Identifying critical success factors in defense development projects: A multivariate analysis

The main goal of this article is to identify managerial variables that are critical to the success of defense projects. This study analyzes 110 defense projects executed in Israel over the last 20 years. Some 400 managerial variables were collected, and 20 measures of success derived for each project. Multivariate analysis is employed to account simultaneously for the diverse attributes of projects' success. The major results of this study are: (1) in the military environment, the more urgent is the perceived need for the project's output, the greater is the project's chance to succeed; (2) the customer follow-up team has a major role in determining project success - especially important are the team members' professional qualifications and sense of responsibility for project success and the stability of key personnel; (3) defense projects are often technologically challenging; proven technological feasibility at the start of a project is critical to its success; (4) attention to design considerations (produceability, quality, reliability, and design to cost) in the early phases of development are critical to project success; and (5) the professional qualifications and team spirit of the development team are highly correlated with success.