the payoff actually looks like. It aligns perfectly with our belief in the whole of life model. We also know that sponsors who have used the Success Slider tool really feel that it gives them a higher sense of being in control of their project. I like to remind sponsors that if they don't set the success expectations themselves, using the sliders someone else will.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

It gives the project manager a set of powerful levers, replacing gut feeling with structured, transparent dialogue.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

And since we rarely see two projects with the exact same settings, it highlights a crucial thought for you, the listener, to consider. Project Alpha and Beta were both high stakes but had vastly different risks. So what combination of slider settings would you negotiate to define a truly low-risk project in your organization? Think about how many sliders you could afford to set to off or 25%.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

That's a fascinating constraint to work within. Thank you for walking us through the success sliders today. And look, if these concepts resonate with you, if you're thinking about your own program delivery, PMO, or change management challenges, we really encourage you to get in touch with us here at Seven Consulting. You can find us easily via our website, sevenconsulting.com or on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Our next episode, Simone, number six, will focus on common mistakes and mitigations for modern enterprise resource planning implementations. That's essential listening for anyone embarking on a major business transformation.

SPEAKER_00 18:43

Definitely one not to miss. We look forward to having you join us again soon.