Project Initiation

Overview

• Initiating a Project

• Identifying project scope, goals and deliverables

• Measure success of a Project

• Identifying stakeholders

Cost Benefit Analysis:

Process of adding up the expected value of a project, the benefits and comparing them to the dollar costs.

Identifying Benefits:

• The value the project creates

• How much money could the org save from this ?

• How much money will it bring in from existing customers ?

• How much time will be saved ?

• How will the UX be improved ?

Identifying Costs:

• How much time will people have to spend on the project ?

• One-time costs

• On-going costs

• Long-term costs

Calculating cost and benefits (ROI)

$$\frac{(G - C)}{C} = ROI$$

• G is the financial gains projected from the project.

• C is the upfront and ongoing costs for the project.

• ROI is reported in percentage finally.

Key Components of Project Initiation

• Goals: What are we trying to achieve

• Scope: Define the work to do to achieve the goal.

• Deliverables: the product or service to ship to meet the scope.

• Success Criteria

• Stakeholders

• Resources

Once the above are sorted, create the Project Charter to organize, plan and communicate the things to be done. Stakeholders must approve this before moving forward with the planning phase.

Project Goals & Deliverables

Project Goal: Desired outcome of the project.

• Must be well defined

• Agreed upon by all stakeholders.

Deliverables: Help measure and recognize the project's impact. (Tangible outcome)

• Decided together with all stakeholders.

• Ensure it lines up with the vision of the project.

SMART Goals

Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound methods used to evaluate project goals.

Specific: Should answer atleast 2 questions about the following:

- The desired accomplishments

- The reasons behind the goal

- Specific purpose or benefits

- People who are involved

- Recipients

- Where to deliver

- Requirements and Constants

• Measurable:

• Metrics which can be numbers or figures.

  • How much, how many, when ?

• Attainable:

  • How can it be accomplished ?

  • Should encourage growth but not too extreme

• Relevant:

  • Effort and benefits should be balanced.

  • Goal should match org vision, values and be worthwhile

  • Timing, both amount of time to complete the project and sustaining it over time must have big impacts.

• Time-bound:

  • Goal has a deadline

OKRs (Objective & Key Results)

Similar to SMART, they help establish and clairfy goals or objectives for a project.

Objective: Desire outcome

- Aspirtational

- Aligned with Job goals

- Action-oriented

- Concrete

- Significant

Questions for Objectives:

- Does the objective help achieve the project goals ?

- Does the objective algin with company OKRs

- Is the objective motivational and inspiring ?

- Will achieving the objective make a significant impact ?

Key Results: Ways of knowing if the Objetive has been met.

- Result-oriented

- Measurable and verifiable

- Specific and Time-bound

- Aggressive yet realistic

Questions for KRs:

- What does success mean ?

- What metrics would prove that we've succeeded ?

Levels of OKRs:

• Company-Level: Shared with everyone in org, and are updated to keep entire org on track. Support the mission of the organization

• Project-Level: Set during initial phase. Will dictate how goals are measured and tracked throughout the lifecycle of the project.

Example:

Objective: Improve Sales

Key Result: Achieve 10% greater sales than last quarter by end of this quarter.

Project Scope

Defines all details of the project; everything to be either included or excluded. It ensures that the project is defined and mapped out well to know who will receive the deliverables and who will use them.

It includes:

- Budget

- Timeline

- Resources

Determining Project Scope:

- Source of the project

- Reasons why it is needed

- Expectations to be achieved by the project

- Thoughts of the sponsors

- The person who approved the final results.

Monitoring Project Scope

Keeping track of the scope involves knowing which tasks are part of the plan, which are included in the project and which contribute to it's goal to in-scope. Tasks that aren't included are called out-of-scope. PM sets and maintains them.

Scope Creep: Changes, growth and uncontrolled factors that affect a project's scope at any point after the project begins.

Sources of Scope Creep:

• External

  • Customer Requests

  • Environment Shifts

  • Changes in Technology

• Solutions to External Creep:

  • Make Project plans visible

  • Get clarity on Requirements

  • Set ground rules and expectations for stakeholders.

  • Create a plan for dealing with out-of-scope requirests.

  • Put your agreements in writing.

• Internal

  • Product Improvements

  • Process Changes

• Solutions to Internal Creep:

  • Clarify impact of any changes on the project.

  • Knowing all aspects of the project helps respond to a new requrest.

Control Scope Creep

• Define the Project's requirements: Communicate with stakeholders or customers to find out exactly what they want from the project and document those requirements during initiation phase.

• Set a clear Project Schedule: Time and task management are essential for sticking to your project's scope. Your schedule should outline all of your project's requirements and the tasks necessary to achieve them.

• Determine what is out-of-scope: Make sure your stakeholders, customers, and project team understand when proposed changes are out-of-scope. Come to clear agreement about the impacts of it on the project and document them.

• Provide alternatives: Suggest alternative solutions. Perform a Cost-Benefit Analysis if necessary to help.

• Set up change control process: During the course of your project, some changes are inevitable. Determine the process and how each change will be defined, reviewed and approved/rejected before you add it to your project plan. Make sure team is aware of this process.

• Learn how to say no

• Collect costs for out-of-scope work.

Triple Constraint Model

Tool to decide if the change in scope is acceptable. It also helps understand the impacts. the three constraints are:

• Scope

• Time

• Cost

All of them together affect the quality, and change to any one affects the other. Approvals must be made if a change is to be made.

Launching and Landing a Project

Project Launch is delivering the final result to the client or user, and it doesn't indicate success of the project.

Landing is measuring the success of your project using the success criteria established at the outset of the project.

Success Criteria:

• Indlude all the details of goals and deliverables

• They are a guide to know whether the project has attained the intented outcomes.

• They set standard for how a project will be judged.

Defining Success Criteria

Must be defined well so that all teams understand what they must accomplish.

• Go through the project goals, deliverables, review the scope, and identify the measurable aspects of the project to know when the project is successfully accomplished.

• Clarify the project requirements and expectations with the stakeholders.

• Document and share all info so that everyone can refer to it.

• Choose metrics that closely align with the project goal to measure success throughout the lifecycle of the project.

• Pick the most suitable tool to collect the required data and track the metrics.

• Pick the best methods that work for the success criteria to measure success, frequency of measurement and the persons who measure it.

Adoption: How the customer uses and adopts a product or service without any issues.

Have stakeholders signoff on success criteria.

Accessibility

Ensure all information is accessible to everyone regardless of their physical or mental condition and understand the principles of building accessible information sources.

Working on and with a Project Team

Building a team:

• Make a list of roles in the team to complete each task

• The person is each role is accountable for specific tasks within the project life cycle.

• Understand the size of team needed.

• Train those that lack the skills to get the work done, but it should be done quickly to avoid delays.

  • Skills like leadership, and problem-solving are invaluable on a team it is worth it to train such people on a skill so that they can be a part of the team.

• Consider each person's availability and motiviation when assigning tasks.

Defining Project roles

Before starting the project, everyone should know their roles so that they know their responsibilities.

• Project Sponsors: Accountable for the project and who ensures the project delivers the agreed upon business benefits. Vital leadership role, fund the project and carry out key communication.

• Team Members: The people doing the day-to-day work and make things happen.

• Customers: The people who will get some value from a successfully landed project.

• Users: Use the product.

• Stakeholders: Anyone involved in the project, with vested interest in the project's success. Primary Stakeholders are those who expect beenfits directly from the project. Secondary Stakeholders benefit indirectly.

• Project Manager

Stakeholder Analysis

Helps you understand which stakeholder is participating in which activity, their expertise and their influence.

It is a visual representation of all stakeholders, the steps involve:

• List all stakeholders

• Determine their level of interest and influence (influence measures how much power a stakeholder has and how much this stakeholder's actions affect the project outcome).

• Assess their availability to the project.

Power Grid: a 2x2 grid used for stakeholder analysis. They're placed based on influence and interest, their position on the grid tells us about their role.

High Power	Meet their Needs	Key Players
Low Power	Monitor	Show consideration
	Low Interest	High Interest

Steering Committee: Key stakeholder that has the authority to change the budget and approve new timelines or scope.

Stakeholder Buy-in: The process of involving stakeholders in decion making to hopefully reach a broader consensus on the org's future.

• The PM focuses on the key stakeholders.

• The PM explains the project plans to achieve their goals.

• The PM receives their support for the project's success.

Note for when communicating with stakeholders:

• One main stakeholder needs constant communication.

• Numerous stakeholders would not be quite involved.

• If stakeholder needs time to decide, they must be communicated with early on.

RACI Charts

RACI:

• Responsible; doing the work to complete the task.

• Accountable; ensuring that the work gets done.

• Consulted; giving feedback.

• Informed; just needing to know final decisions.

This chart describes the roles and responsibilities of team members.

Example:

Deliverables	Team Member	Team Member
App	Person 1: C	Person 2: A
Design	Person 1: R	Person 2: A

Why Projects Fails: Initiation missteps

Unclear Expectations: Some questions have to be answered to avoid this:

• What is the end goal ?

• What are the expected deliverable and schedule ?

• What is the budget ?

• Who are the stakeholders ?

Unrealistic Expectations: Keep the communications clear and concise.

Misscommunication

Lack of Resources

Essential Project Resources

Resources required must be figured out before starting work on the project.

Tools: Aids that make it easier for project manager or team to manage resources and organize worrk.

• Track tasks

• Manage budgets

• Collaborate with teammates

• Create diagrams

• Manage contracts

• Maintain visibility for everyone.

Documentation

Value of Project Documentation

• Ensure transparency and clear communication.

• Help in setting project stages.

• Communicate the answers to key questions.

• Help preserve decisions made early on.

• Helps in uncovering tasks, timelines, or costs which have not been considered previously.

• Record all timely information to be reviewed after completing the project.

Project Proposal and Charter

Project Proposal: Formal documentation that persuades a stakeholder to begin a project. It also helps in understanding the goals and impacts.

Project Charter: Formal document that clearly dfiens the project and outlines the necessary details needed to reach its goals. Also clarifies that the benefits of the project outweigh the costs.

The project manager reviews and develops the charter, adapting to its audiences and the stakeholders' needs throughout the process.

Project Charter Format

They include:

• Introduction/Project summary

• Goals/Objectives

• Business case/benefits and costs

• Project team

• Scope

• Success criteria

• Major requirements or key deliverables

• Budget

• Schedule/timeline or milestones

• Constrains and assumptions

• Risks

• OKRs

• Approvals

PM Tools

Help track detailed information about all kinds of tasks and make it easy to communicate with lots oof different people.

Introducing new tools to a team:

• Discuss the tool early and often, if possible.

• Ask for feedback from stakeholders.

• Involve the key stakeholders in demos as you get closer to making the final decision on the tool.

• Ensure the tool is fully functional before the team is introduced to it.

• Set up training for the tool as needed before you ask the team to actually use it.

Tool Types:

• Scheduling and Work Management Software:

  • Assign tasks to team members.

  • Track team progress so that the issues will be known and resolved immediately.

  • Ex: Asana, Jira.

• Productivity Tools:

  • Online shared docs for Collaboration

    • Meeting agendas

    • Status updates

    • Spreadsheets

    • RACI Charts

    • Project Plans

  • Spreadsheets

  • Presentations

• Collaboration Tools:

  • Email and Chat