Project management

Topic 5Initiating a project

Overview of processes

Quality planning

• Create the Project Quality Plan– Is there corporate quality assurance functions to link to?– Is there a customer quality management system that should be

applied?– Does the supplier have a quality management system that

should be applied?– What standards (from customer and supplier) will be used?– How will the product quality be measured?– What quality control techniques and procedures will be used?– Create the Configuration Management Plan– Create Change Control Procedures

• Start a Quality Log to hold details of all planned and actual quality checks

Planning the Project• Determine Planning Standards

– Tools and techniques– Contents and presentation of plans– Adoption of corporate standards

• Timescale and Resource Requirements must be established– Identify the major products of the project– Identify the major activities to be performed– Assess major risks and put in countermeasures– Estimate effort needed– Identify achievable timescales, project constraints and key milestones– Identify overall resource requirements and costs

• Identify key decision and review points and decide the stage divisions

• Produce the Project Plan

Preparing the Business Case• Develop the Business Case

– Are the goals achievable?– Have all the business benefits been identified?– Have disadvantages been identified?– How will benefits be measured for Post Review Plan?– Has the current situation been baselined or measured?– Summarise the different options considered– Recalculate cost elements and financial case

• Analyse the Risks– Identify any risks that may impact the project– Assess the likelihood of each risk occurring– Assess the impact on the project of the risk occurring– Identity mitigations to reduce the risk– Prepare contingency plans

• Update Project Plan with cost of mitigation and contingency

Set up Project Controls• Assign decision making– Determine levels of decision making– Allocate level to appropriate project management level– Establish decision making procedures– Create the Project Controls

• Get information to decision makers and stakeholders– Create the Communication Plan

• Identify all stakeholders and their contact details• Identify all stakeholder information needs: content, recipient

and sender, frequency and method• Establish procedures to produce and distribute reporting

information– Establish monitoring procedures to provide the

information

Setup project files

• Implement a document management system– Where is information stored?– How is access to the information store managed?– What are the procedures for creating and changing

documents?– What documentation standards are in use?– How is version control managed?– Who is responsible for backing up document store?

• Create issue log and lessons learned log

Project Initiation Document• Create the PID from the information in:– Project brief– Organisational structure– Job descriptions– Project Approach– Project Quality Plan– Project Plan– Business Case– Risk log– Project Controls– Communications Plan

Get approval for the project

• Prepare the next Stage Plan• Present the next Stage Plan and the PID to the

Project Board• Ask for authorisation to start the work of the

project, to start the next stage

Fundamentals• The Project Initiation Document is created to ensure that there

is common understanding between the Project Board and the Project Manager

• The PID ensures that sufficient investigation on the project has been done – Why is the project being done?– What is the project doing? What products will be created?– How will the project create the products?– When will the project be completed?– What will the project cost?– Who will be involved in doing the project?– What are the constraints? – time, money, resources, people, availability– What are the risks?– How will the project be controlled?

• Only start work on successful projects