Nice article. I liked that the article was concise and to the point. Rob echoed a lot of the issues that I have found in my experience that affect project success.

I liked Rob's section "3. Define Roles and Responsibilities." I have found the explicitly defining and assigning general roles (I use the term championship) helps foster a "just do it" attribute and avoids issues with follow through.

Thanks, Godfrey — glad you liked it. And agreed on the value of clearly defining roles and responsibilities. In my experience, everyone always inherently wants to contribute their best work. In order to do so, team members need to know what is expected of them and what to expect from other team members, both generally (roles) and specifically (responsibilities). Defining roles and responsibilities isn't about determining who-to-blame-for-what later (like a lot of people think, and which is why I think a lot of people/teams avoid making responsibilities clear), it's about setting team members up for success by allowing them to focus both individually and as a group on who is doing what and by when.