success criteria
Goals defining accomplishment
Success criteria are the specific standards or conditions that must be met to consider something a success.
They define what "done" or "achieved" looks like before work begins: The success criteria for this project include launching by March and staying under budget.
In education, success criteria spell out what students need to demonstrate to show mastery.
The term appears frequently in project management, software development, and assessment design—anywhere outcomes need to be measurable rather than vague.
- benchmarkStandard for comparison
- gold standardMeasure of ultimate quality
- milestoneNotable event marking progress
- metricsStandards for assessment
- key performance indicatorsMeasurable values tracking success
goals · targets · threshold · achievement · measurement · standards · objectives · evaluation · performance · deliverables · outcomes · checkpoints · finish line · indicators · pass · fail · rubric · scorecard
success criteriawishful thinking
Belief shaped by desire
unclear expectations · hand-waving · pie in the sky · loose guidelines
success criteriagut feeling
Instinctive sense about something
goallessness · directionlessness · aimlessness · moving the goalposts
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