An Approach to Increase the Sustainability of Projects and their Outcomes in Public Sector through Improving Project Definition

Abstract

The pressure to incorporate sustainability principles and objectives into policies and activities is growing, particularly in project management. A successful project cannot disregard any of the three triple bottom line (TBL) sustainability pillars (economic, social and environmental). Stakeholders representing each of those pillars have to be satisfied to a certain degree in each successful project, even if the way of balancing the three pillars varies depending on project type. Project definition is of primary importance for the proper addressing of stakeholder expectations during the project, and thus for project success. The problem is that project definitions in practice are not written in a way which would guarantee a sufficient degree of project sustainability. However, the hypothesis can be formulated that a systematic analysis and modification of project definition can increase the degree of project sustainability, and thus the degree of project success. That is why we propose here a method of checking and improving existing project definitions in order to improve the chances of project success through increasing the satisfaction of the stakeholders representing the three TBL pillars. The method is based on a careful identification of missing and ambiguous information in a project definition and on correcting it on the basis of TBL stakeholders’ opinions and preferences. These preferences are modelled, wherever possible, by means of fuzzy sets, in order to provide a systematic, formal measurement of sustainability degree in TBL sustainability pillars, represented by project stakeholders. The method’s use and potential advantages are illustrated by means of two real world projects. The initial verification of the method allows us to formulate the hypothesis that analysing and improving project definition may considerably contribute to increasing the sustainability degree of projects, and thus to their success.