There is a discussion on LinkedIn that asked "How do you define project success?" The suggestion there are two dimensions of project success - product and process seems a bit narrow and absent any domain or context. PMI defines a narrow "project management success," and not the products success. The original poster wants us to include the product success in the measure. This of course assumes the "product" under the control of the project manager.
This topic is fraught with conflicting domain based definitions and world views. Construction, BioPharma, space and defense, IT, public works, political processes, educational services all have different "outcomes" that would be used to define "success."
For success to be recognized we must have Units of Measure meaingful to the decision makers. Without those as the starting point, all other discussion is pretty much platitudes.
One starting point in the Defense domain is the Probability of Program Success site. Start there, see if there is anything that can be used in your domain.
