Enterprise Architecture Series: Project Discovery Checklist

After many fulfilling years as an Enterprise Architect, I’m thrilled to embark on the next stage of my career journey. To capture and share the invaluable lessons I've learned along the way, I've been working on a series of articles that delve into the highs and lows of my experiences.

In these writings, I aim to offer insights on the challenges faced, the mistakes made, and the key takeaways from my journey. My hope is that these reflections will serve as a valuable resource for current and future professionals in the field.

What is a Project Discovery Checklist?

A project discovery checklist is a simple checklist for architects and helps in laying a strong foundation for the project, reducing uncertainties, and setting the stage for a successful project lifecycle.

Purpose of the project discovery checklist

Project discovery checklist is a helpful tool before starting the project lifecycle for several reasons. It promotes deep thinking on what the problem statement really is, considers the problem from various perspectives, encourages collaboration across units that may have a similar problem or opportunity and ensures focusing on the right problem, avoiding assumptions, and considering multiple perspectives in the following areas:

1. Clarifies Objectives: It helps in clearly defining the project goals, scope, and objectives, ensuring everyone involved understands what the project is intended to achieve.
2. Identifies Stakeholders: It identifies key stakeholders and their roles, ensuring their needs and expectations are considered from the beginning.
3. Establishes Requirements: It gathers and documents detailed requirements, which helps in creating a comprehensive project plan and avoiding scope creep later.
4. Assesses Risks: It helps in identifying potential risks and challenges early on, allowing for the development of mitigation strategies.
5. Defines Deliverables: It ensures that all deliverables are clearly defined, reducing ambiguity and setting clear expectations for project outcomes.
6. Aligns Resources: It helps in assessing the resources needed, including personnel, budget, and tools, ensuring that the project has what it needs to succeed.
7. Sets Timelines: It establishes a timeline and key milestones, providing a framework for tracking progress and ensuring timely completion.
8. Ensures Compliance: It helps in identifying any regulatory or compliance requirements that need to be addressed, preventing potential legal or operational issues.
9. Improves Communication: It provides a foundation for effective communication among team members and stakeholders, facilitating collaboration and information sharing.
10. Facilitates Planning: It lays the groundwork for detailed project planning, making it easier to create a realistic and achievable project plan.

How to use the checklist

Prior to putting forward a proposal to investigate and to challenge your understanding of the problem you are solving for the business or community it is crucial to spend time learning about the issue.

As a guide to structure planning at the beginning of the discovery process or a review at the end prior to completing the project initiative brief, used by the project initiator or by a project team as part of a workshop to solidify the project justification.

Stakeholder identification matrix

In any successful project, understanding and managing stakeholder relationships is crucial for achieving desired outcomes and ensuring smooth execution. The stakeholder identification matrix is a powerful tool designed to systematically categorise and prioritise stakeholders based on their influence, interest, and impact on the project. By mapping out who the stakeholders are, what their needs and expectations entail, and how they will affect or be affected by the project, this matrix provides a structured approach to engage effectively and address potential challenges. Utilising a stakeholder identification matrix helps in creating targeted communication strategies, aligning project objectives with stakeholder interests, and ultimately fostering stronger support and collaboration throughout the project lifecycle.

The roles are:

- Responsible: Who will deliver this project at each stage?

- Accountable: Who are the decision-makers and who will be accountable for the delivery of the project?

- Consulted: Who needs to be consulted (e.g., strategic community consultation, sustainability, risk, safety, data, technology, legal, procurement)?

- Informed: Who needs to know that this project is being investigated?

Use the RACI model to identify potential stakeholders to collaborate with prior to submitting a project initiative brief. Include internal and external stakeholders and ensure involvement at all stages of the project governance framework.

This checklist is designed to help you navigate the discovery phase effectively, ensuring that all critical aspects are considered before moving forward with a project.

Simple but powerful

A simple checklist is powerful because it provides clarity, consistency, and efficiency.

Key Questions:

1. What is the problem you are trying to address or the opportunity you want to investigate?

- Do you have data or evidence to indicate there is a problem or opportunity?

- Do you have any feedback from customers or the community to indicate this is a problem?

- Have you investigated the symptoms and underlying causes of the problem?

- Can you explain how the opportunity has come about?

2. Who else may have this problem or opportunity?

- Have you consulted other parts of the organisation that may have a similar problem or would benefit from the same opportunity? What are their needs for this project?

- Have you checked that no one else in the organisation is working on a similar problem or opportunity?

- Are there subject matter experts in the organisation who may have done work on this?

- Do other organisations have this issue or opportunity?

- Does the project link with any existing project or pre-approved initiative?

3. Why is it important that we do something about it now?

- How does this project support the strategic objectives?

- What is the priority to do this now?

- How much can we control or influence it?

4. What will the outcomes be and who will benefit?

- What must this project achieve?

- What are the expected benefits and outcomes?

- Who is the customer and how will customers and the community benefit?

- Can the benefits be measured?

5. What options are available?

- What will happen if we don’t do this project?

- Do you have an understanding of a range of options that may be possible?

- Do you have an understanding of what other organisations are doing in this area?

- Do you have an understanding of the pros and cons of the various options?

- Have you collaborated with key internal stakeholders on the viability of options?

6. What is the level of risk impact or change this will have?

- Do you have an understanding of the impact on customers, the community, staff, processes, environment, or data?

- Do you have an understanding of the potential cost impact?

- Has the problem/opportunity been considered from a sustainability point of view?

7. Who do you need to involve?

- Do you have a project sponsor that is engaged, supportive, and agrees on the need for the initiative?

- Have you identified the potential stakeholders and informed or consulted them on their perspective of the problem/opportunity? (Use an stakeholder identification matrix to identify your potential stakeholders).

- Have you considered if you need to put a team together to develop the project initiative brief?

Finally,

a well-crafted project discovery checklist is indispensable for setting a solid foundation before embarking on the project lifecycle. By systematically addressing key aspects—such as identifying the problem or opportunity, understanding stakeholder needs, assessing urgency, defining outcomes, exploring options, evaluating risk, and involving the right people—you ensure that the project is grounded in reality and aligned with organisational goals. This thorough preparation not only mitigates risks and clarifies objectives but also paves the way for a more streamlined, efficient project execution.

Ultimately, investing time and effort into this discovery phase increases the likelihood of project success and maximises the potential for delivering meaningful and impactful results.

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