PROJECT INITIATION

 LO1: Determine Project Goals

 LO2: Determine Deliverables
Intended  LO3: Determine Process Outputs
Learning  LO4: Document Constraints
Outcomes
 LO5: Document Assumptions
 LO6: Creating Project Charter
  Project Initiation is the formal
recognition that a project should begin
and resources should be committed to the
project
 Projects come about as a result of one of
six needs or demands:
Project Initiation  Marketing Demand
 Business Need
 Customer Request
 Technological Advances
 Legal Requirement
 Social Need
  Goals describe the what it is you’re
trying to do, accomplish, or produce.
Goals and objectives should be stated in
tangible terms.
 There’s no hard and fast rule here. Goals
Project Goals and objectives can be combined and
simply called goals. What’s important is
that you come away understanding what
the end purpose of the project is and how
to identify when it’s been accomplished.
  S—Specific. The project goals are specific and stated in clear,
concise, understandable terms and are documented in the
project charter and scope statement. Projects exist to bring
about a unique, specific product or service that hasn’t existed
before.
 M—Measurable. The deliverables of the project or project
phase are measurable against verifiable outcomes or results.
Goals should  A—Accurate. The verification and measurement of
follow the requirements and deliverables are used to determine
accuracy and also to ascertain if the project is on track
SMART rule according to the project plan.
 R—Realistic and tangible. Projects are unique and produce
tangible products or services. The triple constraints of any
project help to define realistic goals and realistic
requirements based on the limitations the constraints put on
the project.
 T—Time bound. Projects are performed in specific time
frames with a definite beginning and definite end date.
  Requirements are specifications of the goal or
deliverables. Requirements help answer the
question, “How will we know it’s successful?”
Requirements are the specifications or necessary
prerequisites that make up the product or service
you’re producing.
Project  Requirements may include attributes like
Requirements dimensions, ease of use, colour, specific
ingredients, and so on.
 Requirements must be measurable, testable,
related to identified business needs or
opportunities, and defined to a level of detail
sufficient for system design.
  Deliverables are measurable outcomes,
measurable results, or specific items that
must be produced to consider the project
or project phase completed.
Project
 Deliverables, like goals, must be specific
Deliverables and verifiable.
 The completion of these deliverables
signals project completion.
  Stakeholders are those people or
organizations who have a vested interest in the
outcome of the project. They have something
to either gain or lose as a result of the project.
 Stakeholders might include the project
Stakeholders sponsor, the customer (who might be one in
the same as the project sponsor), the project
manager, project team members, management
personnel, contractors, suppliers, etc.
 Stakeholders can be internal or external to the
organization.
  Constraints are one of the outputs of the
Initiation process. Constraints are
anything that either restricts the actions of
the project team or dictates the actions of
Project the project team
Constraints  Budget
 Schedule
 Technology
 Be sure to document your constraints!
  Assumptions are an output of the Initiation process and
will be used as inputs to other processes later in the
project.
 Other assumptions could be things such as vendor
delivery times, product availability, contractor
availability, the accuracy of the project plan, the
assumption that key project members will perform
Project adequately, contract signing dates, project start dates,
Assumptions and project phase start dates.

 As you interview your stakeholders, ask them about

their assumptions and document them.
 Try to validate your assumptions whenever possible.
When discussing assumptions with vendors, make them
put it in writing.
  The primary goal of the Initiation process is to produce
the project charter.
 The project charter is the official, written
acknowledgment and recognition that a project exists.
Creating a  It’s issued by senior management and gives the project
Project Charter manager authority to assign organizational resources to
the work of the project.
 It is usually the first official document of the project
once acceptance of the project has been granted
  In order to create a useful and well-documented project
charter, you will start with including a staple group of
components. The project charter should include:
 an overview of the project,
 its goals and objectives,
 the project deliverables,
Pulling the  the business case or need for the project,
 resource and cost estimates,
Project Charter  and a feasibility study if one was performed
Together  preliminary roles and responsibilities of the project
manager, project staff, project sponsor, and executive
management

 Creating the project charter is a matter of incorporating

all the information we’ve gathered so far, as outlined
above, and putting it in the document.
  The last piece of information you’ll gather before
writing the project charter are resource
requirements and budget requirements needed
to perform the work of the project.

Defining  One known resource entity is human resources.

All projects will need some human effort and
Resource intervention to carry out the project.
Requirements  Also consider things like equipment, materials,
hardware, software, telephones, office space,
travel arrangements, contractors, desks, network
connections, etc.
  Identifying the initial budget is a lot like
identifying the initial resource
requirements.
 The responsibility for determining these
Determining costs rests on either the project manager
or a finance manager in a functional
the Initial
organization.
Budget
 Sometimes the budget is predetermined
by the executive management staff and
you’re told what it is and have to work
with what you’re given.
  Project costs can be broken down into roughly three areas.
1. Human Resource Costs - Human resource, or personnel costs,
can be one of your biggest expenses depending on the kind of
project you’re working on.
2. Resource or Project Costs - The project itself will have resource
expenses directly related to the project. These are costs that are
specific to the project, not the day-to-day operation expenses that
we’ll cover in a minute. These resource costs might be things like
Breaking Down travel expense related to the project, long-distance phone bills,
specialized talent hired for certain portions of the project, vendor
Project Costs fees, equipment purchases, hardware purchases, etc.
3. Administrative Costs - Administrative costs are the day-to-day
type costs that keep the organization running, but are not directly
related to the project. For example, office equipment, local phone
charges, leases (unless office space or building space was leased
specifically to house project members, in which case this
expense would be a resource expense charged against the
project), heat and lights, support personnel, etc.
  The project charter isn’t complete until you’ve received
sign-off from the project sponsor, senior management,
and key stakeholders.
 Signing the project charter document is the equivalent
Project Charter of agreeing to and endorsing the project. This doesn’t
mean that the project charter is set in stone, however.
Sign-Off Project charters will change throughout the course of
the project.

 This is part of the iterative process of project

management and is to be expected.