I thought today on the importance of certain words in an organization, like when people say “We’re DONE” what do they mean? When they say “This project was a SUCCESS”, what exactly do they mean by “success”? These are important “words” or phrases that any company must define clearly for it to run effectively.
Along these lines I found two nice podcasts on hanselminutes.com, one entitled Lean Software Development with Tom and Mary Poppendieck which has a good approach to defining success; and then What is Done? – A Conversation with Scrum Co-Creator Ken Schwaber which talks about what it is to be done. Both of these are well worth the listen.