Collective Wisdom from the Experts 37
and ship them quicker? Will we save money by creating software that needs
fewer people to maintain it, or roll out an infrastructure change that lowers the
number of help desk calls?
If our software projects are for an industry-specific systems integrator, will
the way we sequence tasks or level resources increase the profit margin to the
company or buy us customer goodwill with a reputation for reliability? Will
our project prowess ensure that we complete more projects faster and, thus,
move us to a category with our suppliers in which we get a larger discount for
hardware?
Motivating teams and making difficult decisions on the spot become eas-
ier when we understand specifically how the completion of this project is
intended to benefit the company. When making the decision to fund this par-
ticular project over all of those that were in contention, why was this one more
important than those that were tabled for later?
Usually the project manager is not given the answer to these critical questions,
so you must learn to ask. The answer can alert you to whether time, money,
or quality is the key driver on the project. When you know the answer, you
can prepare workarounds, alternate solutions, and know where to spend your
contingency reserves to keep your project aligned with the business reason for
which it was created.