Project Initiation: Starting a Successful Project

In this article, we will discuss the key elements of project initiation and how to start a successful project.

Firstly, it is important to understand how a project reaches the initiation stage. Let us glimpse the steps that occur before a project is initiated.

? A needs analysis and feasibility study are conducted for a project.

? Based on this information, a business case is created. The business case identifies the project benefits, costs, risks, and return on investment and ensures that the project is aligned with the organization's strategic objectives.

? Using the business case as input, projects undergo a selection process. A panel of chosen individuals assess projects against each other using selection criteria and pick the best projects. Chosen projects from this process move to the next step, Project Initiation.

Project Initiation is the first phase of projects and, therefore, a critical step to ensure the project's foundation is set for successful delivery. The key elements of Project Initiation are described below:

Identify, Assess, and Engage Stakeholders

According to PMI, Stakeholders are individuals, groups, or organizations that may affect, be affected by, or perceive themselves to be affected by a project, program, or portfolio's decision, activity, or outcome. Stakeholders can be internal or external to the organization.

Using this definition as a guide, a project manager can identify stakeholders for the project. Identifying stakeholders is a critical step in the Initiation phase, and sufficient time should be afforded to ensure that all stakeholders are identified. Stakeholders that are missed could have a negative influence on the project. Correcting stakeholder assumptions and requirements later in the project is also costly.

The following methods can be used to identify stakeholders:

? A good starting point is to look for stakeholder names in the project documents created thus far. Look for names in the business case, project charter, and benefits management plan at this stage.

? Use data-gathering techniques like brainstorming, questionnaires, surveys, and interviews to identify stakeholders.

? Stakeholder Registers from projects that are underway or previously completed can be used to determine stakeholders for the current project.

Create a Stakeholder Register and record all identified stakeholders in the document. Identification of stakeholders occurs throughout the project and not only in the Project Initiation phase. Therefore, the Stakeholder Register is a living document that can be updated during the project lifecycle.

After stakeholder information is recorded in the Stakeholder Register, a stakeholder's interest, involvement, and influence on the project must be assessed. A helpful tool is the 2D models of power interest, power influence, or impact and influence, like the example below.

Using information from the use of the tool, project managers create appropriate strategies for the engagement of stakeholders during the project. From the above example, we can see that an effective strategy for stakeholders with high power and interest is managing them closely. In contrast, stakeholders with low interest and power need to be monitored. These strategies are captured in the stakeholder engagement plan.

For smaller projects, it is possible to engage individual stakeholders. However, engaging individual stakeholders may not be possible for large projects due to the sheer number of stakeholders. In these instances, grouping stakeholders is necessary. Stakeholder groups are then engaged moving forward in the project.

Another tool that works in tandem with the stakeholder engagement plan is the communication management plan. In this plan, the project manager works through the details of the types of communication, the communication methods, and which artifacts will be used to connect with individuals or groups of stakeholders. Effective communication will build positive relationships between the project, the project manager, and stakeholders, and care must be taken while creating the communication management plan. By working through the above steps, the aim is to take stakeholders on the project journey by ensuring their needs, requirements, and expectations are met.

From the Team

The project team should consist of individuals who possess the necessary skills and expertise to conduct the deliverables of the project. When creating the team, consider the following:

? Aim to create a cross-functional team.

? Avoid single points of failure - where a single resource has a required skill.

? Identify when experts are required for the project. They may be needed for certain deliverables.

? Use T-shaped people whenever possible. These people have great skills in one area but broad skills in others. This grouping provides greater flexibility for the project allowing the project to remain on track more easily.

? A project manager should put plans in place to train and coach team members to become T-shaped for the benefit of the project and, subsequently, the organization.

Virtual team members are becoming commonplace in projects. When teams have virtual team members, effective collaboration tools become particularly important. Ensure all team members are provided necessary training and tools to collaborate virtually. In addition, virtual team members must have a clear purpose and clarity on their roles and responsibilities to ensure a positive contribution to the project. Project managers can regularly do check-ins with virtual team members to foster project engagement.

Establishing team behaviors at the beginning of the project is good practice, especially when teams are cross-cultural. Team behaviors (working hours, collaboration tools, meeting rules, etc.) should be agreed upon and documented in a Team Charter. The Team Charter should always be visible to the team: to function as a reminder of the agreement and to ensure that the team abides by it. The Team Charter will also be useful for overseeing team challenges later in the project.

A project manager can perform a SWOT analysis to understand better the internal and external factors that could impact the team's success. The SWOT can be used to organize the team around its strengths, make the project manager cognisant of team weaknesses, identify threats to the team's success, and highlight opportunities to improve team performance.

In addition to the above, the team's environment is equally important. Ensure the environment embraces diversity, equity, and inclusion to enable mutual trust. This move will spark innovation when people feel safe to be themselves at work, contributing to a successful project.

Build Shared Understanding

The two key artifacts used in this process are the Project Vision and the Project Charter, which define the business need and the rationale for the project. The Project Charter is usually in draft status at this point. Aim to ensure that project team members and stakeholders have a common understanding of the importance of the project, including its alignment with the organization's strategic objectives, before work starts. If the project manager successfully performs this step, team members are more likely to be motivated and inspired to do their best work for the project.

The project's initiation phase is fast-paced, with stakeholder expectations that could be both realistic and unrealistic. The project manager must collaborate with stakeholders using listening and emotional intelligence skills to negotiate and obtain buy-in. An effective way to gain consensus is to focus stakeholder attention on the value of the project. Project success criteria are also defined and agreed upon with stakeholders at this stage. Ensuring a common understanding of project success and what it entails is crucial to its success as it defines when project objectives have been met.

The work involved in building a shared understanding culminates into the agreed Project Charter, which can be distributed for signed-off. Once signed off, it authorizes the project and enables the project manager to apply resources to project work.

Determine Project Approach

Each project and situation must be assessed to determine the best 'way of working' for the project. In this step, the project team determines how to approach the work for the project. The possible approaches are described below:

? Predictive approaches can be used if the project needs, requirements, and constraints are unknown at the beginning of the project. Project Plans are drawn, and these are used to drive the project forward. Any changes in the project are considered and controlled through a change control process to ensure that the project remains viable. This approach has a high degree of control and predictability.

? Agile approaches are used when there is high uncertainty in the project's scope, requirements, or technical capability. The aim is to deliver value early by regularly confirming and incorporating customer input. The project team collaborates with the customer to determine the project needs and quickly builds outputs. Feedback on outputs is obtained from the customer and incorporated in sprints or the backlog. This project approach inherently deals with project changes.

? Hybrid approaches incorporate components of both Predicative and Agile approaches and create a tailored development approach.

The choice of project approach will influence the number of deliverables, cadence, project phases, and project lifecycle. Therefore, care must be taken to choose a suitable project approach.

In conclusion, starting a successful project requires careful execution of the Initiation phase. Identifying, assessing, engaging with stakeholders, forming the team, building a shared understanding, and determining the project approach are all critical elements of project initiation. By incorporating these elements in the Initiation phase, organizations can set themselves up for project success.