If you are in a 100 m sprint, you probably want to know exactly where the finish line is. That finish line is pretty important for determining your success. The same holds true for that stretch sales quarter target number. It is important that your performance numbers get to that stretch target as your compensation may be materially increased by meeting and exceeding it. You could say that everyone agrees to what success looks like, and gets to work.

Surprisingly, lots of digital signage projects stumble when that simple question is proposed; what does success look like?

For vendors that primarily sell and install hardware, success might just be the customer sign off and the last invoice balance payment. From a client perspective, there could be as many different answers to that question as there are people in the meeting, and that lack of alignment is bad for your project.

In order for any project to be considered a success, there needs to be a clear plan to measure the difference between what performance is now, and the improvement desired (as well as a method to measure both meaningfully). Without this, success is simply impossible and all parties end up frustrated.

-bj