Over the years something that’s interested me more and more is what makes one project successful and another, well less so.
I guess I’m quite fortunate that the projects I’ve worked on have always turned out well, but some have been very hard work – far harder than they needed to be.
The biggest difference would seem to be the people, not necessarily their skill or innate talent (though of course that helps!) but the support they are given to get the job done.
Anyway, Charlie Kindel, who’s a Programme Manager on the Windows Phone team at MS posted an interesting account of the work being undertaken around the new Windows Phone 7 Series phones. He talks about some of the principles he uses to run projects, most of which I’d agree with. It’s worth a read if this sort of stuff interests you.