In all of my consulting engagements, be it in Asia, North America or Europe, I often hear my clients demand high-quality results—appealing appearance, greater glory, impeccable implementation, minimal maintainability, rapid response and so on. The benchmark for the aforementioned high-quality results shapes the opinions of the stakeholders when judging, upon completion, if the project objective was met or not.
It is hard to measure “very reliable” or “user-friendly interface” or “well-documented features.” So, whenever you are faced with such softy-touchy-feely project success criteria, ask one quick question to qualify and quantify the quality expectations: “How are you going to measure _____?”
It is better for you and your customer to agree on “three seconds response time” vs. “it should be fast.” Likewise, “within 5% of the budget” is far better than “may exceed the budget within reason.”
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In contrast to formal contracts, 
To get things done, we delegate tasks to others. Hopefully, the delegated tasks were SMART—specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely.
Don’t ask “How long will this task take?” because the customary response will be the “most likely” estimate without considerations for the best-case and worst-case scenarios.
