Project Initiation and Planning

• Project Initiation and Planning includes processes and activities to identify, define, combine, unify, and coordinate various processes and project management activities.
• Initiation creates a project charter that minimally contains a description of the business need, the desired deliverables, and formal approval to proceed.
• Planning creates an integrated plan outlining in greater detail the various projected aspects of the proposed effort.

Project Initiation and Planning Processes

• Develop Project Charter: Develops a document that formally authorizes a project and provides the project manager with authority to apply organizational resources.
  • Key benefits: provides a direct link between the project and the objectives of the organization, creates a formal record, and shows organizational commitment.
  • Performed once or at predefined points.
• Develop Project Management Plan: Defines, prepares, and coordinates all plan components into an integrated project management plan.
  • Key benefit: Produces a comprehensive document that defines the basis of all project work.
  • Performed once or at predefined points.
• Direct and Manage Project Work: Leads and performs the work defined in the project management plan, implementing approved changes to achieve objectives.
  • Key benefit: Provides overall management of project work and deliverables, improving the probability of project success.
  • Performed throughout the project.
• Manage Project Knowledge: Uses existing and creates new knowledge to achieve objectives and contribute to organizational learning.
  • Key benefits: Leverages prior knowledge to improve outcomes, and makes project-created knowledge available for future use.
  • Performed throughout the project.
• Monitor and Control Project Work: Tracks, reviews, and reports overall progress to meet performance objectives.
  • Key benefits: Allows stakeholders to understand the project state, recognize actions taken, and have visibility into future status with forecasts.
• Perform Integrated Change Control: Reviews all change requests, approves changes, manages changes to various project aspects, and communicates decisions.
  • Key benefit: Allows for integrated consideration of changes while addressing overall project risk.
• Close Project or Phase: Finalizes all activities for the project, phase, or contract.
  • Key benefits: Archives project information, completes planned work, and releases organizational team resources.
  • Performed once or at predefined points.

Strategic Planning

• Involves determining long-term objectives by analyzing organizational strengths/weaknesses, studying opportunities/threats, predicting trends, and projecting the need for new products/services.
• Provides important project identification information.
• Helps create a strategic roadmap for achieving business objectives.
• Strategic planning process steps:
  • Identify a strategic position: Know where you are to determine where you need to go and how to get there.
  • Gather people and information: Bring in people to be involved in the planning process and gather needed information
  • Perform a SWOT Analysis: Identify company Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
  • Formulate a strategic plan: Determine how to attain objectives with timeline and clear assignment of responsibilities.
  • Execute the strategic plan: Implement plan while making everyone aware of strategy. Distribute tasks among different individuals
  • Constantly monitor performance: Constantly monitor and manage performance; tweak any components not leading to satisfactory results.

Methods for Selecting Projects

• Focusing on Broad Organizational Needs: Top managers must focus on meeting their organizations’ many needs when deciding what projects to undertake
  • Projects addressing broad organizational needs are more likely to be successful.
  • One method for selecting projects is to determine whether they meet the criteria of need, funding, and will.
  • Projects must reevaluate to determine if they should be continued, redefined, or terminated.
• Categorizing IT Projects: select projects based on categorizations such as a project's impetus, time window, and general priority.
  • The impetus for a project is often to respond to the following:
    • Problems: Undesirable situations preventing an organization from achieving its goals.
    • Opportunities: Chances to improve the organization.
    • Directives: New requirements imposed by management, government, or some external influence.
• Performing net present value or other financial analyses: Financial considerations are an important aspect of project selection.
  • Project managers must understand business language/concepts:
    • Net Present Value Analysis: Calculating the expected net monetary gain/loss from a project by calculating the value.
    • Return on Investment: Subtracting project costs from the benefits and then dividing by the costs.
    • Payback Analysis: Determine how much time will elapse before accrued benefits overtake accrued/continuing costs.
• Using a weighted scoring model: Systematically selects projects based on multiple criteria.
  • The criteria includes meeting organizational needs and addressing problems/opportunities/directives.
• Implementing a balanced scorecard: Aligns business activities to strategy, improves communications, and monitors performance against strategic goals.
  • Transforms an attractive/passive document into the marching orders for the organization.
  • Provides a framework that not only provides performance measurements, but helps planners identify what should be done/measured.