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Month: June 2021
Project Initiation: A Guide to Starting a Project the Right Path
It’s common knowledge that in all walks of life, a strong start can significantly increase the chances of achieving success. From tall skyscrapers to a football game, everything requires a strong foundation and managing projects is no different! All projects start with high hopes and a motivated team. However, if they are not initiated correctly, the threat of reeling off-course and ending up directionless remains looming throughout the project life cycle.
Initiation is the first phase of the project management life cycle and is often considered the most important. In the following sections, you’ll learn more about the importance of the project initiation process and the steps you should take to ensure the success of your project.
The five phases of the project life cycle are:
Project initiation
Project planning
Project execution
Project monitoring and control
Project closure
What is project initiation?
Project initiation is the first phase of the project management life cycle and in this stage, companies decide if the project is needed and how beneficial it will be for them. The two metrics that are used to judge a proposed project and determine the expectations from it are the business case and feasibility study.
Why is it important?
Take major decisions that establish the direction and resource requirements, like the project charter and selecting the stakeholders, are made during this phase. The stakeholders arrive at a clear objective to ensure everyone stays on the same page in terms of how the project should proceed.
There will be multiple checks during and after the execution to prevent miscommunication and to ensure the project stays on track throughout its course. However, precious time and resources might get wasted which is undesirable.
Effective project management requires you to maximize benefits and minimize costs while delivering ‘value’ to the customer. Having a clear objective helps you achieve all this.
Project initiation process – 6 key steps to follow
Now that we have established what project initiation is and why it is so important, it’s time to see what are the key steps in the project initiation checklist and how effective managers initiate their projects.
Let’s see how to initiate or start a project right from the scratch:
- Creating a business case
The business case is an important document that explains how the project’s goals align with the company’s long-term plans. This document explains why should the company spend its technical, financial, and human resources on the specific project.
An ideal business case does not talk about any technical details of the project and focuses solely on the business aspects. It is made to convince the upper-management to approve the project and answers their concerns related to possible financial and business-related risks.
- Conducting a feasibility study
After the approval of the business case, the next step is to determine the likelihood of the project’s success after considering all the factors. This study identifies the high-level constraints and assumptions of the project and decides whether the project is worth it or not. - Establishing a project charter
The project charter is perhaps the most comprehensive and important part of the project initiation process. It answers the 3 Ws to identify the scope/objective, team members, and the possible timeframe of the project.
The charter is, in some ways, the first document of the project that identifies the necessary details like the goals and the constraints of the project. It also identifies the project scope and lists the required resources for the completion of the project.
- Identifying stakeholders and making a stakeholder register
Communication and negotiations are a huge part of effective project management and a large part of a project manager’s time is usually spent dealing with stakeholders. PMBOK identifies stakeholders as anyone who can be influenced or has an influence on the project. Project stakeholders can either be internal or external and each type has its own communication requirement.
It’s the responsibility of the project manager to ensure the means and frequency of the communication with each stakeholder according to their influence and interest in the project. A common practice is to maintain a stakeholder register or a stakeholder map to decide the frequency and means of communication for each stakeholder according to their influence and interest in the project.
Learn how effective project communication can be done with the stakeholders.
- Assembling the team and establishing a project office
No project can be started without a project team. Assembling a working project team and assigning them roles and responsibilities is a vital part of the project initiation phase. Assigning roles and responsibilities early on also increases the overall accountability of the entire team and can help you as a manager in the later phases of the project life cycle. - Final review
After performing everything, it’s a good practice to review the entire project initiation stage to ensure you missed nothing. In later stages, you’ll continue reviewing your work as monitoring and controlling is one of the five phases of the project management life cycle.
What Is the Project Initiation Phase?
Once the initiation phase is underway and you’ve been given the green light, you need to create your project charter, or project initiation document (PID). The project charter outlines the purpose and requirements of the project.
It includes details, like business needs, key participants and stakeholders, scope, objectives, and overall goals. The project charter provides a foundation for defining project decisions and ensuring they are in line with company goals.
Although typically around one to two pages in length, your charter can be longer depending on the size, type, and complexity of the project. Here are some items you should be sure to include in your project charter:
Title
Brief Description
Background
Goals/Deliverables
Scope
Impact on Other Business Systems and Units
Stakeholders
Roles and Responsibilities
Milestones
Budget
Constraints, Assumptions, Dependencies, and Risks
Success Measurements/ROI
Project Approval
Define Scope
Project scope is the identification of the project’s goals, deliverables, budget, and schedule. While scope can change over time, it’s essential that you define scope early on to set expectations with all stakeholders.
Because a successful project is measured by its ability to complete the stated requirements on time and on budget, it’s important for the requirements to be clearly defined at the onset. Completing this step early on not only sets expectations but also provides a framework for you to fill in the details in order to deliver your project on time.
Defining project scope means you identify the project’s purpose and deliverables along with the resources you’ll need to execute your plan. Some of the items you should determine are:
Project Objectives
Deliverables
Constraints
Assumptions
Exclusions
Schedule
Budget
Additionally, the Project Management Institute (PMI) outlines the following six phases of defining scope:
Plan Scope: Decide how scope will be defined, monitored, and controlled.
Control Scope: An ongoing phase where you manage stakeholder expectations.
Collect Requirements: In this phase, you define project requirements needed to carry out your project.
Define Scope: Once you have requirements you can finally define scope including what is out of scope.
Create Work Breakdown Structures (WBS): This common project management tool breaks the broad project scope into a hierarchy of tasks.
Validate Scope: In this phase, internal and external stakeholders formally sign off on the proposed project scope and deliverables.
Additional Resources:
Set Up Your Project for Success with Effective Scope Management
Defining and Delivering Project Deliverables
Identify Project Objectives
Like the scope, having set goals and objectives for your project can help you avoid risks and steer a course to project success. Having clear objectives will help your team stay on track because they know precisely what they’re working towards.
An objective is specific and measurable and must meet time, budget, and quality constraints. A project may have one objective, many parallel objectives, or several objectives that must be achieved sequentially.
Although it can be difficult to write clear objectives, consider the targeted key performance indicators (KPIs) that are specific to the business case you are trying to solve. One way to create clear, concise objectives is using the S.M.A.R.T. method:
Specific: Define objectives clearly and in detail, leaving no room for interpretation.
Measurable: Identify the key performance indicators you’ll use to determine if you met your objectives.
Attainable: Pick objectives that are reasonable for the team to successfully complete.
Realistic: Set objectives that the project team believes can be achieved.
Time-Bound: Set a date or specific period that you plan to accomplish the objectives.
Invite the Right Stakeholders
Successful project managers ensure that they have the right stakeholders involved early on. Many project managers often overlook less obvious – yet critical – stakeholders, so it’s important to consider everyone that may be impacted by or have interest in the project plan, deliverables, and outcome.
The other thing to remember is that stakeholders can be internal and external. To maintain transparency throughout the project, guarantee that you have the right tools and processes in place to communicate effectively with all stakeholders.
To determine the level of involvement and communication that each stakeholder may need, consider the following five important factors:
Who are the stakeholders who have the most influence on your project?
Which stakeholders will be most affected by your project?
How should you handle important people who aren’t considered stakeholders?
Who controls the resources?
What are the top motivations and interests of your stakeholders?
You may even consider mapping the various stakeholders on a Stakeholder Map, based on level of influence and level interest, to determine who needs what and when.
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