Project Initiation: Starting a Successful Project

• Module 1 :Fundamentals of project Initiation
• Module 2 : Defining project goal,scope, and success criteria?
• Module 3: Working effectively with stakeholders
• Module 4 : Utilizing resources and tools for project successModule 1

Fundamentals of project Initiation

Why is project initiation essential?

• Initiation is the first phase of the project.
• A well-planned initiation results in a strong foundation for your project, and sets it up for success.
• Initiation begins after a problem or opportunity has been identified within an organization.
• stakeholders like senior leaders at a company will initiate a project to address a specific need for the business.

Importance of Project initiation:

• Initiation phase is a crucial time for asking stakeholders the right questions, performing research, determining resources, and clearly documenting the key components of a project.
• If the project isn't initiated properly, things can go wrong pretty fast.
• Proper initiation also helps ensure that the benefits of the project outcomes will outweigh the costs of the project.?

To determine this we use cost-Benefit analysis (process of adding up the expected value of a project & comparing them to dollar costs)?

Benefits of a project analysis questions?

What value will this project create?

How much money could this project save our organization??

How much money will it bring in from existing customers??

How much time will be saved??

How will the user experience be improved?

Cost of a project analysis questions?

How much time will people have to spend on this project?

What will be the one-time costs??

Are there any ongoing costs??

What about long-term costs??

Calculating costs and benefits : The process of calculating costs and benefits is also called calculating return on investment .

One common ROI formula is : (G-C)/C=ROI? G represents the financial gains you expect from the project,C represents the upfront and ongoing costs of your investment in the project.

Performing a cost-benefit analysis can help you and your stakeholders determine if it makes sense to take on a new project by evaluating if its benefits outweigh its costs.

• Goals:what you've been asked to do and what you're trying to achieve. ?All projects should have clear goals and often those will be determined by senior company leaders, with your help.
• Scope: This is the process to define the work that needs to happen to complete the project.
• Deliverables:? products and services that you will create for your customer, client or project sponsor. It? can be anything from product features and functionalities to documentation, processes and more, anything that enables the goal of your project to be achieved. They are 2 types tangible or intangible
• Success criteria:? standards by which you measure how successful a project was in reaching its goals.
• Stakeholders: key to making informed decisions at every step of the project, including the initiation phase. They're the people who both have an interest in and are affected by the completion and success of a project. It's also your role to ensure that all stakeholders are in agreement on the goals and overall mission of the project before moving on to the next phase
• Resources : Refer to the budget, people, materials, and other items that you will have at your disposal. It's super important to think carefully about these pieces early on.?
• Project charter: ?once you've established your goals, scope, deliverables, success criteria,stakeholders, and resources, it's time to create a project charter document. It clearly define the project and its goals and outline what is needed to accomplish them. It? allows you to get organized, set up a framework for what needs to be done and communicate those details to others. Once you've drafted the charter, you would then review the document with key stakeholders to get their approval to move into the planning stage.

Module 2 : Defining project goal,scope, and success criteria

Project goals

• It is the desired outcome of the project and it should be very clear and specific.
• At start take time to review your goals and make sure they're well-defined.
• Gather information from stakeholders talk to them about their vision for the project and ask how this aligns to the company's larger goals and mission.
• stakeholders should agree to support the project goals in order to avoid running into issues later on.

Project deliverables

• They are the products or services that are created for the customer, client, or project sponsor. and also its ?what gets produced or presented at the end of a task, event, or process.
• It help us quantify and realize the impact of the project and they are usually decided upfront with the stakeholders or clients involved in the project and it makes? everyone accountable and are typically a big part of achieving the goal.
• It can be tangible or intangible outcome.
• Ensure all the authorized people shares their vision and expectations of the deliverables and document it.

Setting SMART goals

• Goals are very helpful for ensuring project success.
• SMART goals help you see the full scope of a goal, determine its feasibility, and clearly define project success in concrete terms.?

Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART)?

• Specific: The objective has no ambiguity for the project team to misinterpret.
• Measurable: Metrics help the project team determine when the objective is met.
• Attainable: The project team agrees the objective is realistic.
• Relevant: The goal fits the organization’s strategic plan and supports the project charter.
• Time-bound: The project team documents a date to achieve the goal.

Objectives and Key results, or OKRs

• OKRs help establish and clarify goals or objectives for an organization, department, project or person.
• OKRs take SMART goals a step further by combining a goal and more detailed metrics to determine a measurable outcome.
• Objective :Define what needs to be achieved
• key results:The measurable outcomes that define when the objective has been met.

• ?Use OKRs to set stretch goals as a way to challenge ourselves to do something we haven't accomplished before. If we actually accomplish all of our key results, we may have made our OKRs a bit too easy.

OKRs use at different levels :Company level,Department or team level and Project level.

Company-level OKRs??

• They are commonly shared across an organization so that everyone is clear on the company's goals.
• ?They are usually updated on an annual basis to help drive the organization in the direction it wants to go.

Project-level OKRs?

• It Should support and be aligned with company-level.

Team or department-level OKRs

• It support the company's broader OKRs and help drive team performance. Departments may develop OKRs that are more pacific to their job function a well.

These high-level OKRs support the mission of the organization.

OKRs and project management

• As a project manager, OKRs can help you expand upon project goals and further clarify the deliverables you’ll need from the project to accomplish those goals.
• Project-level OKRs help establish the appropriate scope for your team so that you can say “no” to requests that may get in the way of them meeting their objectives.
• project-level OKRs to help motivate your team since OKRs are intended to challenge you to push past what’s easily achievable.?

Creating OKRs for your project

Set your objectives: Project objectives should be aspirational, aligned with organizational goals, action-oriented, concrete, and significant.

Help shape each objective, ask yourself and your team:

• Does the objective help in achieving the project’s overall goals?
• Does the objective align with company and departmental OKRs?
• Is the objective inspiring and motivational?
• Will achieving the objective make a significant impact?

Develop key results: Add 2–3 key results for each objective. Key results should be Results-oriented—not a task,Measurable and verifiable,Specific and time-bound and Aggressive yet realistic.

?Help shape your key results, ask yourself and your team

• What does success mean?
• What metrics would prove that we’ve successfully achieved the objective?

OKR development best practices

• Think of your objectives as being motivational and inspiring and your key results as being tactical and specific. The objective describes what you want to do and the key results describe how you’ll know you did it.?
• Be sure to document your OKRs and link to them in your project plan.
• Unique Utility of OKRs vs. SMART Goals:?

• SMART goals require a specific justification for the effort,OKRs ask you to define the “why” behind your objective(s). In essence, key results are SMART goals.

Key Differentiators for OKRs

• OKRs, the objectives provide general, inspirational aims, while the key results detail the time-based metrics by which you gauge success.
• SMART goals must be attainable, some users believe goals can devolve into a to-do list of results, rather than providing breakthrough development for an organization.?

When to Use OKRs vs. SMART Goals

Use OKRs in the following situations:

• When you have a clear destination?
• When you are developing long-term goals
• When you have goals that will evolve
• To create an extra level of organizational context
• To set multimetric goals

Use SMART goals in the following situations:

• To provide top-down direction for repeated behaviors and processes
• When you don't quite have a destination
• To set and track discrete goals within a team or for an individual

?OKR and project management work together:?

• OKR is a great framework for focusing on achieving results rather than completing tasks, but this doesn’t mean there’s no place for day-to-day tasks in OKR. They work together.
• Objective sets your focus and it describes a point in the future you want to get to which is different from the status quo.?
• ?Key Results are things you measure, that have a target, and indicate whether or not you’ve reached your Objective.
• Define and determine scope

• project scope includes the boundaries of a project and you will have a clear understanding as to what is included or excluded from a project.
• Scope helps ensure that your project is clearly defined and mapped out and also includes the project timeline, budget and resources.
• Defining project scope should happen during the initial planning stage because you want to start figuring out the scope early on so that everyone can agree to the same set of expectations.
• A clearly defined scope describes all the details of a project and regulates what can be added or removed as it progresses. While it's ultimately the project manager's responsibility to monitor the project and make sure all the work and resources fall within its scope, team members and stakeholders can be encouraged to do their part by focusing on the task that are the most important to reaching the project's goal.?
• Once you understand your project scope, you want to document all the details so that anyone can refer back to it throughout the life cycle of the project.
• Poorly-defined scope or major changes to your scope can cause changes to the budget, timeline, or even final outcome of the project.

How do you actually figure out the scope of your project?

• ?Talk to your sponsors and stakeholders, understand what their goals are, and find out what is, and this is really important, what is not included in the project.?

Questions to add to the list.?

• Where did the project come from??
• Why is it needed??
• What is the project expected to achieve?
• ?What does the project sponsor have in mind??
• Who approves the final results??

• Make sure you understand the Goals, deliverables, resources,budget, schedule and flexibility.
• Ensure that you understand the scope of the project will help reduce expenses, rework, frustration, and confusion.

• There are concepts of in-scope and out-of-scope and the phenomenon called scope creep. All three will help with ensuring your project stays on track and within budget.?

In-scope: Tasks that are included in the project plan and contribute to the project's overall goal.

Out-of-scope:Tasks that aren't included in the project plan and don't contribute to the project's overall goal.

scope creep : Changes, growth, and uncontrolled factors that affect a project's scope at any point after the project begins.

Monitoring and maintaining a project's scope

• Scope creep is a common problem, and it's not always easy to control. It's one that we struggle with on every single project.
• By identifying scope creep and being proactive, you protect your project and your project team.
• To help you combat scope creep, it's good to know that there are two major sources from which it comes: external and internal.
• External sources of scope creep are easier to recognize.?
• Internal sources of scope creep are trickier to spot and harder to control.?
• Monitor your project's scope and protect it at all costs. Even the most minor change can mean major risk to your project's success.

Strategies for controlling scope creep:

• Define your project’s requirements:
• Set a clear project schedule
• Determine what is out of scope
• Provide alternatives
• Set up a change control process
• Learn how to say no
• Collect costs for out-of-scope work

Managing changes to a project's scope

• Scope change is acceptable and what impact it will have, project managers usually refer to the triple constraint model.
• The triple constraint model is the combination of the three most significant restrictions of any project: scope, time, and cost
• It helps? to manage scope and control scope creep. It can serve as a valuable tool to help you negotiate priorities and consider trade-offs

Measuring a project's success

LAUNCH : Delivering the final result of your project to the client or user .

LANDING: Measure the success of your project using the success criteria established at the outset of the project.

Launching and landing a project : This is a crucial part of goal setting that is often overlooked in the initiation phase.

?we have a way to measure and help you ensure the success of your project. It's called success criteria.

success criteria

• It tells you whether or not the project? was successful and it includes all the Specific details of your goals and deliverables, requirements, expectations also it can be a guide so you know whether you've accomplished what you set out to do.
• The standards by which the project will be judged once it's been delivered to stakeholders and customers.
• Manage the success criteria to follow it through the life cycle of your project, you'll ultimately have a smooth landing.
• It will set standards for how your project will be judged and the metrics you defined initially when setting SMART goals will come in handy.
• Will your project increase retention??
• Will your project speed up a product feature??
• Depending on the product and situation, the answers will differ, but it is important that your team aligns and works toward the same measurable goal.

Determine your project success

• ?You can measure to determine your project success in a similar way to measuring a goal.

• Identify the measurable aspects of your project.
• Get clarity from stakeholders on the project requirements and expectations.
• Who ultimately says whether or not the project is successful?
• What's the success of this project based on?

Way to measure success:

• ?Consider customer adoption and engagement metrics, along with more business-oriented metrics that track things like sales and growth.
• Adoption refers to how the customer uses and adopts a product or service without any issues.
• Engagement refers to how often or meaningful customer interaction and participation is over time.
• Adoption metrics might include launching a new product to a group of users and having a high amount of them use or adopt it.?
• Engagement metrics might include increasing the daily usage of a design feature or increasing orders and customer interactions.

• Share your success criteria document with your stakeholders and ask if they agree with how the project's success will be determined. It's also a good idea to have the appropriate stakeholders sign off on the success criteria.?

Tracking and communicating success criteria

• Evaluating user engagement with the product?
• Measuring stakeholder and customer satisfaction via surveys
• Tracking user adoption of the product by using sales data

Using OKRs to evaluate progress

• Communicating and tracking OKRs
• Share your OKRs with your team.
• Assign owners
• Measuring progress
• Determine how you will score your OKRs.
• Set your scoring expectations.?
• Schedule checkpoints.

Defining goals ,managing scope and ensuring a successful landing might seem tricky to master at first, but the SMART method and the triple constraint triangle, tools, and methods for measuring success criteria and clear communication will help you every step of the way.

Module 3 : Working effectively with stakeholders

Stakeholders play a pivotal role and they are people who are interested in and affected by the project's completion and success.

• Each person involved has a set role and set responsibilities to help bring the project to a landing. Those roles include project sponsors, customers, team members, and the project manager.
• stakeholder mapping and analysis and RACI charts. These are tools that help clarify roles and responsibilities and prevent confusion on who takes ownership of which tasks.

Accessibility for project managers

• Accessibility should be incorporated into every role at a company, whether a product designer, communicator, developer or project manager.
• Accessibility can be defined in a number of different ways :Actively removing any barriers that might prevent persons with disabilities from being able to access technology, information, or experiences, and leveling in the playing field so everyone has an equal chance of enjoying life and being successful.
• In project management, you, yourself, people on your project team, or people highly invested in your project may have a disability, whether visible or invisible.project manager are responsible for making sure a group of people can come together to achieve a common goal using shared tools and systems. In order to be successful, you need to make sure the infrastructure and culture you set up works for everyone and it's a key element of project management and also by considering accessibility, you can impact everyone's lives for the better.

Choosing a project team

When choosing a right team? you should consider?

• Required roles
• Team size?
• Motivation?
• Availability?
• Necessary skills
• Motivation?

The building blocks of a project dream team

• Too big, too small, or just right?
• The right skills and abilities to fill the role :Technical skills,Problem-solving skills,Interpersonal skills and leadership skills

Essential project roles

• Project manager: Manage the team,ensure project success,Documenting things, managing and engaging with stakeholders.
• Stakeholders:are often divided into two groups: primary stakeholders, also known as key stakeholders, and secondary stakeholders.
• Project team members: are also considered primary stakeholders, since they play a crucial role in getting the job done.
• project sponsor: initiates the project and is responsible for presenting a business case for its existence, signing the project charter, and releasing resources to the project manager.

Evaluating stakeholders by stakeholder analysis?

• Stakeholders are are an essential part of any project. A project manager’s ability to balance stakeholder requirements, get their buy-in, and understand when and how to involve them is key to successfully fulfilling a project.?
• Stakeholder buy-in helps stakeholder feel invested in the outcome of a project by involving them in decision-making.

Stakeholder analysis

• It's a useful tool that project managers use to understand stakeholders’ needs and help minimize hiccups during your project life cycle and its a visual representation of all the stakeholders.
• The power grid is a super useful two-by-two grid used for conducting a stakeholder analysis and we use it to assign each stakeholder's level of importance to the project, measuring their interest and influence.?
• key steps in the stakeholder analysis:Make a list of all the stakeholders that the project impacts. Then determine the level of interest and influence for each stakeholder. And finally, assess their ability to participate, and find ways to involve them.
• You might want to form a steering committee during some projects. A steering committee is a collection of key stakeholders who have a high level of power and interest in a project and they can influence multiple departments within the organization, which means that they have the potential to release a greater number of resources to the project manager.??

Generating stakeholder buy-in?

• Once you organize and assess your stakeholders, it is time to start making some decisions on whose buy-in is absolutely necessary for success, whose requirements deserve the most attention, and what level of communication each stakeholder will require.
• Gaining key stakeholder buy-in is essential to ensuring that your project is not deprioritized or deprived of resources.?

Tips for gaining key stakeholder buy-in include:

• Clearly mapping the work of the project to the goals of the stakeholder.
• Describing how the project aligns with the goals of the stakeholder's department or team.
• Listening to feedback from the stakeholder and finding ways to incorporate their feedback into the project's charter where appropriate.

Manage your stakeholders’ expectations by presenting a realistic view of your team’s abilities. Do not over-promise and under-deliver.

RACI chart

• It can be an extremely effective way to define project roles, give direction to each team member and stakeholder, and? ensure work gets done efficiently and it helps to define and document project roles and responsibilities.
• RACI chart referred to as a Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM), RACI diagram, or RACI matrix.

Elements of a RACI chart

• R: Responsible: who gets the work done
• A: Accountable: who makes sure the work is done
• C: Consulted: who gives input or feedback on work
• I: Informed: who needs to know the outcome

Getting the most out of a RACI chart

• Workload balance: Too many tasks assigned to one stakeholder check-in and maintaining workload balance is a critical part of project management.
• Put your RACI into practice :Share your RACI chart with your sponsors and stakeholders to get buy-in and sign-off. When you get stakeholder buy-in, you will be able to set clear expectations for your team and ensure that everyone is aligned on their responsibilities and then you can document your team and stakeholders’ acknowledgment of these expectations through the project charter, meeting notes, and in the RACI chart itself.
• When should you use a RACI chart: Evaluate the complexity of the effort and for larger projects, or even projects that involve a large number of stakeholders, could greatly benefit from a RACI chart.

Why projects fail: Initiation missteps

• Unclear expectations?
• Unrealistic expectations
• Miscommunication
• Lack of resources
• Scope creep?

Module 4 : Utilizing resources and tools for project success

Essential project resources

• -Project resources usually include budget, people, and materials and you'll use tools to manage all those resources
• ?Understanding the types of resources available to a project manager and planning the resources early is a great way to set your team up for success
• Tools helps you to organize these resources and work and they are essential for tracking progress, so you want to keep them top of mind at all phases of your project.
• There are all kinds of tools out there scheduling,work management,productivity and collaborative.

Managing resources to get the job done

Project resources are who and what you depend on to complete a project, including budget, materials, and people. While each resource is a separate entity, they all depend on one another—your team cannot do the work without materials, and you cannot purchase materials without a budget.

Budget :Common aspects of project budget will include,

• Team: the cost of the people performing the work
• Services: any outside vendors helping your project
• Materials: any tangible items purchased to complete the project
• you will encounter various types of projects with a wide range of budgets. Some budgets will have no margin for error, whereas other budgets may be more flexible. Regardless of this variability, budget issues will inevitably arise, so it is important to make sure that the budget is aligned with the project scope and the stakeholders’ asks.

People:?

• They are a vital resource on the project and will need to rely on a strong team of people with a variety of skill sets and specialties to get the job done.?
• As a project manager, make sure that you have commitment and buy-in on the number of hours it will take for your resources to complete their tasks.

Materials

• ?Materials can be different on every project.It can be tangible or intangible,and its important to account for any and all potential materials in order to execute a successful project with the right people and within budget.?

The value of project documentation

• A big part of project management is guiding decision-making.Even if you're not the final decision maker on major aspects of the project, it's still your job to keep track of every new decision and use those decisions to create a plan.
• There are a lot of important decisions to keep track of it includes everything from identifying project goals and deliverables to choosing the right people to add to a team. It's way too much for any one person to mentally keep track of and It's also important information for everyone on the team to be aware of not just the project manager.
• Clear and consistent documentation can ensure transparency and clear communication.
• Documentation helps set the stage for the project. It communicates the answers to key questions what problem are you trying to solve? What are the project goals? What are the scope and deliverables, and who are the project's stakeholders? Lastly, what resources does the team need to complete their work?
• Documenting decisions can help you uncover tasks, timelines, or costs you hadn't previously considered.

Types of Documentation : Project proposal and Project charter.

• Project proposal: is a form of documentation that comes at the very beginning of the project. This document's purpose is to persuade stakeholders that a project should begin.
• A senior organizational leader creates the proposal but you will have to keep track of the proposal's progress.
• It's a great starting point to help you understand the desired goals and impact and it can be created in a formal document, a presentation, or even a simple email to get others on board with the idea.
• Project charter: helps you get organized, set up a framework for what needs to be done, and communicate those details to others.?
• It clearly defines the project and outlines the necessary details for the project to reach its goals. A well-documented project charter can be a project manager’s secret weapon to success

Project charters: Elements and formats

• The charter is the formal way that the project’s goals, values, benefits, and details are captured. Many stakeholders will look to your project charter to ensure that you are indeed aligned with strategic goals and set up for achieving the desired end goal.

• Developing the project charter in collaboration with? team and stakeholders can help you make sure that your project charter addresses your key stakeholders’ most important concerns and keeps your team aligned. Be sure to use the business case the reason for initiating the project as the guiding direction to your project charter.
• Project charters can vary from organization to organization and from project to project.
• Project charter will often serve as a point of reference throughout the life of a project.
• Project charter approval means that management is supportive, and it's also a key step to ensure that the project matches the needs of the organization.After the stakeholders and project sponsor have reviewed and approved the project charter, you now have the authority to move forward with the project.
• Project charters can be formatted in a few ways and can contain different information depending on the project and the organization. The information in a charter might also be tailored to its audience or the needs of specific stakeholders
• Project charter is a living document. This means that it can evolve as the project progresses.

Project charters will vary but usually include some combination of the following key information:

• Introduction/project summary
• goals/objectives?
• business case/benefits and costs
• project team
• scope
• success criteria
• major requirements or key deliverables
• budget
• schedule/timeline or milestones
• constraints and assumptions
• risks
• OKRs
• approvals

Project charter

1. Executive summary

Project overview

2. Project goal(s)

SMART objective 1

SMART objective 2

3. Deliverables

Major requirements

4. Business case

Why are we doing this?

5. Benefits and costs

What we’ll gain/pay

Utilizing tools for effective project management

• Tools can help you track detailed information about all kinds of tasks, and they make it easy to communicate with lots of different people.
• Effective communication and tracking are huge parts of a project manager's day-to-day responsibilities.
• Tools have the power to help you communicate and manage more effectively.
• Project management tools help you to track task deadlines and Provide visibility to others.

Introducing new tools to a team

• Discuss the tool early and often, if possible.
• Ask for feedback from key stakeholders.
• Involve the key stakeholders in demonstrations as you get closer to making the final decision on the project tracking tool.
• Ensure the tool is fully functional before the team is introduced to it.?
• Set up training for the tool as needed before you ask the team to actually use it.?

?Types of project management tools

1)Scheduling and work management software

2) Productivity tools

3)collaboration tools

• Scheduling and work management software: Asana,Smartsheet,jira,Monday.com and G suite can help you track ,visualize your project team progress.

?

• Productivity & collaboration tools : shared documents,meeting agendas, status updates,Spreadsheets, RACI charts,project plans,Presentations,Project overviews,Email and chat?