Chapter 3
Beginning the Journey: The Genesis of a Project
IN THIS CHAPTER
If you typically deal with relatively short, inexpensive, straightforward projects, you may feel that the life of a project begins the moment your manager assigns it to you. You may not think it’s necessary to spend a lot of time deciding whether to perform the project, when such analysis will probably take more time than the project will to complete. And you may feel that, even if the project isn’t successful, no more than a few dollars and a couple of days will have been spent on it, so what’s the big deal?
Organizations today use projects as a major vehicle to maintain, support, enhance, and improve all facets of their operations. To help ensure the greatest possible benefits are realized from the resources they expend to support these projects, it’s essential that organizations undertake those projects that will both produce the greatest benefits when successfully completed and have the highest likelihood of achieving that successful completion.
The steps that comprise the first phase of the project life cycle (starting the project) are depicted in Figure 3-1 (check out Chapter 1 for information on the project life cycle). As the figure depicts (and this chapter explains):
1 Information about ideas for possible projects is identified and gathered.
2 Any information required to enable a thorough evaluation of a possible project that’s missing from the initial information gathered is added.
3 Projects that will proceed to the next phase of their life cycle (organizing and preparing) are chosen.
© John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
FIGURE 3-1: The steps in Stage 1 of a project’s life cycle (starting the project).
Gathering Ideas for Projects
Sometimes a terrific idea for a project just pops into your head. However, though you always want to allow for unplanned, spontaneous creativity, most successful organizations choose to pursue a more carefully thought-out process for investigating those information sources that’ll most likely highlight projects that will be of greatest value to them.
Looking at information sources for potential projects
Organizational leaders initiate projects in response to one of the following four categories of factors that influence their organization:
Regulatory, legal, or social requirements
Stakeholder requests or needs
Implementing or changing business or technological strategies
Creating, fixing, or improving products, processes, or services
Important sources of information regarding possible projects and their potential value to the organization are the annual plans and budgets of the overall organization and its individual operating units. These documents typically include
The organization’s (or unit’s) mission, goals, and strategies
Desired changes to be made in the organization’s operations
Changes occurring in the organization’s market, customers, and competition
The organization’s key performance indicators (KPIs)
Other important sources of information include descriptions of the structure, components, problems, and issues related to the organization’s major operating systems and processes.
Proposing a project in a business case
The initial information describing a proposed project is often presented in a business case, which may contain, but isn’t limited to, the following:
High-level statement of the business needsReason action is neededStatement of business problem or opportunity the proposed project will addressStakeholders affected (see Chapter 4 for details on stakeholders)How it fits into the organization’s (product) roadmapScope of proposed project (see Chapter 5 for information on scope statements)
Analysis of situationStatement of organizational goals, strategies, and objectivesStatement of the root causes behind the problem or factors helping to create the opportunityDiscussion of the organization’s current performance in this area compared with the desired performanceIdentification of known risks for the project (see Chapter 10 for more on handling risk)Identification of critical success factors for the projectIdentification
