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 project managers initiate their projects.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.