Charrette

By chance, I stumpled on the term charette, and thought about the need for including charettes in software development projects. A charette is, according to Wikipedia, is an 'intense period of design'. The wikipedia article is interesting, again the similarities between software and urban development are many.

And so with the term charette: it describes a very creative and positive phase but it can also have another meaning:

'Historically, the term charrette also has been applied to the cart or tumbril used to carry the condemned to the guillotine.'

So, what becomes of your creative phases: do they evolve into magical software or do they make way to project death?