The 5 Ws (and 1 H)
Five Ws (sometimes referred to as Five Ws and How, 5W1H, or Six Ws) are questions whose answers are considered essential in information gathering or solving problems. They are often mentioned in journalism, research, project management and police investigations.
What is the very first question you should ask during project requirements collection for your project to define the scope.
Ask Why every time you start a project. More than once. It will help at first materialize your idea in words. And sometimes you will even realize that you do not need to start.
Remember Who your stakeholders are: team, client, sponsor, etc. Who ultimately benefits when your project is completed?
Sometimes When is the most critical question. You will fail even if you do everything right but at the wrong time.
Where will your project be done? Where will it be delivered? With today’s global and dispersed environments, this question is not as simple as it may seem!
Ask How only when all core questions have been answered. This is where the methods, best practices, tools and techniques get deployed… but not until you have answered in detail the 5 Ws first!
Each question should have a factual answer – facts necessary to include for a report to be considered complete. Importantly, none of these questions can be answered with a simple yes or no.