Hollywood Secrets of Project Management Success

Chapter 4. Invest in a Solid Script

Technology development isn’t really about building software, hardware, or systems. It’s about creating business solutions through the automation of specialized business activities. In the absence of a business need or a business mission, there’d be little use for technology at all. The real focus of project management, then, isn’t schedule and cost controls but realizing the business solution. See the mission through, and chances are—outright catastrophes aside—the project will be seen as a success. But bring it in exactly on schedule and exactly on budget with a somehow compromised (perhaps even useless) end product, and the effort, no matter how well managed, will be deemed marginal.

These considerations underscore ...