According to the PMBOK Guide by the PMI, a project management life cycle consists of 5 phases below:
- Initiation
- Planning
- Execution
- Monitoring
- Closure
Here I am going to talk about each phase one by one and share the tasks, tools and templates I commonly used based on my personal experience leading technology projects over the past 10+ years. At this article, I am starting from Project Initiation in this article.
What is project initiation?
Project initiation can mean different to different organizations in terms of details. However, I would simply identify it as everything that occurs before a project is approved for detail planning.
Yes, the first stage of a project starts before we have it approved to go! A project is always started when you need to get the buy-in from the stakeholders.
Steps to perform project initiation
1. Requirement gathering
Once you are assigned to a project, the first thing you have to do is to understanding the target goal of your project. Normally, project sponsor or client key contact will provide you the critical information. There are some common questions you may ask so that you can carry on to the next step:
- What are the expected deliverables of the project?
- What are the expected benefits from the project deliverables?
- Who are the key stakeholders to accept the deliverables?
- Who will be the final decision makers under different scenarios?
- What is the expected budget for this project?
- What are the known issues, risks and constraints around this project?
- What is the expected delivery date?
After you get the information, you should have an idea on what you will have to achieve, who will be involving in the project, and what will be the potential roadblocks.
2. Scope Review
Next, you shall consult the key stakeholders to review the scope. Stakeholders may include internal developers, vendors, key end-users. The step is to validate with stakeholders to get an understand on the initial impressions, and most importantly to perform feasibility analysis based on the required scopes, time and budget.
3. PID, pitching, get approval
So now, you have all the necessary information. Before the official pitching, I would prefer to make some under the table discussion to secure the buy-in from stakeholders and sponsors.
Then, consolidate into a project initiation document (PID), or you can call it as pitching proposal usually from consulting agency. Typically I would include the below sections in the PID / proposal:
- Basic information about the project such as project name
- Project background and requirements
- Success criteria
- Project budget which can be CAPEX and OPEX in details
- High-level project phases and timeline
- Project scope and deliverables
- As-is and to-be operation procedures and change management
- Project management methodology (e.g. Waterfall, Iteration, Scrum)
- Suggested project team structures
- Key stakeholders roles and responsibilities
- Risks, assumptions, and dependencies
Some project managers may create the PID once the project initiation stage started and keep updating it. To myself, I would rather create this document at the end of project initiation, where I will understand what will be the best format of this document (e.g. word document when we submit a tender, or presentation deck for a pitch meeting).
Final words
I always say framework is a guideline on what you can manage the project. A project manager is valuable when the project manager can react to the scenario and make necessary updates to the document structure and the process in details; while at the same time we have the ground rules for the team to follow in order to mitigate project risks.
The project initiation phase provide a foundation to the project with the necessary buy-in and approval from the key stakeholders given the common goal and mutual agreed requirements and deliverables.