Initiation

Project Initiation

• Initiation is the first process of IT project management and deals with how a project begins
• A project does not appear from nowhere, it has to come from somewhere
• When there is a project, we do not jump immediately into implementing it

Activities

• The starting of a project comprises of the following activities:
• Receiving and reviewing a user
• Project selection
• Determining Stakeholders
• Producing Project Charter

Receiving a request

• To initiate a project, there must be a request
• Reason for request includes:
• New product to meet market demand (e.g. new games, MP3 players
• Internal business needs (email for company staff)
• Legal requirement (security for financial information)

Determining the requirement

• Based on the user request, (e.g. Why do you need a new email system? Because it is slow? Lack certain feature?) we can determine the following:


• Functional - What the product should do (e.g. Can be accessed via web browser
• Business - How the business can gained from it (e.g. Increase sales)
• Technical - What are the technical requirement to achieve the functionrequired (e.g. Increase system response time)

Selection

• Project selection is used to determine which proposed projects are to be submitted for approval
• Selection of project can be based on Cost-benefitanalysis

Cost-benefit Analysis

• Calculates
• cost to implement the project (e.g. buying the equipment and getting staff)
• saving if the project is implemented (e.g. using automated equipment that does not need human to do the job)
• money earned if the project is implemented (e.g. how much can the final product be sold to customer)

Stakeholders

• Stakeholder is the person actively involved in the project or is impacted by the project
• As a project manager, you will interact with many people. They are called stakeholders
• They may be from the same or different business unit or department
• Examples: Project Manager, Team Member, Sponsor, Functional Manager, Customer, End User

Sponsor

• Project Sponsor is a special type of stakeholder. Roles include:
• Advising/coaching the Project Manager
• Obtain financial resources for project
• Remove roadblocks

Team Members

• The project Team Members are the people who work on the project and their roles is to
  • Work on the project deliverables
• Deliverable is a product or service produced as part of a project. Example; a project to construct a new office building would include deliverables such as floor plan, building structure, plumbing, flooring, electrical points
• A typical IT project will consist of different IT personnel
• Software Developer - people who write codes
• Server Administrator - people who maintain server (e.g. Sun Server, Windows 2003Server
• Database Administrator - people who maintain database (e.g. Oracle, MS Access
• Internetworking Specialist (Network Engineer) - people in-charge of network (e.g. routers, switches, cabling)
• System Analyst - people who produce design specifications for developer


• Technical Writer - people who writes technical documents (e.g. user manuals)

Project Charter

• After Project Sponsors decided on which project to undertake, a project charter is created by the Project Manager
• A project charter is a document that shows the formal approval of a project and provides the main direction of the project
• A project charter contains information such as
• Description
• Objective (what is to be achieved)
• Role and responsibilities of people involved
• Signatures
• Project charter must have all stakeholders consensus, (e.g. everyone has to agree) and sign on the document
• The project charter will need the formal approval to authorize from the Project Manager to apply resources to the project

What Went Wrong?

• There are many examples of poor scope management in the software industry. A highly publicized example is Nike's now infamous i2 supply chain management problem. A software glitch from the $400 million project cost Nike more than $100 million in lost sales
• The company also moved too quickly in implementing new software without knowing how it might affect its older legacy systems. Nike has since recovered from this major software disaster and learned to be more patient in understanding and managing the scope of software projects

*Christopher Koch, “Nike Rebounds: How (and Why) Nike Recovered from its Supply Chain Disaster,” CIO Magazine (June 15, 2004)

Consensus and Review

• Stakeholder consensus refers to the stakeholder agreeing to what is in the project charter and obtaining their support
• All stakeholders have to reach an agreement on what their responsibilities are
• Always try to go through and review with the respective stakeholders while trying to create the final project charter
• After stakeholders agree to support the project,they have to sign on the project charter

Project Charter Details

• Project description – Describes what the product can do in briefly in non-technical terms (e.g.create an database that contains company staff record and is accessible via browser)
• Goals and objectives – States the end measurable results (e.g. emails systems that can support up to 1K users)
• Stakeholders and their roles
• Sign-off by stakeholders to ensure that they know what is involved and responsible for
• Approval by management to go ahead

Real-World Project Charter



Scope document

• Once the project is approved based on the project charter, the next step is to determine work to be done (scope) in more detail
• A scope document contains the project requirement
• Stakeholder consensus is also important here

Developing a Scope Statement

• A scope statement is a document used to develop and confirm a common understanding of the project scope
• It describes in detail the work to be accomplished and is an important tool for preventing scope creep—the tendency for project scope to continually increase

Source: PMP, Prince2