{"id":27497,"date":"2017-06-02T11:39:47","date_gmt":"2017-06-02T06:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/?p=27497"},"modified":"2024-05-16T17:43:35","modified_gmt":"2024-05-16T12:13:35","slug":"pmp-acceptance-success-criteria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/blog\/pmp-acceptance-success-criteria\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Acceptance Criteria vs Success Criteria in PMP Certification?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Let\u2019s first focus on understanding what are acceptance and success criteria from a project perspective and then delve into its differences. Clear communication plays the key role in defining both acceptance and success criteria. As per PMBOK5 \u201cAcceptance criteria are a set of conditions that is required to be met before deliverables are accepted\u201d.<b><i><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Success Criteria on the other hand is more of project management practice where success factors like cost, schedule, customer satisfaction, cost benefit analysis, ROI etc. are evaluated.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/blog\/project-management-certifications-2017\/\"><strong>Top 10 Project Management Certifications in 2017<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/project-management-professional-pmp\/pmp-practice-tests\/\"><strong>1200 Practice Questions on PMP\u00ae Exam Simulator<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Acceptance Criteria<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Acceptance criteria are part of the work to be done and is used to evaluate the deliverables. Once the deliverables are accepted at each stage of the project, the project officially moves to the next stage. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Acceptance criteria are part of the requirement document and the project scope document. \u00a0Acceptance criteria are more of a set of statements or in other works checklist which should be answered with clear Yes\/No or Pass\/Fail and is applicable for functional and non- functional requirements. \u00a0It has been observed many times that the team end up writing the acceptance criteria post the development work. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-IN\">This will only ensure whether the product is working fine. But the goal of having acceptance criteria is more to do with meeting the user requirements and expectations. Different organizations follow different formats to write the acceptance criteria. Basically it should contain the given condition, action being done and the consequence of the action.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Some of the examples of acceptance criteria are:<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span lang=\"EN-IN\"> <\/span><span lang=\"EN-IN\">If a user is able to submit the filled form in a website.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"EN-IN\"> <\/span><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Whether a particular financial transaction is completed.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"EN-IN\"> <\/span><span lang=\"EN-IN\">User is able to order a particular thing over an e-commerce site.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"EN-IN\"> <\/span><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Invoice is created for a particular order. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-IN\">The above examples do not discuss how the functionality is done and talks more on what is to be done and it is more likely to be at high level. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Acceptance criteria bring everyone in the project, including the stakeholders on the same page and thus removing any ambiguity in the requirements. Acceptance criteria should be testable. \u00a0Before we say a user story or a requirement is done, all the criteria should be met or fulfilled. \u00a0These have to be written and agreed upon by all the stakeholders before the development starts.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Success Criteria<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Success criteria are more of an introspection to check how well the project has been executed in terms of ROI, cost benefit, profit margins etc. Measurable criteria can be established at the beginning of the project which will define the project success rate later. Measurable criteria would have both qualitative and quantitative aspects of the project. \u00a0The scope of the success criteria is larger compared to acceptance criteria as one is done at stages and other at the overall project level. The target audience for both are different <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-IN\">The scope of success criteria has been changing since its inception. The scope was limited to the implementation of the functionality, meeting the deadlines, maintaining the cost etc. The scope has been increasing since then to have quality metrics also to be part of it. The success criteria would be judged from the eyes of the stakeholders.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Few examples for the success criteria are:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span lang=\"EN-IN\"> <\/span><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Whether the customer is happy<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"EN-IN\"> <\/span><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Did we deliver on time and within budget<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"EN-IN\"> <\/span><span lang=\"EN-IN\">How well it helped the client to expand their business <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"EN-IN\"> <\/span><span lang=\"EN-IN\">How reliable and available the system is<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"EN-IN\"> <\/span><span lang=\"EN-IN\">How secure the system is.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-IN\">The project charter should have the success criteria defined in terms of<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span lang=\"EN-IN\"> <\/span><span lang=\"EN-IN\">How are you going to measure the success criteria<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"EN-IN\"> <\/span><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Who is going to measure the success<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span lang=\"EN-IN\"> <\/span><span lang=\"EN-IN\">When and how often it should be measured. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Success criteria can be measured in a simple yes\/no approach or with more descriptive method. Yes\/No is a very discrete way of measuring where we say if the particular activity is done or not. Descriptive or continuous measures are for a range of values which vary with time and are always better over a period of time. We can take the leaf from some of the successful projects from the past to draft out the success criteria for the current project. It has to be as simple as possible without any jargons. \u00a0Go through the success criteria \u2018N\u2019 number of times to make sure it is readable, not ambiguous. Split the criteria wherever required to remove ambiguity.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Some projects have Key performance indicators or KPIs which help in measuring the project performance against the success criteria to help us know where we stand at any given time. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-IN\">In the real world, most of the projects fail. It is easy to call the project as failure when we don\u2019t know how the success looks like and the definition of success is not discussed or documented.\u00a0 If success criteria are not defined, it is difficult to say on what ground the project failed. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span lang=\"EN-IN\">How do acceptance criteria differ from success criteria?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Based on our understanding of acceptance criteria and success criteria from the above discussion we observe <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-IN\">\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/AccpCriteria.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/AccpCriteria.png\" alt=\"Acceptance criteria vs Success Criteria\" width=\"548\" height=\"340\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-27499\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/blog\/pmp-certification\/\"><strong>ULTIMATE GUIDE for Preparing PMP\u00ae Certification Exam PMP\u00ae <\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<li><span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/project-management-professional-pmp\/pmp-online-course\/\"><strong>Self Study Training \u2013 Project Management Professional (PMP)\u00ae Certification<\/strong><\/a> \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Conclusion<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Having a clearly defined acceptance criteria and success criteria would benefit the team in achieving success with clearly understood vision by all the people involved in the project. And this can be achieved by proper project planning and clear communication. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-IN\">Clear and crisp definition of these criteria\u2019s is important and it ensure right evaluation. In absence of these criteria project will always suffer in its evaluation. It\u2019s something like, work is accomplished but team and management struggling to identify whether it\u2019s acceptable or not and whether it\u2019s successful or not. This is the very reason why these criteria is required.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-IN\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let\u2019s first focus on understanding what are acceptance and success criteria from a project perspective and then delve into its differences. Clear communication plays the key role in defining both acceptance and success criteria. As per PMBOK5 \u201cAcceptance criteria are a set of conditions that is required to be met before deliverables are accepted\u201d. Success Criteria on the other hand is more of project management practice where success factors like cost, schedule, customer satisfaction, cost benefit analysis, ROI etc. are evaluated. Top 10 Project Management Certifications in 2017 1200 Practice Questions on PMP\u00ae Exam Simulator Acceptance Criteria Acceptance criteria are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":95269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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Goyal","author_link":"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/blog\/author\/sparsh\/"},"uagb_comment_info":9,"uagb_excerpt":"Let\u2019s first focus on understanding what are acceptance and success criteria from a project perspective and then delve into its differences. Clear communication plays the key role in defining both acceptance and success criteria. As per PMBOK5 \u201cAcceptance criteria are a set of conditions that is required to be met before deliverables are accepted\u201d. Success&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27497"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95802,"href":"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27497\/revisions\/95802"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whizlabs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}