Project Assessment Questions

A good friend, Mike Howe, had some really neat questions to assess the state of a project.   They mostly related to the way the project was organized. 

His first question was "Who cares?"  He wanted to know who really wanted the project to succeed.  If the answer to this question is the people delivering the project we have problems.  The people who will benefit and the sponsor must also care or we have an project success issue. 

The next question is "If this project fails, who will be blamed?"  Again the answer is very revealing about the sponsorship and commitment of the organization.  Again if the blame goes way down the organization to some group of developers or an outside organization, you can bet the farm the project has trouble.

So, look at your projects and ask yourself "Who Cares?" and "Who will be blamed?"  Based on the answers, you might look at whether you need to reassess the projects usefulness or challenge the organization to see if they really want the project.

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