Conflicting Perceptions of Project Success and Failure Relationships: A Systematic Literature Review

Engineering managers use the terms “success” and “failure” to direct actions across a project. This systematic literature review maps project success and failure relationships and definitions to understand how the terms are operationalized in factors and criteria research. Conflicting relationships and definitions observed within the 211 sources are novelly identified. Notably, many sources were found to not include natural language definitions of success and failure. The subjectivity and contradictions found in this study suggest that ignoring perceptions of failure and success as a source of complexity can lead to miscommunication or misaligned efforts. Implications for practitioners from the literature review findings are provided along with research needs identified from the analyses for researchers.