Just like journalism, successful project management answers five Ws: Who, what, when, why, and with what money. (As you can see, we have changed out “Where” for the much more important business question: budget.)
This is not just an arbitrary way to tie project management to another more popularly understood field. These five questions make up the foundation of project management. In fact, four of the five questions correspond to the four factors of project success.
The first three factors are popularly recognized: on-time, on-budget, and on-spec. Project managers answer the question “When” through scheduling in order to deliver projects on-time. They answer the question “With what money” through stakeholder management, planning, and budgeting in order to deliver projects on-budget. Finally, Requirements Management is the function that defines “What” a project is in the first place in order to deliver on the right specifications.
Unfortunately, the most important question is the most overlooked one: Why. In other words, “What are the intended benefits of the project?” This question is answered in the business case, and the objectives are achieved through the discipline of benefits realization.
That just leaves one question from above: Who? This is the only one of the questions that doesn’t correspond to one of the four factors of project success. Does that make it any less foundational? To the contrary, it is so important that it arches over all of project management, bridging it with portfolio management. “Who” is one of the main concerns of Resource Management, which has long-been the Holy Grail of Project Portfolio Management.
There is often an additional question that doesn’t begin with W: “How.” This is answered in through the project charter.
Learn more about how to answer the most foundational questions of project management with our PM Fundamentals.
The 5 Ws of Project Management
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