It's funny, but I think the one thing that can make or break your bigger projects has absolutely nothing to do with programming. It's project management. You are working on a project so why not treat it as such.

I found out that the more I draw out and write up goals, benchmarks, bug lists andother to do like lists, the more things progress or move along nicer.

Following this though, you will probably run into your bigger problems quicker. Lack of artists, musicians, story writters, etc... run out of good ideas, marketing problems, whatever it is...

But that has nothing to do with the project's management, it's just the facts of your available resources. If you plan fully, you can even predict and plan for these too. It's all in your planning stage.