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.

The term “Project initiation” comes from a five-phase model created by the Project Management Institute (PMI). PMI outlines this model in their Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, also known as the PMBOK® Guide.

Important

• Take major decisions that establish the direction and resource requirements, like the project charter and selecting the project 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 project 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 project objective helps you achieve all this.

 The model divides a project’s lifecycle into these five stages:

• Project initiation: Broadly define your project and secure buy-in.
• Project planning: Create detailed goals and a project roadmap.
• Project execution: Launch your project using information from the first two steps.
• Project performance: Measure effectiveness using key performance indicators (KPIs).
• Project closure: Debrief with stakeholders.

Steps:

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 answer 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 project 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 project stakeholders.

It’s the responsibility of the project manager to ensure the means and frequency of communication in project management with project stakeholders 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.

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.