In all spheres of life, a good beginning greatly raises the possibility of success. From enormous skyscrapers to a football game, everything depends on a solid basis; managing projects is no different. Usually regarded as the first phase of the project life, initiation is also the most crucial.
Since all projects are transient activities with a lifetime and a deadline, project managers break out a whole project into five separate stages connected and with their own start and finish points for simplicity and more control.
Discover more about the value of the project starting process in project management and the actions you should follow to guarantee the success of the project.
Project Initiation refers to ?
The first step of the project management life cycle, project initiation is when businesses determine whether the project is required and how advantageous it would be for them. The business case and feasibility study are the two criteria applied to evaluate a suggested project and establish expectations from it.
Why is it so Crucial ?
During this phase, important decisions such as the project charter and choosing of the project stakeholders are made, defining the direction and resource needs. Arriving at a clear goal ensures everyone remains on the same page about the project direction, as shown by the stakeholders.
Several checks both during and after project completion will help to avoid misunderstandings and ensure that the project remains on schedule throughout. Precious time and money, however, could be lost—a drawback.
Good project management calls for optimizing benefits and low-cost delivery of “value” to the client. Clearly defining your project goal will enable you to accomplish all this.
6 Main Phases to Follow the Process of Project Initiation
It’s time to investigate the main actions in the project initiation checklist and how project managers start their projects now that we have defined what project initiation is and why it is so crucial.
Let’s examine how to start or launch a project straight from the beginning:
1. Making a Business Case :
An important paper explaining how the objectives of the project complement the long-term intentions of the corporation is the business case. This paper clarifies why the business should invest its technical, financial, and human resources in the particular project.
An ideal business case concentrates just on the business elements and ignores any technical specifics of the project. It is meant to persuade the top management to approve the project and address their worries about prospective financial and business-related hazards.
2. Doing a Study of Feasibility :
Following the acceptance of the business case, the next stage is to evaluate, considering all the elements, the probability of the success of the project. This research decides whether the project is worth it or not by pointing up the high-level project restrictions and presumptions.
3. Writing a Project Charter :
Possibly the most thorough and significant component of the project starting process is the project charter. It addresses the three that of scope and objective, team members, and project timeline to pinpoint team member roles and likely project duration.
In certain respects, the charter is the first project documentation identifying the required information including the objectives and project restrictions. It also specifies the extent of the project and makes a list of the needed tools to finish it.
4. Establishing Stakeholders and Compiling a Register of Interests :
Effective project management mostly relies on communication and agreements; so, a project manager spends most of his time handling project stakeholders. Stakeholders, according to PMBOK, are everyone who might affect or influence the project. Internal or outside project stakeholders each have different communication needs.
In project management, the project manager’s duty is to guarantee, in line with their influence and project interest, the means and frequency of communication to the project stakeholders. Maintaining a stakeholder register or a stakeholder map helps to determine the frequency and channels of communication for every stakeholder depending on their influence and project interest.
5. Combing the Staff and Setting Up a Project Office :
Starting any project without a project team cannot be done. A key component of the project start is building a working project team and assigning roles and duties. Early assignment of tasks and responsibilities not only helps you as a manager in later phases of the project life but also increases the general responsibility of the whole team.
6. Last Inspection :
Reviewing the whole project initiation process helps you make sure you missed nothing even after doing everything. Later phases will see you keep going over your work since one of the five phases of the project management life cycle is monitoring and controlling.
