5 questions to initiate a new project.

To be honest, these are not my ideas. It's not like this is a new discovery, but the simple way that this is formulated or shared could make the difference. And I think you can use it too.

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5 questions that you have to define at the beginning of the project so you can have a better understanding and view to plan next steps.

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Most of us have a bunch of projects in our history, so we can say that we have a lot of several ways to begin a project. Sometimes we have a very structured methodology that says what we have to do, when, and how. Sometimes we have a very flexible way to begin, and sometimes you can have a client that needs formalization of everything.

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Regardless of your personal flavor to face the initial phase of a project, these 5 questions will help you to initiate your journey of understanding the project and its limits and also will give you the vision to plan for the next steps.

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Here are the 5 questions:

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1. What is a successful project for you?

2. What is the scope of the project?

3. What is the budget?

4. When does this need to be completed?

5. Where can this go wrong?

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These are questions that have to be defined by your internal or external client. But you will have to help them understand and guide them to answer correctly. Let's be honest, some clients could answer any idea they have in their creative mind without any guidance, and that could not help.

A little more detail on each question? Here it goes.

1. What is a successful project for you? You will have to be concise; if you have something like "to have a better mobile app," that is an idea that everybody has a different perception of. For example, for me, a better app could mean that it runs over a newer operating system, so you will have better security, but for the client, it could mean that it has to have more colors.

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So the main point here is that it has to be measurable, so it will be objective.

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2. What is the scope of the project? It has to define limits or boundaries, from general terms like line of business to impact or users that will be involved, or amount of transactions expected, to the detail of each component. The more, the better. You don't have to close this definition at this point in the project, but any comment or hint that the client, sponsor, or stakeholder provides will help you to quantify the amount of effort involved.

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3. What is the budget? This question will also help you understand what the client is expecting. Here you have to consider the implementation phase cost (man/hours, hardware, licenses) and operational costs (maintenance, monitoring, licenses, etc.). Defining these limits will help you to negotiate scope per instance. If there are not many man/hours to implement, that means that you won't be able to include more lines of business in the implementation, and also this can be used in conversations with stakeholders of the project.

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4. When does this need to be completed? The definition of this point will provide you with a sight of the number of people you need to deliver on time. Also, it will help you agree on the requirement that you can include. If you have a fixed date to deliver, that means that you could have to leave some of the initial scope out of the scope of the initial implementation. Or maybe you will have to do less testing (not recommended because that will lead to a lack of quality, but I have seen this). Maybe your due date is flexible, so you won't have to split or reduce your scope.

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5. Where can this go wrong? This is related to risks. After you identify the risks, you will be able to plan what to do to reduce them or mitigate them, or sometimes the cost of reducing the risk is so high that the client prefers to live with the risk and assume the cost of fixing if the risk gets real rather than work to mitigate them.

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These 5 questions not only will help you understand what the client needs or wants, but they will also help you to plan the next steps and the whole project.

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Even more, when you are in the middle of the project and the client tries to change something, it will be easier for you to explain the impact of that change.?

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For example, if cleint says, "I`m thinking of reducing the amount of testing we are performing?" you can say, "Of course we can do that, but please keep in mind that the quality of the implementation will probably be reduced, and you declared at the beginning of the project that a successful project is one that has no impact on the final user. Should we change the successful criteria as well?

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Another example here. The client says, "I have considered including another pack of requirements in our actual implementation?" so you can reply, "Sure, no problem, and we will adjust the Due/Go live date according to the new needed efforts. This will impact one of our initial agreements about the due date that you said was immovable, but we can adapt."

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And so on and on and on.

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So, dear project manager, consider and define these 5 questions with the stakeholders at the beginning of the project, and your life will be easier.

I heard this in a podcast called "PM happy hour". https://pmhappyhour.com/

or you can look for it in your favorite podcast app.

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