I'm a big advocate of KPIs and I'm a stickler for a sound business case. I don't do anything without a plan and there's no resource more valuable than a good project manager. To invest resources, whether it's time, money or both, without understanding and quantifying the expected outcome, without understanding your route map and without measuring results against a plan is a sure route to disaster. No-one plans to fail - they just fail to plan.
This is what the rule book says and I've always told myself that this is the way it should work. In all honesty, I'm just repeating what I've been taught by others. It's what older, more experienced people always said - it seemed to make sense. It's the received wisdom that has become a part of the way I do things - but I've never believed it. Not really. And here's why.