What are we really trying to accomplish?

As a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and a Ph.D. in Computer Science, I realize the importance of clearly stating the purpose of a project or an application.

For many, it is difficult to take the time to work through the process of defining what is really needed.

While there are tools such as rapid prototyping and Rapid Application Development (RAD) available (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_application_development for more info), they do not remove the need for the eventual end users or the sponsor of the project to articulate in his or her mind what is really wanted.

To a large extent, my experience has shown that the more specific and constrained the requirements, the greater likelihood the project or application will succeed. The real world, however, does not always allow us to keep things as straightforward as we would like them to be.

So how do projects and applications get started? Someone identifies a need. Perhaps it is a need to do automate a repetitive function so that it can save the company money. Perhaps it is collecting information in a clinical trial for making a submission to the FDA. Needs can be small, and they can be very large.

Once the need is identified, the questions begin. I like to think of the 5 Ws and 1 H (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Ws). This is the hard (some may say annoying) part of starting a project. All the questions need to be asked, and some many times over until as many "clearly stated" answers as possible are obtained. The biggest question, and the one in my experience that leads to all the others, is why? Why are we trying to do this? This question is then followed by, "What are we really trying to accomplish?"

The "why" should be asked repeatedly to ferret out as many reasons as possible. Some of the first reasons we come up with might not be the most important. Some of the non-obvious reason(s) why might cause user acceptance problems if they involve issues with human performance or personal productivity. Knowing these reasons in advance will help a project or application be successful.

Once we know why we think we need to do something, we then need to define what we intend to do. To some extent, this is a question of scope in that it might involve how much of the problem we will attempt to bite off. Again, the question of what we intend to do should be asked repeatedly so that we can compare options and decide if we are addressing the most important parts first.

If we do the "why" and "what exactly" well, the rest will follow in a much easier fashion.

So, why did I write this???? :-) Certainly I did it to share my experience, but I also did it in hopes that I can help you answer these questions in your next project.