Defining unique success criteria

In traditional technology projects, the usual success criteria for the project include meeting the business case objectives, that is, being able to meet the expected returns from the investment. Success criteria in such projects also include a compliance to schedule, cost, and quality targets. Such projects have been around for many decades now. Project management principles and practices are well established. In the case of Big Data projects, most of these points do not hold true. From the discussion in the previous section, it is clear that Big Data projects need to be viewed and managed differently from normal technology projects. Therefore, they must be qualified with different criteria of success.

Since this topic of Big Data is hardly a few years old, the practices and principles certainly cannot be considered to be very well established. There are no golden rules or a set of criteria that are sacrosanct. We will evolve as we go along. Previously, we...