Purpose:

The purpose of this process is to answer the question, “Do we have a worthwhile and viable project?”

The project mandate is usually the only document that exists when this process starts, and this is not enough information for the Project Board to make the decision to start the Initiating a Project process (initation stage). Therefore, the purpose of this process is to provide the Project Board with the necessary information to judge if the project is worthwhile. They use the Project Brief , which will contain information on the Business Case . Another important purpose of the Starting Up a Project process is to prevent poor projects from starting up. This process should be brief; perhaps that’s where we get the name Project Brief. In fact, the aim is to do the minimum necessary just to see if it is worthwhile doing the Initiation stage.

Set Up:

  • Project Mandate – The project mandate is the trigger to start the project and comes from outside the project. The project mandate can have such data as the reasons for the project, some business case information and perhaps other data that is required by the Project Brief.
  • Appoint an Project Exec
  • Appoint a Project Manager
  • Create Daily Log
  • Lessons Log – The PM should seek lessons from other projects (e.g., see if Lessons Reports are available from other projects or invite all stakeholders to offer lessons)

Project Brief:

All the below information is assembled into the Project Brief, plus other information, such as the scope, roles & responsibilities, six performance targets.

  1. Project Definition:
  2. Project Approach: Look at the project approach, which examines the best way to go about doing this project and obtaining advice from other projects in the form of lessons learned, specialists or even outside knowledge. This part of the document will define the project approach that should be taken by the project. The Project Manager will ask such questions as:
    • Create product from scratch, update existing product, or off-the-shelf solutions?
    • Should we use internal or external people in the project?
    • What can we learn from other projects?
    • Are there other information sources, both internal and external?
  3. Outline Business Case: This is the responsibility of the Executive. Its objective is to provide some business justification for the project. There is a Business Case (business reason), and this should be documented in the outline Business Case. The Business Case document is not completed until the Initiation Stage.
  4. Project Product Description: This is normally a 1-3 page description of the main product that will be produced by the project. The structure of this document is covered in both the Quality and Plans themes.
  5. Project Management Structure (PMT): This will provide information on the structure of the PMT (The Project Board, Assurance, Change Authority, Project Manager).

Initiation Stage Plan:

Create a detailed Stage Plan to plan the work to be done in the Initiation Stage. The Project Manager creates this first plan (Stage Plan), which is a day-to-day plan for the Initiation Stage.

  • Request to Initiate the Project: The final output of the SU process is to send a request to the Project Board to Initiate the Project, which is to allow the first stage of the project to start. The Project Manager gives both the Project Brief and Initiation Stage Plan to the Project Board.