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10 Ways to Determine the Purpose of a Project

The Five Whys Technique (also known as “Popping the Why Stack”) has long been suggested as a way to get to the ultimate reason for a project.  But when you ask why repeatedly, you run the risk of looking quite pedantic and annoying stakeholders.  With that in mind, I thought I’d provide a list of alternative questions that get to the same information but may not be quite as annoying.

  1. What problem are you trying to solve?
  2. What need are you trying to satisfy?
  3. What are you hoping to accomplish with this?
  4. Is there any overriding goal for these changes?
  5. What would happen if you didn’t do this project?
  6. What opportunity are you trying to exploit?
  7. How will the world look different once this project is successfully finished?
  8. So what?
  9. And that’s an issue because…?
  10. What on earth were you thinking?

I’d be interested in any suggestions you have found that work (or don’t for that matter).

<Addendum 12.25.2014>

I was hunting around on Chris Matts’ blog for another purpose and found some additional alternatives to the five whys.

Category: Business Analysis, Portfolio Management, Product ManagementTag: Business Analysis, Business Value, Root Cause Analysis, value management

About KentMcDonald

Writer & product manager helping product people deliver powerful internal products. #Ubersherpa to my family, listens to jazz and podcasts (but not necessarily podcasts about jazz), and collects national parks.

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