Fortune, Joyce; White, Diana: Framing of project critical success factors by a systems model, in: International Journal of Project Management, Vol. 24 (2006), No. 1, pp. 53-65.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2005.07.004
How much overfitting does a model need? Fortune & White reviewed 63 studies on critical success factors of IT projects. And they identified 27 of them, the picture shows the success factors and in brackets how many publications were finding proof for it.
The Top-5 are: (1) Senior management support, (2) Clear and realistic objectives, (3) Strong/detailed project plan kept updated, (4) Good communication/feedback, and (5) user/client involvement.
Furthermore Fortune & White identify the 9 sub-systems typically found on an IT project and they sort the success factors accordingly. Nevertheless, DeMarco’s question (posted earlier in this blog) pops back into my mind: If only one thing succeeds – what should it be?