IDENTIFYING CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS IN DEFENSE DEVELOPMENT-PROJECTS - A MULTIVARIATE-ANALYSIS

The main goal of this article is to identify managerial variables that are critical to the success of defense projects. This study analyzes 110 defense projects executed in Israel over the last 20 years. Some 4 00 managerial variables were collected, and 20 measures of success der ived for each project. Multivariate analysis is employed to account si multaneously for the diverse attributes of projects' success. The majo r results of this study are: (1) in the military environment, the more urgent is the perceived need for the project's output, the greater is the project's chance to succeed; (2) the customer follow-up team has a major role in determining project success - especially important are the team members' professional qualifications and sense of responsibi lity for project success and the stability of key personnel; (3) defen se projects are often technologically challenging; proven technologica l feasibility at the start of a project is critical to its success; (4 ) attention to design considerations (produceability, quality, reliabi lity, and design to cost) in the early phases of development are criti cal to project success; and (5) the professional qualifications and te am spirit of the development team are highly correlated with success.