PROJECT MANAGEMENT

LESSON 2:
PROJECT INITIATION PHASE

LESSON OBJECTIVES:
• How to identify scope
• Determining project goals & objectives
• Understanding deliverables & milestones
• Feasibility studies explained
• Identifying stakeholders & their interest & influence
• Creating a stakeholder register
• Creating a project charter

THE PROJECT INITIATION PHASE:

 The initiation phase is the first phase within your project management lifecycle
 Within this phase we need to evaluate things such as scope, scope being the entire body of work that you
need to accomplish in order to finish your project feasibility meaning:
o Is this project feasible for you to take on?
o What is the likelihood of success?
o What stakeholders will you need in order to make your project successful?
o Is there a specified set of skills that you would need or an opinion of someone with more industry
experience than you currently have available that would fall under the stakeholders that you will
need in your project?
o And then you would also have to keep a stakeholder register, and this would be used for quick
reference when dealing with stakeholders and you would then assess your influence and interest
within your project
 This will also help you determine how lightly you should tred with each stakeholder

WHAT IS SCOPE?
 Scope is a detailed account of every aspect of the project that needs to be met for your project to reach its
goals
 In relation to the bridge, the scope is that we needed to build a bridge from scratch to create a safe way for
hikers to cross the river. That was the scope of the work that we needed to complete. It also determines the
boundaries of your project within our project. We knew that we wanted to make as little impact on the
nature around the bridge as possible.
 Maintaining project's scope is also incredibly vital to the success of a project. When you're determining it, it
is vital that you use visuals. Remember that not every stakeholder or every team member is an expert in
every field. And this means that they may not follow the jargon and any of this while some of the steps that
you are using in your explanation so visuals can come in very handy in the scenario.
 It is important to be specific because what one person hears may be different to what someone else hears.
So ensure that you get everything in writing. And once you've gotten their opinions and gotten everything in
writing and everything's been solidified, it is also incredibly important that you obtain your sign offs.
 Now there are six phases of defining scope. Let's say we're building a Web site that sells shoes. What all are
we going to need to do in order to define how much work we need to accomplish? So firstly, we will plan
scope.
 SIX PHASES OF DEFINING SCOPE
PLAN SCOPE We want five different Web pages for our site and we want people to be able
to purchase the shoes online.
CONTROL SCOPE If the stakeholder comes in and says, let's add X, Y and Z to our project, you
can then say, sorry, that is not within our scope. We have got five Web pages
and we are expected to deliver that. The customers can purchase their shoes
online.
COLLECT REQUIREMENTS What all needs to be done in order to make this happen?
DEFINE SCOPE So once evaluates in the first three steps, you will then say this is the scope.
This is exactly what we need to do in order to deliver this website.
CREATE WORK BREAKDOWN Now what a work breakdown structure is, is it's essentially a hierarchy of
STRUCTURE (WBS) tasks. This will demonstrate to tasks that are relying on one another and
where they all fall and the main task lists
VALIDATE SCOPE you will have presented to your stakeholders and to the team and make sure
that everyone understands exactly what is going to be accomplished through
the course of the project. This process can be broken down even more simply
into Tom9 deliverables, milestones and reports

PROJECT SCOPE CAN BE BROKEN DOWN INTO

 Timeline - how long do you have in order to complete this project?
o The company has approached you and they've said we'd like you to make a site on which customers
can purchase shoes and summer's coming up.
 Deliverables – what work items need to be completed in order to keep inline with milestones?
o Deliverables would include things like the 5 web pages - once your home page is done, that would
then be considered a deliverable
 Milestones – What sequence does your project need to be executed in?
o What makes milestones very helpful within project management is that you can track your progress
through your milestones. So designing your website would be a milestone.
 Reports – How do we track project processes?
o reports where everything is being tracked, if you've gone over budgets or if you've exceeded your
time frames, that will all be able to be seen within reports and you can identify where things have
started to go wrong.

SCOPE CREEP
o Scope creep as the top cause of project failure!
o Uncontrolled growth in a project’s scope
o Often the smallest things can be what ultimately causes your projects to move into scope creep so always be
vigilant
o Generally, occurs when:
o Projects are not accurately defined
o Documents are inaccurate
o Control is lost/ loosely managed
PROJECT GOALS
• Purpose of undertaking the project

• Based on the long-term outcomes

SMART GOALS:

SPECIFIC What exactly needs to be done and when does it need to be done?
Gather specific requirements from the clients.
MEASURABLE How are we going to measure whether we are succeeding throughout this project?
Make use of your project milestones throughout this process

ATTAINABLE Don't set impossible tasks for your team members because all that's going to do is
lower morale and can sometimes affect your quality.
Make sure that what you're reaching for is something that you can attain.
REALISTIC Do they fit in with the environment of your company and the skill set that you
possess?
TIMELY Ensure that you allocate enough time for your team to complete the project tasks.

IDENTIFYING PROJECT OBJECTIVES

 Project Objectives detail what needs to be achieved in the process of achieving the project goal
 Five Project Objective categories:
 Business Objectives – build up to achieving the project goal
 Financial Objectives – financial targets, save money or increase profits
 Regulatory Objectives – laws, rules and regulations
 Effectiveness Objectives
 Performance Objectives

IDENTIFYING PROJECT DELIVERABLES

 Product or service created to meet project goals
 Key aspects of deliverables:
 Must exist within project scope
 Be approved by Stakeholders
 Must be strategically planned
 Must contribute to the overall success of the project

IDENTIFYING MILESTONES
 The sequence in which the project must be completed
 Milestones ensure that vital processes are accomplished within the allotted time frame
 They allow for the progression of the project to be monitored as it moves through each phase

A FEASIBILITY STUDY DEFINES:

o What the project is
o When will it be implemented?
o Why you are taking on the project
o How you plan to achieve the project goals
o Best practices to ensure success
 o Feasibility report

Feasibility Type
Technology
Technical Labour
Transport
Physical location
Materials
Target market
Economic Competitors
Predicted cost
Demand forecast & projections
Confirm legal requirements & restrictions
Legal Copyrights
Permits
Compatibility with business operations
Operational Environment
Ease of operation
Fit for purpose
Project timeline
Scheduling Milestones

RAG – Red Amber Green Review

This is used for is to show the severity of different incidences happening in your projects.

RED - critical errors. That's something that could cause your entire project to fail. This can be critical overspending on
your budget, time delays, lack of available resources or even unhappy stakeholders. Keep a very close eye on any
rating status that is sitting at red.

AMBER - is an issue that can be resolved, but you need to watch it so that doesn't turn into a red status. This can be
something where your project manager can intervene in time and then they can manage dissatisfaction among
stakeholders or rectify anything that is going over budget or that is exceeding timeframes. If your tactics are correct,
an amber, can move back into green status. If you're, however, not successful, then the status could be escalated to
red, in which case you're in big trouble.

GREEN - this is signalling that everything is going well. You're on budget, you're on track with time, your resources all
performing appropriately, and everything is good. Ideally in a perfect world, your entire projects, red states would be
in the green. But unfortunately, life does happen.

IDENTIFYING STAKEHOLDERS
Here are some questions you can utilise to identify stakeholders:

o Who is affected positively or negatively by the project?

 o Who has the power to make it succeed or fail?
o Who makes the decisions about money?
o Who has influence over other stakeholders?
o Who has the potential to solve problems with the project?
o Who has specialist skills which are crucial to the project?
o Who oversees assigning or procuring resources or facilities?
o Who is the end user?

INTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS
 Top management
 Resourcing director
 Accounting department

EXPANDED STAKEHOLDERS
 Employees
 Vendors
 Customers
 Manufacturers
 Environmental & other community activities

ASSESS INTEREST & INFLUENCE

HIGH POWER & HIGH INTEREST

 Need to be engaged regularly and managed closely

 Key players

 This group will require the most effort to keep satisfied

HIGH POWER & LOW INTEREST

 Keep these stakeholders satisfied by striking a careful balance between keeping
them informed, but not overloading them with too much information

LOW POWER & HIGH INTEREST

You should keep these stakeholders adequately informed and consult with them regarding
their area of interest, and make sure they don’t have any major issues with the project.
These stakeholders can often help with the details of the project
LOW POWER & LOW INTEREST
• Inform these stakeholders with general information
• Don’t overload them with excessive communication, but you should monitor
them, because they may become more powerful to the project and have a higher
interest in it

STAKEHOLDER REGISTER

A PROJECT CHARTER DEFINES:

• Reason for the project

• The main stakeholders
• Benefits of the project
• Objectives and constraints
• Risks identified
• General overview of the budget