There is always a discussion about what does it mean to have a successful project. Here's a sample from the Department of Energy External Independent Review (EIR) Standard Operating Procedure (SOP).
Before having any discussion around "success" of a project - most importantly an IT project - where is the definition of success in units of measure meaningful to thye decision makers. Not the developers, not the Scrum master, not the outside observers. The Decision Makers.
If there is no such thing, then the project can be called a success or a failure depending on your needs for success or failure.
This is the Root Cause of why reports like Standish are simply of no value for those decision makers.
