After having thought a lot lately about the virtues of good project management, I came across this A List Apart article that truely spoke to my heart. And probably many other managers as well.

“Many project managers believe a project has a beginning and an end. Everything that happens within those parameters can be dealt with by a methodology and a good framework of processes. What they forget is the emotional core of a project and the questions that need to be asked: Why does this project exist? What benefits will it have? What features will express these benefits? How will it make users more efficient, effective, and happy?”

Not that this is anything really new if you’ve ever taken a good project management workshop. What I liked about the article was the illustration how not asking the right questions in the beginning will ultimately result in unhappy clients, cost overruns, inevitable delays and non-optimal solutions. Read The Problem, the Balloon, and the Four Bedroom House…