A great post on agile warrior about the questions which absolutely have to be asked (and answered) in order for a successful project to take off. We’ve heard all of it before, however the post serves as a nice summary and food for thought if taken figuratively and an applicable technique if taken literally.

We can even summarize the ten points further by distilling the main parts:

1. Why are we building the thing we’re building?
2. What exactly are we building?
   • a free-text paragraph
   • a pitch + 2-3 short points
3. What exactly are we not building?
4. Marketing strategy - whom should we be talking to?
5. Architectural overview - how are we going to build it?
6. Risk analysis - why can we fail?
7. High-level estimate - how much is it going to cost?