Assignment 6 (Due: December 30, 2009, before 01:00pm)

Identify and discuss the steps for "critical success factors" approach? (at least 1,500 words)



In every company or organization, as we all know they have imposed a mission in which describe why it exist or its purpose and where it in-tends to go, in short it serve as a road map to an organization. The mission reflects the organization’s unique values and vision. Achieving the mission takes the participation and skill of the entire organization. This should be internalized by each and every staff of the organization to be able to achieve their goals. The goals and objectives of every staff member must be aimed toward the mission. However, achieving goals and objectives is not enough. The organization must perform well in key areas on a consistent basis to achieve the mission. These key areas—unique to the organization and the industry in which it competes—can be defined as the organization’s critical success factors.
The critical success factor method is a means for identifying these important elements of success. It was originally developed to align information technology planning with the strategic direction of an organization.

An organization primarily exists to serve its stakeholders; the customers, employees, business partners, shareholders, and communities that benefit from the organization’s existence and growth. The organization’s mission embodies this focus by stating the organization’s purpose, vision, and values. Stakeholders are best served when an organization operates in a manner that ensures the mission is accomplished.

Accomplishing the mission in a logical and systematic way requires the organization to develop a strategy. The strategy encompasses a set of goals or targets that the organization must achieve in a specific period of time. These goals are transformed into lower level tactical plans and activities to be carried out at various levels throughout the organization. This process of strategic planning provides a means for ensuring that the entire organization is focused on a shared purpose and vision.

Critical Success Factors

Critical success factors (CSFs) define key areas of performance that are essential for the organization to accomplish its mission. Managers implicitly know and consider these key areas when they set goals and as they direct operational activities and tasks that are important to achieving goals. However, when these key areas of performance are made explicit, they pro-vide a common point of reference for the entire organization. Thus, any activity or initiative that the organization undertakes must ensure consistently high performance in these key areas; otherwise, the organization may not be able to achieve its goals and consequently may fail to accomplish its mission.




History of the CSF Method

The concept of identifying and applying CSFs to business problems is not a revolutionary new field of work. It dates back to the original concept of “success factors” put forth in management literature by D. Ronald Daniel in the 1960s.8 However, the CSF concepts and approach are still very powerful today and are applicable to many of the challenges being presented in the information technology and security fields.

BEGINNINGS

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, organizations found themselves in the midst of an information revolution. The growth of information systems in organizations resulted in the production of significant amounts of information for analysis and decision making. The advent of the personal computer and the evolution of the field of information “systems” to information “technology” were indicators that the information explosion would continue.

John F. Rockhart, of MIT’s Sloan School of Management, recognized the challenge that the onslaught of information presented to senior executives. In spite of the availability of more information, research showed that senior executives still lacked the information essential to make the kinds of decisions necessary to manage the enterprise [Dobbins 98]. As a result, Rockhart’s team concentrated on developing an approach to help executives clearly identify and define their information needs.

Rockhart’s team expanded on the work of Daniel to develop the CSF approach. Daniel suggested that, to be effective in avoiding information overload, an organization’s information systems must focus on factors that determine organizational success [Rockhart 79]. For ex-ample, in the automotive industry, Rockhart suggested that styling, an efficient dealer organization, and tight control of manufacturing costs are important success factors [Rockhart 79]. Using success factors as a filter, management could then identify the information that was most important to making critical enterprise decisions. Accordingly, the underlying premise is that decisions made in this manner should be more effective because they are based on data that is specifically linked to the organization’s success factors.

How are they important to your business?

Identifying CSF's is important as it allows firms to focus their efforts on building their capabilities to meet the CSF's, or even allow firms to decide if they have the capability to build the requirements necessary to meet Critical Success Factors (CSF's).


Types of Critical Success Factor

There are four basic types of CSF's

They are:
1.Industry CSF's resulting from specific industry characteristics;
2.Strategy CSF's resulting from the chosen competitive strategy of the business;
3.Environmental CSF's resulting from economic or technological changes; and
4.Temporal CSF's resulting from internal organizational needs and changes.

Things that are measured get done more often than things that are not measured.
Each CSF should be measurable and associated with a target goal. You don't need exact measures to manage. Primary measures that should be listed include critical success levels (such as number of transactions per month) or, in cases where specific measurements are more difficult, general goals should be specified (such as moving up in an industry customer service survey).


Five key sources of Critical Success Factors

MAIN ASPECTS OF Critical Success Factors and their use in analysis
CSF's are tailored to a firm's or manager's particular situation as different situations (e.g. industry, division, individual) lead to different critical success factors. Rockart and Bullen presented five key sources of CSF's:

1.The industry,
2.Competitive strategy and industry position,
3.Environmental factors,
4.Temporal factors, and
5.Managerial position (if considered from an individual's point of view). Each of these factors is explained in greater detail below.

A Critical Success Factor Method
Start with a vision:

*Mission statement
*Develop 5-6 high level goals
*Develop hierarchy of goals and their success factors
*Lists of requirements, problems, and assumptions
*Leads to concrete requirements at the lowest level of decomposition (a single, implementable idea) Along the way, identify the problems being solved and the assumptions being made Cross-reference usage scenarios and problems with requirements
*Analysis matrices
*Problems vs. Requirements matrix
*Usage scenarios vs. Requirements matrix
*Solid usage scenarios
*Relationship to Usage Scenarios
*Usage scenarios or "use cases"; provide a means of determining:
*Are the requirements aligned and self-consistent?
*Are the needs of the user being met as well as those of the enterprise?
*Are the requirements complete
*Results of the Analysis

General Advantages of a CSF (Critical Success Factors)-Based Approach

The advantages of developing and applying CSFs are presented. The seemingly endless ways in which they can be of use to an organization speaks to their simple nature and broad applicability.

Of note is Rockhart’s view that one of the most powerful uses of CSFs is to enhance communication among the organization’s managers [Rockhart 79]. The ability to get managers “on the same page” can aid in mobilizing all areas of the organization toward the same goals. Regardless of how CSFs are used, there are several advantages to having this type of common focus for the organization:


1.CSFs can reduce organizational ambiguity. Developing and communicating a set of CSFs can reduce the dependence on the perceived aims of the organization. CSFs reflect the implicit, collective drivers of key managers and as a result are a more dependable and independent articulation of the organization’s key performance areas.

2. CSFs are more dependable than goals as a guiding force for the organization. An organization can set good goals that, in theory, will move the organization toward its mission. However, if the goals are poorly articulated or developed, this is not guaranteed. CSFs are reflective of what good managers do well to move the organization toward its mission, regardless of the quality of the goals that have been set.

3.CSFs are more likely to reflect the current operating environment of the organization. Goal setting tends to be a cyclical (i.e., yearly) activity that is seldom revisited until performance measurement. Used properly, CSFs are likely to be more dynamic and to reflect current operating conditions (particularly because of the many sources of CSFs).

4.CSFs provide a key risk-management perspective for the organization to consider. The risk perspective of executive-level managers is built into CSFs, so their “radar screen” is exposed to the organization as a whole.

5.CSFs can be valuable for course correction. When CSFs are made explicit, managers often realize that their perception of what is important to the organization may not match reality or they may realize that they don’t fully understand the current operational climate. Thus, they can use CSFs to realign their operating activities.






REFERENCES:

The Critical Success Factor Method:
Establishing a Foundation for Enterprise Security Management
Author: Richard A. Caralli

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_success_factor

Identify and discuss the steps for "critical success factors" approach? (at least 1,500 words)



In every company or organization, as we all know they have imposed a mission in which describe why it exist or its purpose and where it in-tends to go, in short it serve as a road map to an organization. The mission reflects the organization’s unique values and vision. Achieving the mission takes the participation and skill of the entire organization. This should be internalized by each and every staff of the organization to be able to achieve their goals. The goals and objectives of every staff member must be aimed toward the mission. However, achieving goals and objectives is not enough. The organization must perform well in key areas on a consistent basis to achieve the mission. These key areas—unique to the organization and the industry in which it competes—can be defined as the organization’s critical success factors.
The critical success factor method is a means for identifying these important elements of success. It was originally developed to align information technology planning with the strategic direction of an organization.

An organization primarily exists to serve its stakeholders; the customers, employees, business partners, shareholders, and communities that benefit from the organization’s existence and growth. The organization’s mission embodies this focus by stating the organization’s purpose, vision, and values. Stakeholders are best served when an organization operates in a manner that ensures the mission is accomplished.

Accomplishing the mission in a logical and systematic way requires the organization to develop a strategy. The strategy encompasses a set of goals or targets that the organization must achieve in a specific period of time. These goals are transformed into lower level tactical plans and activities to be carried out at various levels throughout the organization. This process of strategic planning provides a means for ensuring that the entire organization is focused on a shared purpose and vision.

Critical Success Factors

Critical success factors (CSFs) define key areas of performance that are essential for the organization to accomplish its mission. Managers implicitly know and consider these key areas when they set goals and as they direct operational activities and tasks that are important to achieving goals. However, when these key areas of performance are made explicit, they pro-vide a common point of reference for the entire organization. Thus, any activity or initiative that the organization undertakes must ensure consistently high performance in these key areas; otherwise, the organization may not be able to achieve its goals and consequently may fail to accomplish its mission.

General Advantages of a CSF (Critical Success Factors)-Based Approach

The advantages of developing and applying CSFs are presented. The seemingly endless ways in which they can be of use to an organization speaks to their simple nature and broad applicability.

Of note is Rockhart’s view that one of the most powerful uses of CSFs is to enhance communication among the organization’s managers [Rockhart 79]. The ability to get managers “on the same page” can aid in mobilizing all areas of the organization toward the same goals. Regardless of how CSFs are used, there are several advantages to having this type of common focus for the organization:


1.CSFs can reduce organizational ambiguity. Developing and communicating a set of CSFs can reduce the dependence on the perceived aims of the organization. CSFs reflect the implicit, collective drivers of key managers and as a result are a more dependable and independent articulation of the organization’s key performance areas.

2. CSFs are more dependable than goals as a guiding force for the organization. An organization can set good goals that, in theory, will move the organization toward its mission. However, if the goals are poorly articulated or developed, this is not guaranteed. CSFs are reflective of what good managers do well to move the organization toward its mission, regardless of the quality of the goals that have been set.

3.CSFs are more likely to reflect the current operating environment of the organization. Goal setting tends to be a cyclical (i.e., yearly) activity that is seldom revisited until performance measurement. Used properly, CSFs are likely to be more dynamic and to reflect current operating conditions (particularly because of the many sources of CSFs).

4.CSFs provide a key risk-management perspective for the organization to consider. The risk perspective of executive-level managers is built into CSFs, so their “radar screen” is exposed to the organization as a whole.

5.CSFs can be valuable for course correction. When CSFs are made explicit, managers often realize that their perception of what is important to the organization may not match reality or they may realize that they don’t fully understand the current operational climate. Thus, they can use CSFs to realign their operating activities.






[list][*]

Identify and discuss the steps for "critical success factors" approach? (at least 1,500 words)

Types of Critical Success Factor
There are four basic types of CSF's
They are:
1. Industry CSF's resulting from specific industry characteristics;
2. Strategy CSF's resulting from the chosen competitive strategy of the business;
3. Environmental CSF's resulting from economic or technological changes; and
4. Temporal CSF's resulting from internal organizational needs and changes.
Definitions
>>an element of organizational activity which is central to its future success. Critical success factors may change over time, and may include items such as product quality, employee attitudes, manufacturing flexibility, and brand awareness. This can enable analysis
>>any of the aspects of a business that are identified as vital for successful targets to be reached and maintained. Critical success factors are normally identified in such areas as production processes, employee and organization skills, functions, techniques, and technologies. The identification and strengthening of such factors may be similar.
>>is a business term for an element which is necessary for an organization or project to achieve its mission. For example, a CSF for a successful Information Technology (IT) project is user involvement.

Steps for "critical success factors" approach
Step One: Establish your business’s or project’s mission and strategic goals
Step Two: For each strategic goal, ask yourself “what area of business or project activity is essential to achieve this goal?”

MAIN ASPECTS OF Critical Success Factors and their use in analysis
CSF's are tailored to a firm's or manager's particular situation as different situations (e.g. industry, division, individual) lead to different critical success factors. Rockart and Bullen presented five key sources of CSF's:
1. The industry,
2. Competitive strategy and industry position,
3. Environmental factors,
4. Temporal factors, and
5. Managerial position (if considered from an individual's point of view). Each of these factors is explained in greater detail below.



Step Three: Evaluate the list of candidate CSFs to find the absolute essential elements for achieving success - these are your Critical Success Factors.
As you identify and evaluate candidate CSFs, you may uncover some new strategic objectives or more detailed objectives. So you may need to define your mission, objectives and CSFs iteratively.

Step Four: Identify how you will monitor and measure each of the CSFs.
Step Five: Communicate your CSFs along with the other important elements of your business or project’s strategy.
Step Six: Keep monitoring and reevaluating your CSFs to ensure you keep moving towards your aims. Indeed, whilst CSFs are sometimes less tangible than measurable goals, it is useful to identify as specifically as possible how you can measure or monitor each one.



References:
http://rapidbi.com/created/criticalsuccessfactors.html#WhatareCSFs
http://www.coursework4you.co.uk/essays-and-dissertations/critical-success-factors.php

Critical Success Factors is a methodology in Organization Information Requirements Analysis. Critical Success Factors is the term for an element that is necessary for an organization or project to achieve its mission. It is a critical factor or activity required for ensuring the success of your business. The term was initially used in the world of data analysis, and business analysis. For example, a CSF for a successful Information Technology (IT) project is user involvement.

Identifying CSF's is important as it allows firms to focus their efforts on building their capabilities to meet the CSF's, or even allow firms to decide if they have the capability to build the requirements necessary to meet Critical Success Factors (CSF's).

Uniqueness of critical success factors
Also depending upon the location, technology, human capital, local markets, organization structure, and many more such attributes, each organization has a few critical success factors which are of utmost importance for it to excel in the marketplace and achieve its goals and vision.

Academic Background/ History

The principle of identifying critical success factors as a basis for determining the information needs of managers was proposed by RH Daniel (1961 Harvard Business Review - HBR) as an interdisciplinary approach with a potential usefulness in the practice of evaluation within library and information units but popularized by F Rockart (1979 Harvard Business Review - HBR). In time many academics have applied the methodology increasingly outside the educational establishment.
The idea is very simple:
In any organization certain factors will be critical to the success of that organization, in the sense that, if objectives associated with the factors are not achieved, the organization will fail - perhaps catastrophically so.
The following as an example of generic CSF's:
• New product development,
• Good distribution, and
• Effective advertising
Factors that remain relevant today for many organizations.

Main Aspects of CSFs

CSFs are tailored to a firm's or manager's particular situation as different situations (e.g. industry, division, individual) lead to different critical success factors. Rockart and Bullen presented five key sources of CSFs: the industry, competitive strategy and industry position, environmental factors, temporal factors, and managerial position (if considered from an individual's point of view).

Types of Critical Success Factor

There are four basic types of CSF's
They are:
1. Industry CSF's resulting from specific industry characteristics;
2. Strategy CSF's resulting from the chosen competitive strategy of the business;
3. Environmental CSF's resulting from economic or technological changes; and
4. Temporal CSF's resulting from internal organizational needs and changes.
Things that are measured get done more often than things that are not measured.
Each CSF should be measurable and associated with a target goal. You don't need exact measures to manage. Primary measures that should be listed include critical success levels (such as number of transactions per month) or, in cases where specific measurements are more difficult, general goals should be specified (such as moving up in an industry customer service survey).

Value of critical success factors

Understanding of the critical success factors is of utmost importance as they drive the strategy for any company. Critical success factors are considered as an important component of strategic planning and a means for organizations to focus and validate important activities, initiatives and projects. Critical success factors is a useful concept in explicating the things that people at best knew intuitively and sometimes accidentally to direct their efforts towards staying competitive and realizing the vision.

For strategic planners critical success factors provide a basis for collecting and validating the information. Where there is an overload of information, which is a possibility today, thanks to progress made in communication and information technology, critical success factors act as a filter to check the relevance of information.

Through the process of strategic planning an organization:
• Identifies the factors critical for the industry for the given timeframe
• Assesses factors critical specifically to the organization
• Decides on the trade-offs that can be made in other areas without compromising on the long term profitability of the company
• Finally identifies the goals which help it in fulfilling the industry wide critical success factors
• Further identify the critical success factors to achieve the goals set by it (this sets the focus for senior management team for monitoring and reviewing the progress)


How to Identify the Critical Success Factors

1. Identify your predicament. Identifying the critical success factors of your business starts with determining the roadblocks or challenges that may hinder your company's ability to grow and fulfill its goals. These roadblocks can be internal (i.e., company politics or employee dissatisfaction) or external (i.e., economic policies, political climate that affects business, etc.).
2. Create a strategic plan. Identifying the challenges that your business is faced with will help in developing a strategic plan that sufficiently addresses these hindrances. A strategic plan is one that will cover these roadblocks and help the organization anticipate them.
3. Understand your targeted customers. To fulfill your business goals, you need to learn more about the behavior of your targeted consumers. This means understanding the demographic of someone who is more likely to avail your product or service.
4. Compare your service with your competition. You want to assess how you serve this market niche in relation to your direct competitors to find out how your product is faring among other brands. Identify what your consumers expect from your product and then find out if your product is actually delivering according to these expectations. Look at other brands and do the same analysis.
5. Examine the competition on the basis of how they operate. After looking at how your competitors serve your targeted market, you now move onto analyzing how the competing brands produce their products. Examine quality control metrics, performance and production cycles. A look at a particular product's ingredients, for instance, will shed some light as to its . Compare these practices with your own way of producing your merchandise and identify the shortcomings of the competition's strategy.

6. Adjust your production strategies as needed. Looking at how your competitors produce the same product will allow you to determine the weaknesses of your own strategy. If a competitor, for instance, is able to provide the same product at a significantly lower price, then it stands to reason that you may have issues with the efficient use of production resources. Look at how you can cut down costs of production without sacrificing the quality of your product. This will become one of your critical success factors: improving production efficiency.

How to write a good Critical Success Factor - CSF's

In an attempt to write good CSF's, a number of principles could help to guide writers. These principles are:
• Ensure a good understanding of the environment, the industry and the company – It has been shown that CSF's have five primary sources, and it is important to have a good understanding of the environment, the industry and the company in order to be able to write them well. These factors are customized for companies and individuals and the customization results from the uniqueness of the organization.
• Build knowledge of competitors in the industry – While this principle can be encompassed in the previous one, it is worth highlighting separately as it is critical to have a good understanding of competitors as well in identifying an organization's CSF's Knowing where competitors are positioned, what their resources and capabilities are, and what strategies they will pursue can have an impact on an organization's strategy and also resulting CSF's
• Develop CSF's which result in observable differences – A key impetus for the development of CSF's was the notion that factors which get measured are more likely to be achieved versus factors which are not measured. Thus, it is important to write CSF's which are observable or possibly measurable in certain respects such that it would be easier to focus on these factors. These don't have to be factors that are measured quantitatively as this would mimic key performance indicators; however, writing CSF's in observable terms would be helpful.
• Develop CSF's that have a large impact on an organization's performance – By definition, CSF's are the "most critical" factors for organizations or individuals. However, due care should be exercised in identifying them due to the largely qualitative approach to identification, leaving many possible options for the factors and potentially results in discussions and debate. In order to truly have the impact as envisioned when CSF's were developed, it is important to thus identify the actual CSF's, i.e. the ones which would have the largest impact on an organization's (or individual's) performance.

A Critical Success Factor Method

Start with a vision:
• Mission statement
• Develop 5-6 high level goals
• Develop hierarchy of goals and their success factors
• Lists of requirements, problems, and assumptions
• Leads to concrete requirements at the lowest level of decomposition (a single, implementable idea) Along the way, identify the problems being solved and the assumptions being made Cross-reference usage scenarios and problems with requirements
• Analysis matrices
• Problems vs. Requirements matrix
• Usage scenarios vs. Requirements matrix
• Solid usage scenarios
• Relationship to Usage Scenarios
• Usage scenarios or "use cases"; provide a means of determining:
o Are the requirements aligned and self-consistent?
o Are the needs of the user being met as well as those of the enterprise?
o Are the requirements complete
• Results of the Analysis

http://rapidbi.com/created/criticalsuccessfactors.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_5195052_identify-critical-success-factors.html
http://www.coursework4you.co.uk/essays-and-dissertations/critical-success-factors.php
http://www.alagse.com/strategy/s4.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_success_factor

Critical Success Factors

Every organization has a mission that describes why it exists (its purpose) and where it intends to go (its direction). The mission reflects the organization’s unique values and vision. Achieving the mission takes the participation and skill of the entire organization. The goals and objectives of every staff member must be aimed toward the mission. However, achieving goals and objectives is not enough. The organization must perform well in key areas on a consistent basis to achieve the mission. These key areas—unique to the organization and the industry in which it competes—can be defined as the organization’s critical success factors.The critical success factor method is a means for identifying these important elements of success. It was originally developed to align information technology planning with the strategic direction of an organization. However, in research and fieldwork undertaken by members of the Survivable Enterprise Management (SEM) team at the Software Engineering Institute, it has shown promise in helping organizations guide, direct, and prioritize their activities for developing security strategies and managing security across their enterprises. This report describes the critical success factor method and presents the SEM team’s theories and experience in applying it to enterprise security management.

Critical success factors (CSFs) define key areas of performance that are essential for the organization
to accomplish its mission. Managers implicitly know and consider these key areas when they set goals and as they direct operational activities and tasks that are important to achieving goals. However, when these key areas of performance are made explicit, they provide a common point of reference for the entire organization. Thus, any activity or initiative that the organization undertakes must ensure consistently high performance in these key areas; otherwise, the organization may not be able to achieve its goals and consequently may fail to accomplish its mission.
Identifying the things that really matter for success
So many important matters can compete for your attention in business that it's often difficult to see the "wood for the trees". What's more, it can be extremely difficult to get everyone in the team pulling in the same direction and focusing on the true essentials.
That's where Critical Success Factors (CSFs) can help. CSFs are the essential areas of activity that must be performed well if you are to achieve the mission, objectives or goals for your business or project.
By identifying your Critical Success Factors, you can create a common point of reference to help you direct and measure the success of your business or project.
As a common point of reference, CSFs help everyone in the team to know exactly what's most important. And this helps people perform their own work in the right context and so pull together towards the same overall aims.
The idea of CSFs was first presented by D. Ronald Daniel in the 1960s. It was then built on and popularized a decade later by John F. Rockart, of MIT's Sloan School of Management, and has since been used extensively to help businesses implement their strategies and projects.
Inevitably, the CSF concept has evolved, and you may have seen it implemented in different ways. This article provides a simple definition and approach based on Rockart's original ideas.
Rockart defined CSFs as:
"The limited number of areas in which results, if they are satisfactory, will ensure successful competitive performance for the organization. They are the few key areas where things must go right for the business to flourish. If results in these areas are not adequate, the organization's efforts for the period will be less than desired."
He also concluded that CSFs are "areas of activity that should receive constant and careful attention from management."
Critical Success Factors are strongly related to the mission and strategic goals of your business or project. Whereas the mission and goals focus on the aims and what is to be achieved, Critical Success Factors focus on the most important areas and get to the very heart of both what is to be achieved and how you will achieve it.
Using the Tool: An Example
CSFs are best understood by example. Consider a produce store "Farm Fresh Produce", whose mission is:

"To become the number one produce store in Main Street by selling the highest quality, freshest farm produce, from farm to customer in under 24 hours on 75% of our range and with 98% customer satisfaction."

(For more on this example, and how to develop your mission statement, see our article on Vision Statements and Mission Statements.)

The strategic objectives of Farm Fresh are to:
• Gain market share locally of 25%.
• Achieve fresh supplies of "farm to customer" in 24 hours for 75% of products.
• Sustain a customer satisfaction rate of 98%.
• Expand product range to attract more customers.
• Have sufficient store space to accommodate the range of products that customers want.
In order to identify possible CSFs, we must examine the mission and objectives and see which areas of the business need attention so that they can be achieved. We can start by brainstorming what the Critical Success Factors might be (these are the "Candidate" CSFs.)
Objective Candidate Critical Success Factors
Gain market share locally of 25% Increase competitiveness versus other local stores
Attract new customers
Achieve fresh supplies from "farm to customer" in 24 hours for 75% of products Sustain successful relationships with local suppliers
Sustain a customer satisfaction rate of 98% Retain staff and keep up customer-focused training
Expand product range to attract more customers Source new products locally
Extend store space to accommodate new products and customers Secure financing for expansion
Manage building work and any disruption to the business
Once you have a list of Candidate CSFs, it's time to consider what is absolutely essential and so identify the truly Critical Success Factors.

And this is certainly the case for Farm Fresh Produce. One CSF that we identify from the candidate list is "Sustain successful relationships with local suppliers." This is absolutely essential to ensure freshness and to source new products.

Another CSF is to attract new customers. Without new customers, the store will be unable to expand to increase market share.

A third CSF is financing for expansion. The store's objectives cannot be met without the funds to invest in expanding the store space.



Tip: How Many CSFs?
Whilst there is no hard and fast rule, it's useful to limit the number of CSFs to five or fewer ABSOLUTE essentials. This helps you maintain the impact of your CSFs, and so give good direction and prioritization to other elements of your business or project strategy.
Using the Tool: Summary Steps
In reality, identifying your CSFs is a very iterative process. Your mission, strategic goals and CSFs are intrinsically linked and each will be refined as you develop them.

Here are the summary steps that, used iteratively, will help you identify the CSFs for your business or project:

Step One: Establish your business's or project's mission and strategic goals (click here for help doing this.)

Step Two: For each strategic goal, ask yourself "what area of business or project activity is essential to achieve this goal?" The answers to the question are your candidate CSFs.
Tip: How Many CSFs?
To make sure you consider all types of possible CSFs, you can use Rockart's CSF types as a checklist.
• Industry - these factors result from specific industry characteristics. These are the things that the organization must do to remain competitive.
• Environmental - these factors result from macro-environmental influences on an organization. Things like the business climate, the economy, competitors, and technological advancements are included in this category.
• Strategic - these factors result from the specific competitive strategy chosen by the organization. The way in which the company chooses to position themselves, market themselves, whether they are high volume low cost or low volume high cost producers, etc.
• Temporal - these factors result from the organization's internal forces. Specific barriers, challenges, directions, and influences will determine these CSFs.
Step Three: Evaluate the list of candidate CSFs to find the absolute essential elements for achieving success - these are your Criticial Success Factors.

As you identify and evaluate candidate CSFs, you may uncover some new strategic objectives or more detailed objectives. So you may need to define your mission, objectives and CSFs iteratively.

Step Four: Identify how you will monitor and measure each of the CSFs.

Step Five: Communicate your CSFs along with the other important elements of your business or project's strategy.

Step Six: Keep monitoring and reevaluating your CSFs to ensure you keep moving towards your aims. Indeed, whilst CSFs are sometimes less tangible than measurable goals, it is useful to identify as specifically as possible how you can measure or monitor each one.
Key Points
Critical Success Factors are the areas of your business or project that are absolutely essential to its success. By identifying and communicating these CSFs, you can help ensure your business or project is well-focused and avoid wasting effort and resources on less important areas. By making CSFs explicit, and communicating them with everyone involved, you can help keep the business and project on track towards common aims and goals.

How to Identify the Critical Success Factors
1. Step 1
Identify your predicament. Identifying the critical success factors of your business starts with determining the roadblocks or challenges that may hinder your company's ability to grow and fulfill its goals. These roadblocks can be internal (i.e., company politics or employee dissatisfaction) or external (i.e., economic policies, political climate that affects business, etc.).
2. Step 2
Create a strategic plan. Identifying the challenges that your business is faced with will help in developing a strategic plan that sufficiently addresses these hindrances. A strategic plan is one that will cover these roadblocks and help the organization anticipate them.
3. Step 3
Understand your targeted customers. To fulfill your business goals, you need to learn more about the behavior of your targeted consumers. This means understanding the demographic of someone who is more likely to avail your product or service.
4. Step 4
Compare your service with your competition. You want to assess how you serve this market niche in relation to your direct competitors to find out how your product is faring among other brands. Identify what your consumers expect from your product and then find out if your product is actually delivering according to these expectations. Look at other brands and do the same analysis.
5. Step 5
Examine the competition on the basis of how they operate. After looking at how your competitors serve your targeted market, you now move onto analyzing how the competing brands produce their products. Examine quality control metrics, performance and production cycles. A look at a particular product's ingredients, for instance, will shed some light as to its manufacturing process . Compare these practices with your own way of producing your merchandise and identify the shortcomings of the competition's strategy.
6. Step 6
Adjust your production strategies as needed. Looking at how your competitors produce the same product will allow you to determine the weaknesses of your own strategy. If a competitor, for instance, is able to provide the same product at a significantly lower price, then it stands to reason that you may have issues with the efficient use of production resources. Look at how you can cut down costs of production without sacrificing the quality of your product. This will become one of your critical success factors: improving production efficiency.
Tips & Warnings
The work doesn't end after you have identified the factors that will influence the success of your business. You want to make sure that your strategic plan is carefully implemented and that everyone in your business understands the existence of these factors. Your employees should be on the same page as you are in implementing your strategic plan. They should also be informed of your business goals to motivate productivity in the organization.

Reference:
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_80.htm

http://www.ehow.com/how_5195052_identify-critical-success-factors.html

Caralli, Richard A., 2004. The Critical Success Factor Method: Establishing a Foundation for
Enterprise Security Management. [pdf]
Available at: www.cert.org/archive/pdf/04tr010.pdf
[Accessed 25 December 2009]

Critical Success Factor

CSF is a methodology for identifying corporate information requirements. It is a technique for eliciting of managerial users. It is based on the concept of “success factors” first discussed in the management literature in 1961 by Ronald Daniel. John Rockart (1982) has written extensively about this concept. The objective of CSF is to help MIS directors understand the factors important to senior end users and then develop an information system to achieve these factors. Rockart defines CSF as the new key areas where “things must go right” for the business to flourish. If the results are inadequate, the organization’s effort for the period will be less than desired.

As the name implies, the pivotal characteristics of CSF is the set of factors the manager considers critical for the success of the firm. Once identified, these factors are stated as objectives. The information required to monitor the performance of these objectives is then identified.

The CSF’s for any business or business function are the limited number of areas (usually four to six) in which satisfactory results will ensure the firm’s successful overall performance. These are the activities that have a major impact on short-term effectiveness as well as long-term growth. Although CSF’s vary widely by industry and across firms, they are generally derived from the same sources. Through a succession of applications of the CSF methodology in several consulting organizations, six major sources of CSF’s are identified:

1. Industry-based factor: determined by the characteristics of the industry itself. For example, in the automobile industry a CSF is product quality.

2. Competitive strategy and industry position: an individual firm’s situation determined by it’s history, competitive position, and strategy. For example, a CSF for a company in financial difficulties could be cash flow.

3. Environmental factors: areas over which an organization has little control – for example, governmental regulations such as energy standards for automobiles or emission controls for steel mills.

4. Temporal Factors: an activity or activities within the firm that becomes critical for a time period, because an unusual event has occurred. These factors may be “problems” or “opportunities” - for example, inventory management.

5. Managerial role: each functional managerial position has a generic set of CSF’s associated with it. For example, production managers are concerned with cost control, productivity, quality, and so on.

6. Managerial “world view”: the perspective brought to their job by managers. Perceived CSFs differ significantly from manager to manager – for example, carrying out the role of caretaker versus the role of change agent.


Types of Critical Success Factor

They are:
1. Industry CSF's resulting from specific industry characteristics;
2. Strategy CSF's resulting from the chosen competitive strategy of the business;
3. Environmental CSF's resulting from economic or technological changes; and
4. Temporal CSF's resulting from internal organizational needs and changes.

Things that are measured get done more often than things that are not measured.

Each CSF should be measurable and associated with a target goal. You don't need exact measures to manage. Primary measures that should be listed include critical success levels (such as number of transactions per month) or, in cases where specific measurements are more difficult, general goals should be specified (such as moving up in an industry customer service survey).


Examples of Critical Success factors

Statistical research into CSF’s on organizations has shown there to be seven key areas. These CSF's are:
1. Training and education
2. Quality data and reporting
3. Management commitment, customer satisfaction
4. Staff Orientation
5. Role of the quality department
6. Communication to improve quality, and
7. Continuous improvement

These were identified when Total Quality was at its peak, so as you can see have a bias towards quality matters. You may or may not feel that these are right or indeed critical for your organization.

The Critical Success Factors we have identified and us in the BIR process are captured in the mnemonic PRIMO-F
1. People - availability, skills and attitude
2. Resources - People, equipment, etc
3. Innovation - ideas and development
4. Marketing - supplier relation, customer satisfaction, etc
5. Operations - continuous improvement, quality,
6. Finance- cash flow, available investment etc

The CSF approach is a series of individual interviews with a firm’s executives to determine their own CSFs as they perceive them in their current roles. The interviews (usually involving five to twenty executives) are conducted in two or three sessions. The results are then analyzed to determine the organization’s CSF’s. If the top two or three levels of executives are interviewed, the CSFs will usually reveal a hierarchical structure, and the CSFs for the organization as a whole can be extracted from the lists of individual CSFs.


Steps for CSF Approach

Since it was devised, the CSF methodology has been most frequently utilized in the three ways: clarifying managerial focus, developing top management information needs, and setting information system priorities.

1. Clarifying Managerial Focus: The use of CSFs can help reconcile diverging individual views of the organization even if there exists a clearly defined corporate mission and explicitly stated objectives. The process of “securing managerial agreement” is essential, because it is necessary to define what is critical for different functional areas before an information system can be built to assist the managers of those areas.

2. Developing Top Management Information Needs: CSFs are interpreted so that we can identify the information databases or decision support systems needed by top management.

3. Setting Information System Priorities: In this case, the CSFs are analyzed to determine the relative priorities among the systems to be developed. Since CSFs provide strong evidence of areas that management considers important to the success of organization, it follows that systems supporting these areas should receive priority.


A Critical Success Factor Method

Start with a vision:
• Mission statement
• Develop 5-6 high level goals
• Develop hierarchy of goals and their success factors
• Lists of requirements, problems, and assumptions
• Leads to concrete requirements at the lowest level of decomposition (a single, implementable idea) Along the way, identify the problems being solved and the assumptions being made Cross-reference usage scenarios and problems with requirements
• Analysis matrices
• Problems vs. Requirements matrix
• Usage scenarios vs. Requirements matrix
• Solid usage scenarios
• Relationship to Usage Scenarios
• Usage scenarios or "use cases"; provide a means of determining:
o Are the requirements aligned and self-consistent?
o Are the needs of the user being met as well as those of the enterprise?
o Are the requirements complete
• Results of the Analysis


How to write a good Critical Success Factor

In an attempt to write good CSF's, a number of principles could help to guide writers. These principles are:
• Ensure a good understanding of the environment, the industry and the company – It has been shown that CSF's have five primary sources, and it is important to have a good understanding of the environment, the industry and the company in order to be able to write them well. These factors are customized for companies and individuals and the customization results from the uniqueness of the organization.

• Build knowledge of competitors in the industry – While this principle can be encompassed in the previous one, it is worth highlighting separately as it is critical to have a good understanding of competitors as well in identifying an organization's CSF's Knowing where competitors are positioned, what their resources and capabilities are, and what strategies they will pursue can have an impact on an organization's strategy and also resulting CSF's.

• Develop CSF's which result in observable differences – A key impetus for the development of CSF's was the notion that factors which get measured are more likely to be achieved versus factors which are not measured. Thus, it is important to write CSF's which are observable or possibly measurable in certain respects such that it would be easier to focus on these factors. These don't have to be factors that are measured quantitatively as this would mimic key performance indicators; however, writing CSF's in observable terms would be helpful.

• Develop CSF's that have a large impact on an organization's performance – By definition, CSF's are the "most critical" factors for organizations or individuals. However, due care should be exercised in identifying them due to the largely qualitative approach to identification, leaving many possible options for the factors and potentially results in discussions and debate. In order to truly have the impact as envisioned when CSF's were developed, it is important to thus identify the actual CSF's, i.e. the ones which would have the largest impact on an organization's (or individual's) performance.



References:
• http://www.army.mil/ArmyBTKC/focus/cpi/csf.htm
• MIS Planning: “Part IV-Application Planning and System Development”, p. 404-405

Critical Success Factor

Critical Success Factor (CSF) is the term for an element that is necessary for an organization or project to achieve its mission. It is a critical factor or activity required for ensuring the success of your business. The term was initially used in the world of data analysis, and business analysis. For example, a CSF for a successful Information Technology (IT) project is user involvement.

A plan should be implemented that considers a platform for growth and profits as well as takes into consideration the following critical success factors:

* Money: positive cash flow, revenue growth, and profit margins.
* Your future: Acquiring new customers and/or distributors.
* Customer satisfaction: How happy they are.
* Quality: How good is your product and service?
* Product or service development: What's new that will increase business with existing customers and attract new ones?
* Intellectual capital: Increasing what you know is profitable.
* Strategic relationships: New sources of business, products and outside revenue.
* Employee attraction and retention: Your ability to extend your reach.
* Sustainability: Your personal ability to keep it all going.

Key success factors generally include exceptional management of several of the following:[6]

* Product design
* Market segmentation
* Distribution and promotion
* Pricing
* Financing
* Securing of key personnel
* Research and development
* Production
* Servicing
* Maintenance of quality/value
* Securing key suppliers
* New product development
* Good distribution
* Effective advertising
* Innovative response to customer needs
* Consumer loyalty
* Linkage of technology to market demand
* Link marketing to production
* Investment in growth markets
* Unique positioning advantage
* Strong brand image and awareness
* Prevention of price wars
* High product quality
* Patent protection
* Low product cost
* Large marketing resource budget
* Marketing research quality
* Information system power
* Analytic support capability
* Develop human resources
* Attract the best personnel
* Managerial ability and experience
* Quick decision and action capability
* Organizational effectiveness
* Learning systematically from past strategies
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_success_factor)

The success of a Knowledge Management initiative depends on many factors, some within our control, some not. Typically, critical success factors can be categorized into five primary categories:

1. leadership;
2. culture;
3. structure, roles, and responsibilities;
4. information technology infrastructure; and
5. measurement.

Leadership
Leadership plays a key role in ensuring success in almost any initiative within an organization. Its impact on KM is even more pronounced because this is a relatively new discipline. Nothing makes greater impact on an organization than when leaders model the behavior they are trying to promote among employees. The CEO at Buckman Laboratories, a chemicals company, champions the cause for KM within the organization and personally reviews submissions to its knowledge bank. When he notices that a particular employee has not had been active within the system, he sends a message that reads: "Dear associate, you haven't been sharing knowledge. How can we help you? All the best, Bob."
Several other best-practice organizations have demonstrated this commitment to KM. At the World Bank, the president's support led to the creation of an infrastructure that promoted and supported the growth of communities of practice (CoPs) not only throughout the organization, but also around the globe. Today, the World Bank has sustained its KM initiative through its CoPs. Its knowledge managers constantly search for new approaches to knowledge sharing.
Although leadership plays a critical role in the success of the KM initiative, the "culture" factor can be even more important to the success of Knowledge Managment.

Culture
Culture is the combination of shared history, expectations, unwritten rules, and social customs that compel behaviors. It is the set of underlying beliefs that, while rarely exactly articulated, are always there to influence the perception of actions and communications of all employees.
Cultural issues concerning KM initiatives usually arise due to the following factors:
• Lack of time - The goal is not to encourage the employees to work more, but to work more effectively. The processes, technologies, and roles designed during a KM initiative must save employees' time, not burden them with more work. This can only be accomplished if the employees' work patterns are accounted for during the initial design and planning phase of the initiative.
• Unconnected reward systems - Organizations have to maintain a balance between intrinsic and explicit rewards in order to encourage employee behavior. The most effective use of explicit rewards has been to encourage sharing at the onset of a KM initiative. If the attendees don't find value in either the meetings or the information on the system, providing incentives will not sustain their participation. People share because they want to, they like to see their expertise being used, and they like being respected by their peers.
• Lack of common perspectives - Sharing must be inspired by a common vision. The people affected by the new process or technology must all buy in to this vision and believe it will work.
• No formal communication - When designing and implementing KM initiatives, ensure that employees and customers know about the changes occurring in your organization. It has been hypothesized that a person needs to hear the same message at least three times before it registers in the brain. Hence, communication should be pervasive and ingeminating. While implementing KM within your organization, market yourself. Make sure everyone knows what you are attempting to do, and build anticipation for the launch.
If your organization naturally has a tendency to share knowledge, enabling knowledge sharing becomes a little easier. If your organization harbors a knowledge-hoarding culture, don't give in to it. Remove negative consequences to sharing. People want to share their knowledge. They want others to know they are knowledgeable. Break down some of the existing barriers to knowledge sharing, and give people the tools and environment they need. By designing KM initiatives around your culture, you will be initiating a cultural change.

Structure, Roles, and Responsibilities
Although there are many ways that organizations structure the governance of their KM initiatives, APQC has found common elements among best-practice partner organizations: a steering committee, a central KM support group, and stewards/owners throughout the organization who are responsible for KM. It is a combination of a centralized and decentralized approach.
The steering committee usually consists of executives at the top level. They promote the concept and provide guidance, direction, and support. The central KM group is typically made up of three to four people who provide the initial support for projects or initiatives, which are usually handed over to the business owners once they are implemented. The central group usually consists of people with advanced project management, facilitation, and communication skills. The stewards, or owners, are responsible for knowledge sharing and acquisition within the business units. Like the core KM group, the stewards are change agents for the organization. They model and teach employees the principles of knowledge sharing using a common vocabulary. All of these participants work as a team to prevent a silo mentality and incorporate resistant employees in the process.
Although the structure is put in place to establish ownership and accountability, if there is no overall ownership of knowledge and learning within the organization and the leadership does not "walk the talk," it will be difficult to sustain any sharing behavior.

sharing using a common vocabulary. All of these participants work as a team to prevent a silo mentality and incorporate resistant employees in the process.
Although the structure is put in place to establish ownership and accountability, if there is no overall ownership of knowledge and learning within the organization and the leadership does not "walk the talk," it will be difficult to sustain any sharing behavior.

Measurement
Most people fear measurement because they see it as synonymous with ROI, and they are not sure how to link KM efforts to ROI. Although the ultimate goal of measuring the effectiveness of a KM initiative is to determine some type of ROI, there are many intervening variables that also affect the outcomes.
Because many variables may affect an outcome, it is important to correlate KM activities with business outcomes, while not claiming a pure cause-and-effect relationship. Increased sales may be a result not only of the sales representatives having more information, but also of the market turning, a competitor closing down, or prices dropping 10 percent. Due to the inability to completely isolate knowledge-sharing results, tracking the correlations over time is important There is a final imperative concerning critical success factors, which transcends KM and applies to all interactions: Listen! Listen to your users, customers, and managers-whichever audience for which you are designing. They will tell you how you can meet their needs and have a successful KM initiative.

(http://www.providersedge.com/docs/km_articles/Critical_Success_Factors_of_KM.pdf)

Steps in Critical Success Factor

Meaning

So many important matters can compete for your attention in business that it's often difficult to see the "wood for the trees". What's more, it can be extremely difficult to get everyone in the team pulling in the same direction and focusing on the true essentials.
That's where Critical Success Factors (CSFs) can help. CSFs are the essential areas of activity that must be performed well if you are to achieve the mission, objectives or goals for your business or project.
By identifying your Critical Success Factors, you can create a common point of reference to help you direct and measure the success of your business or project.
As a common point of reference, CSFs help everyone in the team to know exactly what's most important. And this helps people perform their own work in the right context and so pull together towards the same overall aims.
The idea of CSFs was first presented by D. Ronald Daniel in the 1960s. It was then built on and popularized a decade later by John F. Rockart, of MIT's Sloan School of Management, and has since been used extensively to help businesses implement their strategies and projects.
Identifying CSF's is important as it allows firms to focus their efforts on building their capabilities to meet the CSF's, or even allow firms to decide if they have the capability to build the requirements necessary to meet Critical Success Factors (CSF's).


Factors:

A plan should be implemented that considers a platform for growth and profits as well as takes into consideration the following critical success factors:
• Money: positive cash flow, revenue growth, and profit margins.
• Your future: Acquiring new customers and/or distributors.
• Customer satisfaction: How happy they are.
• Quality: How good is your product and service?
• Product or service development: What's new that will increase business with existing customers and attract new ones?
• Intellectual capital: Increasing what you know is profitable.
• Strategic relationships: New sources of business, products and outside revenue.
• Employee attraction and retention: Your ability to extend your reach.
• Sustainability: Your personal ability to keep it all going.

The five Critical Success Factors are based primarily on leadership effectiveness, clear Performance Measurement goals and well designed Change Management plans.

1.Strong Executive leadership and alignment
• Executives and program champions must communicate the reason(s) behind the Transformation program and establish a sense of urgency
• Executive leadership and support must be visible early in the Transformation program and be reinforced throughout
• Executive leadership must clearly define program objectives

2.Clear and measurable goals

• Goals of the Transformation program must be in line with the organization’s strategy, and they must be measurable
• Executive leadership and support must clearly define the criteria for measuring progress toward program objectives
3.Actionable business case and performance measures
• Program benefits and returns on investment must be clearly defined and approved by the key stakeholders
• Organizational and individual performance measures must be aligned to the objectives of the Transformation program
4.Clearly defined roles and responsibilities
• Key stakeholders, internal and external, must be identified early in the program
• Roles and responsibilities need to be clearly defined
5.Well designed execution and continuous improvement plan
• Transformation (Change) Management must be an integral part of the program
• The execution strategy and implementation plan must be well defined and clear to all stakeholders
• Program milestones must be designed to deliver program goals and objectives
• Impacted individuals need to be trained and ready for their new assignments

The Foundation

• Know what you want.

This is the first of the critical success factors simply because it's the logical place to start when you're looking for success. I've been told, "be careful what you want, because you just might get it." I know it to be true.
If you set our intentions, you'll be much more likely to succeed, but you have to know what you want in the first place. Yogi Berra told us, "If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else."
Here's the two prong approach I take when I want to answer the question, "What do you want?"

• Stay with your strengths.

I list this as the second of the list of critical success factors because there are many people who have failed simply because they started operating outside of their area of strengths. If we're experienced individuals, then staying within our areas of strength makes perfect sense. There is no sense reinventing ourselves to see if it works.
Michael Jordan tried golf and baseball, but he went back to basketball - his strength.
If we don't have any particular skills or experience, then that has to be our first order of business - find out what we're good at. Skills and experience are critical success factors in anything we undertake. In the absence of knowing our strengths, we could be floundering around for quite some time - wasting our time and energy.

• Be knowledgeable.

Of all the critical success factors, this one should be obvious, but many times it's not. Information is key, so the more you have, the better your chance of success - up to a point.
We can inundate ourselves with too much information to be sure, and that just gets in our way. Despite that possibility, we should always seek information, as much as we reasonably can, before moving headlong into something that is particularly challenging.
• Have foresight.

When we think of foresight, just think about having a "crystal ball" of sorts. We wouldn't invest in a stock that represents an old technology that's on the way out. It wouldn't be wise because our crystal ball would show us that our investment would be lost as the business shrinks.
Buying a nice house in a nice growing area is using foresight. We can see that it will be a good investment.
No matter what our interest, having a decent "crystal ball" will be of benefit. It will help with selection as well as timing. Foresight should be viewed as a special type of knowledge.

• The Inspiration

• Create a vision.

Our vision is the key to our inspiration - the thing that will keep us going. Think of our vision as a picture of our prize, the reward for all of our efforts. It's what we're working towards.
A vision should help us clarify our intentions and sharpen our focus. Think of our vision as a dream, but with much more clarity and realism. It's the force that will allow us to put this all down on paper so we can make it happen.
• Have courage to pursue the vision. This is another of the critical success factors that is very important. Courage is what keeps some of us going when others feel like quitting. It's what allows us to push the limits and discover new things.
Don't mistake foolishness for courage. One is well considered action, while the other is not. Practice having courage and you'll be practicing for success.

• Maintain the right attitude.

Having a can do attitude is the only way to approach things. If we say "yes we can," then we're likely to accomplish our goals. Once we start doubting ourselves, we'll most likely start backsliding and lose interest and enthusiasm for the project.

• Putting our Critical Success Factors on Paper

• Plan for success.

I'm big on planning. It has helped me accomplish many things. If it does little else, it helps get everything out there in front of me so I can make a reasonable assessment of what needs to be done, who should do it, and the priority and sequence of things.
For long term and complex activities - plan it - it's necessary. Even a simple household budget is a type of plan. It allows us to know where we're headed, and we can measure our success in terms of how well we've stayed on plan.

• Make decisions using logic instead of emotion.

We all have an emotional side. We all have a logical side. Let's allow our emotions to inspire us and keep us focused, but use our logic and reason to make key decisions, create a plan and execute our plan.
My rule is pretty simple - think with your head, then with your heart, and then go back and use your head again. Knee jerk emotional reactions to things will always be poorer decisions than logical responses that are well thought out. Use reason over emotion, and you'll be doing yourself a favor.

• Aim high, but be realistic.

When we envision something, we can create our own type of movie in our mind. Anything can happen in the movies, but reality is a bit more limiting. There is nothing wrong with aiming high, but we need to be cautious and realistic while doing so.
We can follow all of these critical success factors and still fail to achieve your goals if you're aiming way too high. We need to be realistic about what we can do, how long it takes to do it, and the type of resources we'll need.
If we stay realistic, we'll be successful. Once we're successful with one of our plans, we can aim a bit higher the next time.

• Focus our efforts.

If we hope to accomplish a goal, we'll have to focus on it with our imagination, planning and actions. Otherwise we'll be diluting our efforts.
Our focus must be carefully applied if we are to achieve our goals.
Businesses focus on a particular niche in the marketplace. Musicians focus on a particular style. Miners focus their efforts where they're likely to find the resources they're looking for.
If our planning efforts are solid, then we'll know where and how to focus our efforts, and that will maximize the effectiveness of our efforts to provide the greatest return on investment.

• Sequence and prioritize.

There are many things to do in order to successfully achieve our plans. We'll need to know what the first steps should be. That means we need to understand the appropriate sequence of events. This will allow us to prioritize our actions.
Before we learn how to water ski, it would probably be a good idea to learn how to swim. If we think through the sequence of events, part of learning how to water ski involves being in the water, and often that involves being in deep water and taking a spill unexpectedly, so learning how to swim would be a good first step, and it's a high priority as well because our survival in the water depends on it.
We all face this every day in our financial dealings. With a limited amount of income, we have to prioritize spending to make certain we're using our resources wisely.
One of the keys to prioritization is understanding the difference between something that is important versus urgent. Distinguishing between the two and understanding the relationship between the two will help us be better planners and decision makers.

In Conclusion

The solution to succeeding lies in many variables, but there are some that are ever present that account for the majority of accomplishments. By seeking to develop your own key factors you can proceed to emulate the feats of the successful or better yet overtake them altogether.

These examples of critical success factors should highlight to you the very things that are needed to succeed and make valuable achievements, but they should also make you value the effort that must be exerted in order to accomplish your goals.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_success_factor#Factors
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_80.htm
http://www.frugal-living-freedom.com/critical-success-factors.html

Identify and discuss the steps for "critical success factors" approach?

Identify and discuss the steps for "critical success factors" approach?


Critical Success Factors (CSFs)

A key factor leading to the continued failure in IT projects is the lack of identification and appreciation for all the major components of project success. Critical success factors (CSFs) are those things that must be done or handled properly for a project to be successful. The concept of critical success factors (CSFs) has been in the management lexicon since 1979, when the original Harvard Business Review article introduced the approach. CSFs have been adopted as a management tool by individuals and organizations and embraced by consulting firms as a useful tool for focusing on what is central to helping create success. A comprehensive model of critical success factors for IT projects permits the development of better management plans, processes, and metrics, particularly for risk, quality, and performance control.


Definition of Success

Cost, time, and quality (often referred to as the Iron Triangle) have formed the prime basis for measuring project success for the last 50 years (Atkinson, 1999). However a number of authors in more recent years (Atkinson, 1999; Brandon, 2004; DeLone & McLean, 1992; Lim & Mohamed, 1999; Morris & Hough, 1987; Pinto & Slevin, 1998;) have suggested that other criteria are also important. Some of these other criteria may be less quantitative, more difficult to measure, and some of the criteria may be temporary in that their values may be much more important at some points in the project.

So what is meant by project success? Success needs to be defined completely so that the factors that lead to success or failure in a broad perspective can be identified.

Schultz and Slevin (1979) discussed overall implementation success and identified three dimensions to success: technical (Does it work?), organizational validity (Is it what the users want?), and organizational effectiveness (Is it a cost effective solution?).

Pinto and Slevin (1998) presented a widely used “10 Factor Model” for success factors involving project mission, management support, planning, client consultation, personnel, technical tasks, client acceptance, project control, project communication, and handling unforeseen issues

Lim and Mohamed (1999) also raised the question of “What is a successful project?” and noted that different stakeholders involved with the same project may have different opinions about a project’s success. One of their examples concerned the construction of a shopping center that was eventually completed to match the required quality standard, however with significant cost and time overruns. Some stakeholders were very unhappy, depending upon the type of contracts involved and who contractually bears the burden of the cost overruns (i.e., who pays for cost overruns). Other stakeholders (such as mall customers and the merchants renting space in the mall) were all pleased and saw the project as a great success. Lim and Mohamed defined two perspectives, the macro perspective, which involves all the stakeholders, and the micro perspective, which involves only the construction parties such as the developer and contractor(s). The macro perspective is relevant for all phases of a project from conceptualization, through construction, and then operation. The micro perspective is most relevant for the construction phase.


Completion and Satisfaction Criteria

Lim and Mohamed (1999) also defined two types of success criteria: completion and satisfaction. Completion criteria include contract-related items such as cost, time, and scope. Satisfaction criteria include utility (fitness for purpose), quality, and operation (ease of use, ease of learning, ease of maintenance, etc.). The macro perspective involves both; the micro perspective only involves completion perspectives. This is illustrated in Figure 2.1. Often, scope can be somewhat divided into a portion affecting completion (mainly stated requirements, or needs) and a portion affecting satisfaction (mainly unstated requirements and expectations, or wants).

This division of success criteria into micro and macro perspective types is very important in terms of project performance control and the effectiveness and cost thereof. This division provides for different reviewtime periods, different review methods, and different project stakeholder involvement for the review of each type of criteria.

Lim and Mohamed (1999) drew a clear distinction between “success criteria” and “success factors.” The criteria are “a principle or standard by which anything is or can be judged”; factors are “any circumstance, fact, or influence which contributes to a result”. Factors for the completion criteria would typically include financial variables, process variables, resource variables (cost, availability, skill, motivation, etc.), management variables (project manager skill, line management support, etc.), and risk variables (weather, economy, technology, etc.). Factors for the satisfaction criteria would be those things that drive the satisfaction of the stakeholders.

Success criteria tend to be relatively independent of the type of project being measured. The factors are, however, very dependent on the type of thing being built (or accomplished).


Generalization of Success Factors for IT

Brandon proposed a more generalized model, and in developing that generalized model for IT success factors, the success criteria were divided into the two dimensions of project success defined by Lim and Mohamed (1999). Next, the general criteria suggested by Lim and Mohamed were also used, and these criteria are relatively independent of project type. The third step was to determine the factors that underlie these criteria for IT projects.

Success criteria




Many authors have studied components of IT project success and risk. The original Standish Group (1994) study found that the three most common causes of project failure were: lack of user input, incomplete requirements, and changing requirements. Conversely they found that the three most important factors for success were user involvement, executive management support, and a clear statement of requirements. The European Software Process Improvement Initiative (ESPITI) performed a study in 1995 and noted that the major IT project failure factors were requirements specifications, managing customer requirements, documentation, quality, and project management methods. Hallows (1998) stated that the major causes of failure involved scope: poor original definition, poor management of scope, and unforeseen changes in scope.


In 2004, The Standish Group (1994) updated its list of IT critical success factors to include (Collett, 2005):

• User involvement
• Executive management support
• Clear business objectives
• Experienced project manager
• Minimal scope and requirements
• Iterative and agile process
•Skilled personnel
• Formal methodology
• Financial management
• Standard tools and infrastructure

Based on the detail study of these past works (both scientific parametric-based studies and the expert opinion of practitioners) combined with experience and research, they have developed a recommendation for the major IT project success factors, both completion and satisfaction. For the area of completion criteria, these major IT success factors have been identified:

• Ability to Perform: Includes having the necessary amount of resources needed and the correct resources to carry out the project plan. The ability to perform is also one of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) “common features” in their Capability Maturity Model (CMM), which is discussed later in this book.

• Commitment to Perform: (Another CMM common feature) includes both project sponsor and upper management support (including organizational and environmental matters).

• Methodology: Involves the selection of specific IT software engineering processes (requirements analysis, systems analysis, design, development, documentation, testing, etc.) and how these processes will be organized, utilized, and integrated both amongst themselves and with the project management processes.

• Verification: Involves “built-in” quality or “defect prevention” and concerns the quality of the development processes, thus answering the question, “Have we built the product right?” Formally, verification is proof of compliance with requirements, specifications, and standards. Verification processes usually result in exception (bug) reports where compliance is not achieved.

• Technology: Involves the proper selection of applicable technology for use both in the product and in the process of building the product. It covers architecture, platform, language, tools, and supporting technology selection as well as issues of each including the maturity, stability, and support thereof.

• Project Management: Addresses the use of proper project management skills and knowledge in dealing with planning, schedule, cost, scope, risk, human resources, and stakeholders; this is what the Project Management Institute (PMI) calls “knowledge areas.” Also included herein are the capabilities and experience of the project manager.



In the area of satisfaction criteria, these major success factors have been identified:

• Business Justification: Involves some type of cost-benefit model. Line management, users, and the project team must “buy-into” and support this model. Business justifications, financial models, and project feasibility are discussed later in the book.

• Validation: Involves the product that is the subject of the project and checks all user (customer) requirements (both stated and expected) and answers the question, “Have we built the right product?” Formally, validation is proof that the customer and end users are satisfied with the system. Proper user involvement is vital to this aspect of the development and/or integration process. Validation processes usually result in change orders when the user is not satisfied with an aspect of the product.

• Workflow and Content: Involves the effective integration of the new product into the organization and each user’s workflow. Content includes all deliverable information including: documentation, help system, data, and media content (especially in the sense of modern and internet applications).

• Standards: Relate to compliance with applicable industry, corporate, and user (customer) standards in regard to both external (i.e. user interface) and internal issues (i.e. coding standards). Standards are also discussed later in this book under quality management.

• Maintainability and Support: Involves the inherent maintainability of the developed product and the willingness and timeliness of the developing (or support) organization in responding to the customer’s concerns about usage or integrity (real or perceived) issues.

• Adaptability: Relates to the flexibility of the product to be adapted (successfully modified) for evolving changes in the environment in which the product is deployed; this includes both technical changes and business changes.

• Trust and Security: Relates to both the security built into the product and to the security of the process for building the product. Product security and trust involves the customer’s willingness to fully utilize the system in all necessary modes without concern for compromise of any of the customer’s assets including information assets.

“If you aren't afraid to fail, then you probably don't care enough about success.”

References:

Brandon D, 2006, Project management for Modern Information System, IRM Press, USA

King W, 2009, Planning for Information System, M.E. Sharpe, New York

what are the steps in identicy the critical success factors?

before we give the steps.. let us first identify what does critical success factor is..

A critical success factor is a factor whose presence is necessary for an organisation to fulfil its mission - in other words, if it is not present then its absence will cause organisational and/or mission failure.

There are various explanation and definition of Critical Success Factor, to sum it up lets take a look in this brief summary:

Critical Success Factor an element of organizational activity which is central to its future success. Critical success factors may change over time, and may include items such as product quality, employee attitudes, manufacturing flexibility, and brand awareness. This can enable analysis.

Critical Success Factor any of the aspects of a business that are identified as vital for successful targets to be reached and maintained. Critical success factors are normally identified in such areas as production processes, employee and organization skills, functions, techniques, and technologies. The identification and strengthening of such factors may be similar. ..

Critical Success Factor (CSF) or Critical Success Factors is a business term for an element which is necessary for an organization or project to achieve its mission. For example, a CSF for a successful Information Technology (IT) project is user involvement.

The term “Critical Success Factor” is used differently, due to ambiguity of the word “critical”,
back and forth translations into other languages and interpretation when analyzed in portfolios:

The word“critical” is important, key, determining, vital, strategic, etc. And other meaning of the word “critical” is alarming, anxious, etc.

Let's take a look on how CSF was develop and how it started:

CSF analysis is a method developed at MIT’s Sloan school by John Rockart to guide businesses in creating and measuring success Widely used for technology and architectural planning in enterprise I/T. A top-down methodology that is especially suitable for designing systems as opposed to applications. A reductionist method for going from an abstract vision to concrete requirements.


According to Robert Cooper, Critical success factors in product development in which What separates the Winners from the Loosers. in other words, critical ang wise decions are made in mind to achieve a winner goal not planning to fail.

The idea of identifying critical success factors for business ventures was developed in the 1960s by a D. Ronald Daniel of the McKinsey & Company.

Now, let's find out what re the steps in crical success factor and how to make it in action.

First, Identify your predicament. Identifying the critical success factors of your business starts with determining the roadblocks or challenges that may hinder your company's ability to grow and fulfill its goals. These roadblocks can be internal (i.e., company politics or employee dissatisfaction) or external (i.e., economic policies, political climate that affects business, etc.).

Second, Create a strategic plan. Identifying the challenges that your business is faced with will help in developing a strategic plan that sufficiently addresses these hindrances. A strategic plan is one that will cover these roadblocks and help the organization anticipate them.

Third, Understand your targeted customers. To fulfill your business goals, you need to learn more about the behavior of your targeted consumers. This means understanding the demographic of someone who is more likely to avail your product or service.

Fourth, Compare your service with your competition. You want to assess how you serve this market niche in relation to your direct competitors to find out how your product is faring among other brands. Identify what your consumers expect from your product and then find out if your product is actually delivering according to these expectations. Look at other brands and do the same analysis.

Fifth, Examine the competition on the basis of how they operate. After looking at how your competitors serve your targeted market, you now move onto analyzing how the competing brands produce their products. Examine quality control metrics, performance and production cycles. A look at a particular product's ingredients, for instance, will shed some light as to its manufacturing process. Compare these practices with your own way of producing your merchandise and identify the shortcomings of the competition's strategy.

Finally, Adjust your production strategies as needed. Looking at how your competitors produce the same product will allow you to determine the weaknesses of your own strategy. If a competitor, for instance, is able to provide the same product at a significantly lower price, then it stands to reason that you may have issues with the efficient use of production resources. Look at how you can cut down costs of production without sacrificing the quality of your product. This will become one of your critical success factors: improving production efficiency.


To identify clearly of your company's goal and want to use CSF,
First, identify the Problem.
Next, the Objective and its Expected Benefits.
Conduct Research Phases.
Find relevant Definitions and Literature Review to the problem stated.


identify the Problem.

"You can have it fast,cheap, or good - pick any two!”(Hartman, 2000, page 292). To identify the problem, one must read between or beyond the lines as possible.


the Objective and its Expected Benefits.

To develop an integrated framework that can be used to measure the overall quality of projects during their execution phases.

This framework will allow project managers (PM) to:
a. Better understand the current status and expectations;
b. Develop forecasts of future status and expectations;
c. Develop insight into when and where corrective action is required; and
d. Monitor the effectiveness of corrective action.

Expected Benefits for Customers:
a. Higher delivered quality.
b. Better met needs and expectations.
c. This will reduce costly changes and rework.

Expected Benefits for Sponsors:
a. Better met needs and expectations.
b. More clarity into how the project contributes to business strategy.

Expected Benefits for Project Teams:
a. Better insight into what constitutes success.
b. Better insight into when and where corrective action is needed.
c. The PM will also be able to monitor the effectiveness of corrective action.

Research Phases
a. Literature Review - e objective of the literature review was to research the current state of knowledge in the field and to identify where gaps exist.
b. Industry Survey
c. Framework Development
d. Industry Interviews
e. Framework Validation


OUTPUT DEPENDS UPON PLAN.

The work doesn't end after you have identified the factors that will influence the success of your business. You want to make sure that your strategic plan is carefully implemented and that everyone in your business understands the existence of these factors. Your employees should be on the same page as you are in implementing your strategic plan. They should also be informed of your business goals to motivate productivity in the organization.


REFERENCES:

http://rapidbi.com/created/criticalsuccessfactors.html

www.w3.org/2002/ws/arch/2/04/UCSFA.ppt

www.cis.gsu.edu/~emclean/Critical%20Success%20Factors.ppt

http://www.ehow.com/how_5195052_identify-critical-success-factors.htmlml

For an introduction, first I will give insights about critical success factors. To start, so many important matters can compete for your attention in business that it's often difficult to see the "wood for the trees". What's more, it can be extremely difficult to get everyone in the team pulling in the same direction and focusing on the true essentials. That's where Critical Success Factors (CSFs) can help. CSFs are the essential areas of activity that must be performed well if you are to achieve the mission, objectives or goals for your business or project. By identifying your Critical Success Factors, you can create a common point of reference to help you direct and measure the success of your business or project. As a common point of reference, CSFs help everyone in the team to know exactly what's most important. And this helps people perform their own work in the right context and so pull together towards the same overall aims.

So the question is identify and discuss the steps for “critical success factors” approach. So this is the question that needs to be answered. But in order for me to answer it, I should discuss all about what is a “critical success factor”? so what is a critical success factor or (CSF), according to wikipedia.org it is the term for an element that is necessary for an organization or project to achieve its mission. It is a critical factor or activity required for ensuring the success of your business. The term was initially used in the world of data analysis, and business analysis. For example, a CSF for a successful Information Technology (IT) project is user involvement. Others also says that it is an an element of organizational activity which is central to its future success. Critical success factors may change over time, and may include items such as product quality, employee attitudes, manufacturing flexibility, and brand awareness. Or any of the aspects of a business that are identified as vital for successful targets to be reached and maintained. Critical success factors are normally identified in such areas as production processes, employee and organization skills, functions, techniques, and technologies. These are some of the definition about what critical success factor or (CSF) means. So we proceed to the next.

There are four basic types of CSF's

They are:

1. Industry CSF's resulting from specific industry characteristics;
2. Strategy CSF's resulting from the chosen competitive strategy of the business;
3. Environmental CSF's resulting from economic or technological changes; and
4. Temporal CSF's resulting from internal organizational needs and changes.

Things that are measured get done more often than things that are not measured. Each CSF should be measurable and associated with a target goal. You don't need exact measures to manage. Primary measures that should be listed include critical success levels (such as number of transactions per month) or, in cases where specific measurements are more difficult, general goals should be specified (such as moving up in an industry customer service survey). So next let us discuss the factors involving CSF.

Factors:

• Money: positive cash flow, revenue growth, and profit margins.
• Your future: Acquiring new customers and/or distributors.
• Customer satisfaction: How happy they are.
• Quality: How good is your product and service?
• Product or service development: What's new that will increase business with existing customers and attract new ones?
• Intellectual capital: Increasing what you know is profitable.
• Strategic relationships: New sources of business, products and outside revenue.
• Employee attraction and retention: Your ability to extend your reach.
• Sustainability: Your personal ability to keep it all going.

Typically, critical success factors can be categorized into five primary categories:
1. leadership;
2. culture;
3. structure, roles, and responsibilities;
4. information technology infrastructure; and
5. measurement.

Leadership plays a key role in ensuring success in almost any initiative within an organization. Nothing makes greater impact on an organization than when leaders model the behavior they are trying to promote among employees.

Culture is the combination of shared history, expectations, unwritten rules, and social customs that
compel behaviors. It is the set of underlying beliefs that, while rarely exactly articulated, are always there to influence the perception of actions and communications of all employees.

Cultural issues concerning KM initiatives usually arise due to the following factors:
• Lack of time
• Unconnected reward systems
• Lack of common perspectives
• No formal communication

Structure, Roles, and Responsibilities
Although the structure is put in place to establish ownership and accountability, if there is no overall
ownership of knowledge and learning within the organization and the leadership does not "walk the talk," it will be difficult to sustain any sharing behavior.

Information Technology (IT) Infrastructure
Without a solid IT infrastructure, an organization cannot enable its employees to share information on a
large scale. Yet the trap that most organizations fall into is not a lack of IT, but rather too much focus on
IT.

Success factors related to IT.
• Approach
• Content
• Common platforms
• Simple technology
• Adequate training

Measurement
Because many variables may affect an outcome, it is important to correlate activities with business
outcomes, while not claiming a pure cause-and-effect relationship. Increased sales may be a result not
only of the sales representatives having more information, but also of the market turning, a competitor
closing down, or prices dropping 10 percent. Due to the inability to completely isolate knowledge-sharing results, tracking the correlations over time is important.

Start with a vision:
• Mission statement
• Develop 5-6 high level goals
• Develop hierarchy of goals and their success factors
• Lists of requirements, problems, and assumptions
• Leads to concrete requirements at the lowest level of decomposition (a single, implementable idea) Along the way, identify the problems being solved and the assumptions being made Cross-reference usage scenarios and problems with requirements
• Analysis matrices
• Problems vs. Requirements matrix
• Usage scenarios vs. Requirements matrix
• Solid usage scenarios
• Relationship to Usage Scenarios
• Usage scenarios or "use cases"; provide a means of determining:
o Are the requirements aligned and self-consistent?
o Are the needs of the user being met as well as those of the enterprise?
o Are the requirements complete
• Results of the Analysis

Now, I will give examples of CSF.

Statistical research into CSF’s on organizations has shown there to be seven key areas. These CSF's are:

1. Training and education
2. Quality data and reporting
3. Management commitment, customer satisfaction
4. Staff Orientation
5. Role of the quality department
6. Communication to improve quality, and
7. Continuous improvement

These were identified when Total Quality was at its peak, so as you can see have a bias towards quality matters. You may or may not feel that these are right or indeed critical for your organization.

The Critical Success Factors we have identified and us in the BIR process are captured in the mnemonic PRIMO-F

1. People - availability, skills and attitude
2. Resources - People, equipment, etc
3. Innovation - ideas and development
4. Marketing - supplier relation, customer satisfaction, etc
5. Operations - continuous improvement, quality,
6. Finance- cash flow, available investment etc

Steps in identifying CSF.

In reality, identifying your CSFs is a very iterative process. Your mission, strategic goals and CSFs are intrinsically linked and each will be refined as you develop them.

Here are the summary steps that, used iteratively, will help you identify the CSFs for your business or project:

Step 1:
Establish your business's or project's mission and strategic goals

Step 2:
For each strategic goal, ask yourself "what area of business or project activity is essential to achieve this goal?" The answers to the question are your candidate CSFs.

Tip: How Many CSFs?
To make sure you consider all types of possible CSFs, you can use Rockart's CSF types as a checklist.
• Industry - these factors result from specific industry characteristics. These are the things that the organization must do to remain competitive.
• Environmental - these factors result from macro-environmental influences on an organization. Things like the business climate, the economy, competitors, and technological advancements are included in this category.
• Strategic - these factors result from the specific competitive strategy chosen by the organization. The way in which the company chooses to position themselves, market themselves, whether they are high volume low cost or low volume high cost producers, etc.
• Temporal - these factors result from the organization's internal forces. Specific barriers, challenges, directions, and influences will determine these CSFs.

Step 3:
Evaluate the list of candidate CSFs to find the absolute essential elements for achieving success - these are your Criticial Success Factors.

As you identify and evaluate candidate CSFs, you may uncover some new strategic objectives or more detailed objectives. So you may need to define your mission, objectives and CSFs iteratively.

Step 4:
Identify how you will monitor and measure each of the CSFs.

Step 5:
Communicate your CSFs along with the other important elements of your business or project's strategy.

Step 6:
Keep monitoring and reevaluating your CSFs to ensure you keep moving towards your aims. Indeed, whilst CSFs are sometimes less tangible than measurable goals, it is useful to identify as specifically as possible how you can measure or monitor each one.

And lastly, I will just share a little CSF on DLPC. This is the data I gathered during the interview. Critical success factors that involve DLPC is their peopleware, project cost, support from business owner, time, and budget. These are the factors that is critical to the success of a project. So these are all I want to share. Thanks!

References:
http://docs.google.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_success_factor
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_80.htm
http://rapidbi.com/created/criticalsuccessfactors.html

visit my blog @ franzcie.blogspot.com

You can drop your comments to my blog a soul's reflections
http://charmainespeaksup.blogspot.com/2009/12/steps-to-critical-success-factors.html

Critical Success Factor (CSF) is the term for an element that is necessary for an organization or project to achieve its mission. It is a critical factor or activity required for ensuring the success of your business. The term was initially used in the world of data analysis, and business analysis. For example, a CSF for a successful Information Technology (IT) project is user involvement.

It is strongly related to the mission and strategic goals of your business or project. Whereas the mission and goals focus on the aims and what is to be achieved, Critical Success Factors focus on the most important areas and get to the very heart of both what is to be achieved and how you will achieve it.

A plan should be implemented that considers a platform for growth and profits as well as takes into consideration the following critical success factors:[5]

* Money: positive cash flow, revenue growth, and profit margins.
* Your future: Acquiring new customers and/or distributors.
* Customer satisfaction: How happy they are.
* Quality: How good is your product and service?
* Product or service development: What's new that will increase business with existing customers and attract new ones?
* Intellectual capital: Increasing what you know is profitable.
* Strategic relationships: New sources of business, products and outside revenue.
* Employee attraction and retention: Your ability to extend your reach.
* Sustainability: Your personal ability to keep it all going.

The idea of identifying critical success factors as a basis for determining the information needs of managers was proposed by Daniel (1961) but popularized by Rockart (1979). The idea is very simple: in any organization certain factors will be critical to the success of that organization, in the sense that, if objectives associated with the factors are not achieved, the organization will fail - perhaps catastrophically so. Rockart (1979: 85), by referring to Daniel (1961), gives the following as an example of the CSFs: new product development, good distribution, and effective advertising for the food processing industry - factors that remain relevant today for many firms. (See: for example, Bergeron & Begin, 1989; Boynton & Zmud, 1984; Goldsmith, 1991; Leidecker & Bruno, 1984; Pollalis & Frieze,1993.)

The CSFs approach was applied in case studies carried out in the UK universities (Pellow & Wilson, 1993; Greene et al. 1996; Loughridge 1996). It was applied also as a component of a strategic information management (SIM) methodology put forward by Wilson (1992, 1994b). The CSFs approach was combined with the value chain concept by Porter (1985) in order to form an information audit (e.g. Ellis et al. 1993; Dimond, 1996; Buchanan & Gibb, 1998; see also Goldsmith, 1991). The methodology was tested in two case studies carried out in very knowledge-intensive sectors of Finnish industry. The process was funded by the Academy of Finland (see: Huotari 1995, 1997; Huotari & Wilson, 1996).

So many important matters can compete for your attention in business that it's often difficult to see the "wood for the trees". What's more, it can be extremely difficult to get everyone in the team pulling in the same direction and focusing on the true essentials.

That's where Critical Success Factors (CSFs) can help. CSFs are the essential areas of activity that must be performed well if you are to achieve the mission, objectives or goals for your business or project.

By identifying your Critical Success Factors, you can create a common point of reference to help you direct and measure the success of your business or project.

As a common point of reference, CSFs help everyone in the team to know exactly what's most important. And this helps people perform their own work in the right context and so pull together towards the same overall aims.

The idea of CSFs was first presented by D. Ronald Daniel in the 1960s. It was then built on and popularized a decade later by John F. Rockart, of MIT's Sloan School of Management, and has since been used extensively to help businesses implement their strategies and projects.

Inevitably, the CSF concept has evolved, and you may have seen it implemented in different ways. This article provides a simple definition and approach based on Rockart's original ideas.

Rockart defined CSFs as:
"The limited number of areas in which results, if they are satisfactory, will ensure successful competitive performance for the organization. They are the few key areas where things must go right for the business to flourish. If results in these areas are not adequate, the organization's efforts for the period will be less than desired."

He also concluded that CSFs are "areas of activity that should receive constant and careful attention from management."

MAIN ASPECTS OF CSFs
CSFs are tailored to a firm's or manager's particular situation as different situations (e.g. industry, division, individual) lead to different critical success factors. Rockart and Bullen presented five key sources of CSFs: the industry, competitive strategy and industry position, environmental factors, temporal factors, and managerial position (if considered from an individual's point of view). Each of these factors is explained in greater detail below.

The Industry
An industry's set of characteristics define its own CSFs. Different industries will thus have different CSFs, for example research into the CSFs for the business services, health care and education sectors showed each to be different after starting with a hypothesis of all sectors having their CSFs as market orientation, learning orientation, entrepreneurial management style and organisational flexibility (Barrett, Balloun and Weinstein, 2005).
An example of industry and company CSFs was presented by Rockart and Bullen (1981) in their research paper and is included here to illustrate their ideas (see figure 1). Further details on company CSFs are discussed in the next point.

The example presented by Rockart and Bullen was meant to illustrate that companies would have different CSFs and would not be completely similar. It can be seen though that many aspects of the CSFs could end up being similar for organisations in an industry.

Competitive Strategy and Industry Position
Not all firms in an industry will have the same CSFs in a particular industry. A firm's current position in the industry (where it is relative to other competitors in the industry and also the market leader), its strategy, and its resources and capabilities will define its CSFs. For example, in 2005 Caterpillar defined a new strategy to aggressively grow revenues over the long term. As part of that new strategy, Caterpillar defined several CSFs specific to the firm which were (Gordon, 2005):

* Organisational culture: "creating a culture that engaged employees, while focusing on safety and diversity"
* Quality control: "accelerating the pace of quality improvement for its products, while focusing on improving new product introduction and continuous product improvement processes"
* Cost focus: "implementing processes to become the highest-quality, lowest cost producer of our high-volume products in each hemispheric currency zone"

Other firms in Caterpillar's industry may or may not have the same CSFs, and are unlikely to have the same complete set.

Environmental Factors
These relate to environmental factors that are not in the control of the organisation but which an organisation must consider in developing CSFs. Examples for these are the industry regulation, political development and economic performance of a country, and population trends. For example, Ladbrokes, a UK bookmaker, will be establishing an international business in Italy where it has just acquired a business license, a requirement for foreign sports betting firms prior to establishing a business in the country (Citywire, 2007).
Another example of environmental factors affecting an organisation was the de-merger of Mondi, a paper and packaging firm, from its parent Anglo-American, a global mining firm. As Mondi had substantial assets in South Africa, it had to pursue a dual listing in order to meet the requirements of South African regulation, particularly in relation to its South African investors (Waples, 2007). Environmental CSFs for Mondi then in the short term include enhancing relations with the South African regulator and ensuring that requirements of South African investors are met.

Temporal Factors
Temporal factors are temporary or one-off CSFs resulting from a specific event necessitating their inclusion. Rockart and Bullen (1981) state that typically, a temporal CSF would not exist and they give as an example of a firm which "lost executives as a result of a plane crash requiring a critical success factor of rebuilding the executive group". However, with the evolution and integration of markets globally, one could argue that temporal factors are not temporal anymore as they could exist regularly in organisations. For example, a firm aggressively building its business internationally would have a need for a core group of executives in its new markets. Thus, it would have the CSF of "building the executive group in a specific market" and it could have this every year for different markets.
For example, Bear Stearns has stated an aggressive expansion plan in Asia to grow existing and new business lines (Financialwire, 2007). As Bear Stearns grows its business over the next few years, a CSF in each year is to build its management teams for the business and the financial products that it seeks to expand.

Managerial Position
A final primary source of CSF is managerial position. This is important if CSFs are considered from an individual's point of view. Rockart and Bullen (1981) give an example of manufacturing managers who would typically have the following CSFs: product quality, inventory control and cash control. As examples, possible firms whose managers would have the stated CSFs mentioned by the authors include Heidelberg Cement (large global cement firm) and Tata Steel (Indian firm which now owns Corus Group, a UK steel manufacturing firm) (Satish, 2007). In organisations with departments focused on customer relationships, a CSF for managers in these departments is customer relationship management (Mendoza et al., 2007).
An example of CSFs for the five primary sources is shown from a work on enterprise security management (see figure 2) which utilised the CSFs method to develop and deploy an effective approach to their business (Caralli, 2004).

* Ensure a good understanding of the environment, the industry and the company – It was shown that CSFs have five primary sources, and it is important to have a good understanding of the environment, the industry and the company in order to be able to write them well. These factors are customised for companies and individuals and the customisation results from the peculiarity of the organisation. This peculiarity stems from an organisation's strategy, current position, and resources and capabilities.
* Build knowledge of competitors in the industry – While this principle can be encompassed in the previous one, it is worth highlighting separately as it is critical to have a good understanding of competitors as well in identifying an organisation's CSFs. Knowing where competitors are positioned, what their resources and capabilities are, and what strategies they will pursue can have an impact on an organisation's strategy and also resulting CSFs.
* Develop CSFs which result in observable differences – A key impetus for the development of CSFs was the notion that factors which get measured are more likely to be achieved versus factors which are not measured. Thus, it is important to write CSFs which are observable or possibly measurable in certain respects such that it would be easier to focus on these factors. These don't have to be factors that are measured quantitatively as this would mimic key performance indicators; however, writing CSFs in observable terms would be helpful.
* Develop CSFs that have a large impact on an organisation's performance – By definition, CSFs are the "most critical" factors for organisations or individuals. However, due care should be exercised in identifying them due to the largely qualitative approach to identification, leaving many possible options for the factors and potentially results in discussions and debate. In order to truly have the impact as envisioned when CSFs were developed, it is important to thus identify the actual CSFs, i.e. the ones which would have the largest impact on an organisation's (or individual's) performance.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_success_factor
http://informationr.net/ir/6-3/paper108.html
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_80.htm
http://university-essays.tripod.com/critical_success_factors_csf.html

Vist my blog:
http://prettypriti-pretty.blogspot.com/2009/12/assignment-6.html

Happy New Year..

In the world of business for you to become more successful you must have activities that you called a
Critical Success Factors (CSF’s) which leads you to the success of your business. I will discuss n what (CSF's) means according to the research that i've made.

Critical Success Factors (CSF’s) are the critical factors or activities required for ensuring the success your business. The term was initially used in the world of data analysis, and business analysis. Most smaller and more pragmatic businesses can still use CSF’s but we need to take a different, more pragmatic approach. Critical Success Factors have been used significantly to present or identify a few key factors that organizations should focus on to be successful. As a definition, critical success factors refer to "the limited number of areas in which satisfactory results will ensure successful competitive performance for the individual, department, or organization”. As you read this and many other resources on the internet you will discover that there are potentially a confusing variety of definitions and uses of Critical Success Factors. Before you start the journey looking at CSFs it is important to realise that the specific factors relevant for you will vary from business to business and industry to industry. The key to using CSFs effectively is to ensure that your definition of a factor of your organizations activity which is central to its future will always apply. Therefore success in determining the CSFs for your organization is to determine what is central to its future and achievement of that future.

The principle of identifying critical success factors as a basis for determining the information needs of managers was proposed by RH Daniel (1961 Harvard Business Review - HBR) as an interdisciplinary approach with a potential usefulness in the practice of evaluation within library and information units but popularized by F Rockart (1979 Harvard Business Review - HBR). In time many academics have applied the methodology increasingly outside the educational establishment.

The idea is very simple:

in any organization certain factors will be critical to the success of that organization, in the sense that, if objectives associated with the factors are not achieved, the organization will fail - perhaps catastrophically so.

The following as an example of generic CSF's:

* New product development,
* Good distribution, and
* Effective advertising

Types of Critical Success Factor

1. Industry CSF's resulting from specific industry characteristics;
2. Strategy CSF's resulting from the chosen competitive strategy of the business;
3. Environmental CSF's resulting from economic or technological changes; and
4. Temporal CSF's resulting from internal organizational needs and changes.

Things that are measured get done more often than things that are not measured.

Each CSF should be measurable and associated with a target goal. You don't need exact measures to manage. Primary measures that should be listed include critical success levels (such as number of transactions per month) or, in cases where specific measurements are more difficult, general goals should be specified (such as moving up in an industry customer service survey).

Five key sources of Critical Success Factors

MAIN ASPECTS OF Critical Success Factors and their use in analysis
CSF's are tailored to a firm's or manager's particular situation as different situations (e.g. industry, division, individual) lead to different critical success factors. Rockart and Bullen presented five key sources of CSF's:

1. The industry,
An industry's set of characteristics define its own CSF's Different industries will thus have different CSF's, for example research into the CSF's for the Call centre, manufacturing, retail, business services, health care and education sectors showed each to be different after starting with a hypothesis of all sectors having their CSF's as market orientation, learning orientation, entrepreneurial management style and organizational flexibility.
In reality each organization has its own unique goals so while thee may be some industry standard - not all firms in one industry will have identical CSF's. Some trade associations offer benchmarking across possible common CSF's.

2. Competitive strategy and industry position

Competitive position or strategy: The nature of position in the marketplace or the adopted strategy to gain market share gives rise to CSF's Differing strategies and positions have different CSF'sNot all firms in an industry will have the same CSF's in a particular industry. A firm's current position in the industry (where it is relative to other competitors in the industry and also the market leader), its strategy, and its resources and capabilities will define its CSF's. The values of an organization, its target market etc will all impact the CSF's that are appropriate for it at a given point in time.

3. Environmental factors,

Environmental changes: Economic, regulatory, political, and demographic changes create CSF's for an organization.
These relate to environmental factors that are not in the control of the organization but which an organization must consider in developing CSF's Examples for these are the industry regulation, political development and economic performance of a country, and population trends. An example of environmental factors affecting an organization could be a de-merger.

4. Temporal factors, and

Temporal factors: These relate to short-term situations, often crises. These CSF's may be important, but are usually short-lived.

Temporal factors are temporary or one-off CSF's resulting from a specific event necessitating their inclusion.

Theoretically these would include a firm which "lost executives as a result of a plane crash requiring a critical success factor of rebuilding the executive group".

Practically, with the evolution and integration of markets globally, one could argue that temporal factors are not temporal anymore as they could exist regularly in organizations.

For example, a firm aggressively building its business internationally would have a need for a core group of executives in its new markets. Thus, it would have the CSF of "building the executive group in a specific market" and it could have this every year for different markets.

5. Managerial position (if considered from an individual's point of view). Each of these factors is explained in greater detail below.


Managerial role: An individual role may generate CSF's as performance in a specific manager's area of responsibility may be deemed critical to the success of an organization. Managerial position. This is important if CSF's are considered from an individual's point of view. For example, manufacturing managers who would typically have the following CSF's: product quality, inventory control and cash control. In organizations with departments focused on customer relationships, a CSF for managers in these departments may be customer relationship management.


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