My view is a project is only a success if all stakeholders are happy at the end. To succeed, you therefore need to:
1. Know who all the stakeholders are
2. Know what they expect
3. Come up with a plan to satisfy 2
4. As you go along, and you see reality differs from 3, you must either change 2 or change 3, or a bit of both.<p>A PM&#x27;s job is expectation management.  Delivering on expectation will most of the time include having to change the expectation to match the reality at the end of the project.  It&#x27;s usually easier to change expectations earlier rather than later, and also by not saying &quot;no&quot;, but rather by saying &quot;let&#x27;s rather do this&quot;.