Initiation in Project Management

Initiation phase is analyzed in the project, you must first decide whether to make the project effective.

The main results are:

Project Mission - why?

Project Objectives - what we want to achieve?

Project deliverables - the steps that we need to achieve our goals

Project stakeholders - with an interest in our project or outcome?

1.  Project Criticality

It is important for the project manager and the sponsor have analyzed the project and understand the critical nature of the project in terms of business.

                                                                                           Figure 1: Project Criticality

2.  Project type (Complexity)

Figure 2: Type Project

It is equally important for the project manager and sponsor to have understood the type of project that they are dealing with since not all projects are the same.

i.  Challenges to Capability:

LOW - We have the skills, personnel and systems in place to do the project.

HIGH - we do not have the skills, personnel and systems in-house, and the need to find them outside the company.

ii.  Project Requirements:

STABLE - we know that customer requirements and remains almost stable throughout the project.

DEVELOPMENT - The project to build or something completely new that we did before to make, so we have little idea of ​​our requirements from the beginning, and change and evolve as we go through the project .

3.   Scope Statement

• Creates a sentence (or two) that answers the following questions:

• What?

• Why?

• When?

• Who?

• Where?

• How much?

• How many?

• How do we know that we have achieved our goal?

• What NOT NEED ??

Figure 3: Competing Limits

In each project, it is important that we communicate what it is about. People will ask questions about, or just need to know what we do.

Above top 7 questions are the most common questions people ask, so if you can answer in advance, and the creation of one or two sentence answers, and then you do not have to keep answering the same questions again and again.

It also helps your team, your sponsor, your customers and understand yourself more about the project.

The question "How many?" No need to be asked, if there is only one project results.

It is important to have defined how we know we have achieved your goal. If we do not know if we have achieved our goals of the project, we do not know if our project is a success.

It is also important to determine what is out of scope. This prevents a lot of Scope Creep later, as you can just refer back to the Scope Statement when people want to add space to your project.

As you can see, if we answer the questions and created our Scope Statement, we filled our competing constraints triangle.

4.  SMART Goals

Once the Range Statement has been defined, you can apply the SMART test.

Specific - it is to address a real business problem?

Measurable -Are we able to measure the problem, establish a baseline and set targets for improvement?

Achievable - Is the goal achievable? The project deadline realistic?

Relevance - Is it related to a business goals?

Time Bound - we have a date for completion?

5.  Project Charter

The Charter is a document. It should not be too long, but concise, easy to read, and to the point. It must be signed by the sponsor (or the client) and the Project Manager. It was made at the beginning of the project.

It was written by the Sponsor and the Project Manager and is essentially a contract between them.

If your project is for an external client, the Charter could be the contract supplier.

Project title and description always keep it short and in a language that everyone can understand

Assigned Project Manager and authority level  is important to be clear that who is the project manager from the beginning of the project, and what level of authority is: what are the limits for signing and decisions relating to the project?

Business Case  Why are we doing this project? How the results will help the company?

Scope Statement (including targets) As above.

Product Description / deliverables  How does the result look like? What we need to provide the end results?

High level of risk at the early stage, it is important to have thought about the risks of success or failure. If there are too many risks or if they are not acceptable, it is better to stop the project too early, not too much wasted time and resources.

High levels of Limitations and Assumptions constrains are limitations or restrictions. Assumptions are factors that we believe to be true until proven different.

Signed and approved by the sponsor or customer. It is important to sign the charter of how it is taken more seriously.

An example of a Project Charter

6. Sponsors
The golden rule says that if you do not have a sponsor and then you should not proceed with the project. In reality this is not always true. However, be aware of when not having a sponsor or a sponsor that is either not active or does not know his / her role. It is not possible to define truth, the whole team at this early stage. It is important which team you can define and begin when you take their understanding at the same level.

Sponsor - Project Manager Checklist

Initiation phase

•  There is a clearly identified sponsor.
•   The PM understands what is expected of the sponsor.
•   The cause of the problem and the project is clearly documented.
•   The contents of the project, which is clearly documented in and out of range.
•   Project specifications clearly identified and documented (in terms of numbers, time, etc.).
•   The budget and project deadlines are documented.
•   The sponsor signed the charter (which consists of the above information).

Planning Phase

• The main project risks are clearly documented.
• The limitations and assumptions clearly documented.
• The project stakeholders have been identified, analyzed and documented.
• The list of suppliers is documented.
• The roles and responsibilities Matrix (RAM) is documented.
• The milestones are identified and documented.
• The level of the Authority's Project Manager is documented.
• Sponsors have signed the Project (which consists of the above information).

Execution Phase

• Agreed to sponsor how often they want to be informed and in what format.
•  Communicate to the sponsor expediently.
•  Let's quickly inform the sponsor of any changes in the Triple Constraints: Time, Cost, Scope, Quality, Resources
•  Get sponsor signatures on any changes that affect the Triple Constraint.

Closure Phase

• Get sponsor signature at the end of every phase.
•  Get sponsor signature at the end of the Project.
•  File all documents relating to the project at the end of the project.

7.  Stakeholders

anyone

• Influenced by the work or the results of a project

• Who can influence, support or oppose the outcome

• Through a personal, professional or financial interest in the outcome

Failure to address the issues that stakeholders often leads to project a "failure"!

One of the critical factors for the success of a project, it is time to have focused on identifying stakeholders. If you do not know everyone involved and forgotten, then those who will cause problems later.

You will see that the list of stakeholders is a lot longer than you might expect. This is good. It is important to create this list, and to add, as the project was ongoing at the time.

An easy way to identify your stakeholders is to work with your team in a brainstorming session, using sticky notes.

It is important not to filter out one of the parties, but to do them all. We must first study the stakeholders before we know if we can filter.

The Stakeholder Assessment Grid then enables us to study the patrons.

Figure 7: Stakeholder Analysis

Power:  The ability to contribute or withhold resources and / or to accept or reject the results.

Concern: Influenced by the technical and social impact and perceptions.

Once you have placed every stakeholder in the appropriate boxes, and then we need to decide whether the stakeholders are:

Defender (Does stakeholders for the project?)

Resistance (Does stakeholders AGAINST project?)

8.  Requirements

Now we know that who our stakeholders are, it is time to understand what their needs are.

What are their needs and desires for this project?
What is the difference?

In real life, it is important to go and talk with stakeholders to understand their position, views and get a dialogue going. Many stakeholders are resistors because no one took the time to listen to them.

A stock for this step can also be a "User Requirements Document" or "Listing Requirements" or be called something.

Once you've determined we needed to make a useful exercise for the team is to analyze the requirements in terms of difficulty in achieving this requirement and the importance it will be necessary for success of the project.

You can count the stakeholders, and put the number in the Stakeholder requirements that they expect.

This is an excellent exercise because it allows us to make sure that you have listed the needs of all our stakeholders (we did not forget anyone), and ensure that every requirement is part of a Stakeholder.