Success Management Theory

Figure 1. Facets of success (Varajão et al., 2022)

Figure 2. Success Management Process II (Varajão et al., 2022)

The Success Management Theory focuses on defining, leveraging, and securing the success of endeavors by gaining a comprehensive awareness of what is valued by stakeholders to achieve success and manage according to such understanding.

The Success Management Theory proposes that it is not enough to evaluate the accomplishments and impacts of an endeavor only at its end and only from a single perspective — success needs to be understood by considering the perspective of all stakeholders and must be continuously potentiated along the course of an endeavor (taking into account all the success facets - figure 1).

At the core of the Success Management Theory lies the Success Management process (figure 2), which aims to provide individuals and organizations with a clear, shared, and continuously updated picture of what success means in the context of their endeavors and the success levels being achieved in those endeavors by taking into account the evolution of the dimensions of success over time and the perspectives of all the relevant stakeholders.

The main objective is to enhance and secure endeavors’ success at maximum levels by acting accordingly.

Originating authors

Varajão (2016), Varajão (2018), Varajão et al. (2022)

Seminal articles

• Varajão, João (2016). "Success Management as a PM Knowledge Area – Work-in-Progress". Procedia Computer Science. 100: 1095–1102. doi:10.1016/j.procs.2016.09.256. hdl:1822/43858.
• Varajão, João Eduardo (2018). "A New Process for Success Management – Bringing order to a typically ad-hoc area". The Journal of Modern Project Management. 5 (3).
• Varajão, João; Magalhães, Luís; Freitas, Luís; Rocha, Patrícia (July 2022). "Success Management – From theory to practice". International Journal of Project Management. 40 (5): 481–498. doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2022.04.002. hdl:1822/79264.

Articles that use the theory

• Takagi, Nilton; Varajão, João (2019). "Integration of success management into project management guides and methodologies - position paper". Procedia Computer Science. 164: 366–372. doi:10.1016/j.procs.2019.12.195. hdl:1822/66418.
• Takagi, Nilton; Varajão, João (25 January 2022). "ISO 21500 and success management: an integrated model for project management". International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management. 39 (2): 408–427. doi:10.1108/IJQRM-10-2020-0353.
• Pires, Cátia; Varajão, João (2025). "IT Outsourcing Success Management". Procedia Computer Science. 256: 472–487. doi:10.1016/j.procs.2025.02.143. hdl:1822/92666.
• Takagi, Nilton; Varajão, João (10 December 2025). "Fundamental guidelines for integrating success management into standard and custom project management methodologies". International Journal of Organizational Analysis: 1–22. doi:10.1108/IJOA-05-2025-5499. hdl:1822/102003.
• Takagi, Nilton Hideki; Ventura, Thiago Meirelles (2025). "Avenue to project success: A decision scenario based on the success management approach". Case Studies on Project Management in Practice. pp. 74–85. doi:10.4337/9781035311279.00013. ISBN 978-1-0353-1127-9.
• Takagi, Nilton; Varajão, João; Nascimento, José Carlos (3 February 2026). "Contributions to optimizing project success management through knowledge management practices". VINE Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems. 56 (1): 287–304. doi:10.1108/VJIKMS-03-2024-0096.

External links

TheorizeIT This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

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