Class Reading - The five W's (and 1H)
In between classes this week, our lecture has asked us to read a brief article that discusses questions that should be asked at the start of gathering information. They include Who, What, When, Why and How. They construct a formula for getting the complete story on a subject.
Who is it about?
What happened?
When did it take place?
Where did it take place?
Why did it happen?
How did it happen?
The important aspect of these questions is that they cannot be answered with a simple yes or no, and have to include a factual answer for them to be considered complete.
The 5 W's in Project Management
WHY - Delving into this question allows you to deliver a project to your customer and audience's satisfaction.
WHAT - This is the first question you will ask when you are trying to gather an understanding of the requirements for your project, to refine the scope.
WHO - Who are your customers, your target audience, who are you basing your research on or who will benefit from its completion.
WHEN - This one cannot be complete until the questions above have been answered. You can not set a timeframe or a completion date until you have an understanding of the Why, What and Who it is for.
WHERE - After you have been able to answer all of the questions above, where will you execute your project? Where will it be delivered? As there are so many platforms and options now in our ever-expanding world, this can be harder to answer than it may seem.
Now after answering all of the five W's above, you are able to progress forward to answer How you will implement it? THis is where your methods, practices, tools and techniques will become useful to complete the rest of your project.
