Lesson 08: Initiating a Project
What’s the main purpose of the Initiating a Project process? Do you remember its main outputs?
Based on AXELOS PRINCE2® material. Reproduced under licence from AXELOS. All rights reserved.
Note: PRINCE2 2017 edition is now called PRINCE2 6th edition.
- 00:08 – The Initiating a Project Process
- 00:11 – The IP process contains a number of activities to help understand the exact scope of the project
- 00:19 – Break it down, get a common understanding and then to plan it
- 00:25 – Each process has a special purpose
- 00:28 – And this is the project breakdown and planning process
- 00:32 – So, what do you think the purpose might be?
- 00:35 – Well, the purpose, in the PRINCE2 words, is to establish a solid foundation for the project
- 00:43 – So the organization understands the work needed before investing
- 00:48 – So this can be a big investment, so it’s good to know what they’re getting into
- 00:54 – So what do you think is the main output of this IP process?
- 01:00 – Well, we say the main output is the PID, which stands for Project Initiation Documentation
- 01:08 – But what is this?
- 01:10 – Well, 80% of it is probably or most likely product descriptions, so containing all the requirements
- 01:17 – Then we will have the Business Case, the rest of the Project Plan, the Benefits document, the registers, and so on
- 01:24 – Now let’s take a look at the objectives of this IP process
- 01:30 – The first objective is to get a good understanding of the reasons for doing the project
- 01:34 – So these reasons will come from the users because they know why they need this product
- 01:41 – The second objective, understand the benefits over the next few years
- 01:47 – So this can be an increased income, lower cost, better user satisfaction,
- 01:53 – And all of these benefits have to be measurable
- 01:57 – In fact, we say if it’s not measurable, it’s not a benefit
- 02:02 – The third objective is to understand the risks and we use Risk Register to contain all of this risk information
- 02:12 – The Business Case will also contain a summary of the major risks, but these will also come from the Risk Register
- 02:20 – And fourth, understand the scope
- 02:24 – So this will be the product breakdown structure and all the product descriptions which are written for each item in the PBS
- 02:33 – This will give us a clear overview of the scope of the project
- 02:38 – The timing - so once we have all the product descriptions, then we can get the estimates for each product description
- 02:46 – And the PM can work out a Project Plan based on this
- 02:51 – The quality requirements will be gathered in each product description
- 02:55 – For example, if our product was a battery, we could have quality requirements for the specifications like the size of it, the weight, the time to charge, the heat it gives off, the capacity, and so on
- 03:08 – So all of those are requirements, but we also see them as quality requirements
- 03:14 – Then the controls describe how the project will be monitored and controlled
- 03:19 – For example, the frequency of the reports to the Project Board
- 03:23 – The number of stages, which means the number of decisions a Project Board will actually make
- 03:29 – The tolerances that we will use for each stage
- 03:34 – Then the progress, how will the Project Manager show progress to the Project Board of the project?
- 03:41 – How to deal with issues and changes?
- 03:43 – Now PRINCE2 has a very good technique for this
- 03:46 – So it’s probably best to customize this to suit your environment
- 03:52 – And lastly, how PRINCE2 should be tailored to suit the project
- 03:57 – It’s good to have a near zero overhead and only do the overhead that’s really necessary
- 04:03 – So, the golden rule is keep it simple
- 04:07 – So that’s it now for the objectives of the IP process
- 04:12 – You can see that all documents are in the project management level
- 04:16 – So the PM actually drives this IP process
- 04:21 – Now, let’s take a look at the activities in this process
- 04:25 – Like the starting of a project process, you don’t have to remember these, but just understand them and this will be easy
- 04:33 – So, where are we in the project so far?
- 04:36 – Well, the last process was the starting up a project process
- 04:40 – The Project Manager has just asked the Project Board to review the Project Brief
- 04:45 – And they have requested to start the project
- 04:49 – So the Project Board will have made their first decision
- 04:53 – If the decision was no, then the project stops even before it started
- 04:58 – But if the Project Board said yes, then the project can officially start
- 05:03 – So the first activity - agree the tailoring requirements
- 05:07 – This is the first activity in the IP process
- 05:10 – So the Project Manager will tailor how the project is managed and minimize overhead
- 05:16 – The organization may have standards for different types of projects
- 05:21 – So we have to take those organizational standards into account
- 05:26 – Then we prepare the management approach documents
- 05:29 – In fact, the organization should have templates for all of these to make it very easy
- 05:34 – So for example, we have the configuration management approach, how to track documents and products during the project
- 05:40 – Then you have the quality planning and control, so how to do quality during the project
- 05:45 – And we have the risk management, how to do risk management during the project
- 05:48 – So all of these should be templates that the Project Manager can just say, “Well, I will use the exact same on my project”
- 05:55 – And that should take no more than 5 minutes to bring into the project
- 05:59 – Then we also have the communication management approach
- 06:02 – This will take a bit of extra time because each time we need to do a stakeholder analysis
- 06:07 – And that will be different for each project
- 06:11 – So we have more about this in the communications team
- 06:15 – Then, decide and document how the project will be controlled
- 06:18 – So, for example, the frequency of reports, the number of stages, and the tolerance to use during the project
- 06:27 – Then create the Project Plan
- 06:29 – In fact, this will be about 80% of the work in this process
- 06:34 – The Project Manager will organize many workshops with users, business analysts, team managers
- 06:41 – And extract the requirements and keep extracting, and when they’re done, perhaps even extract some more
- 06:48 – Then they will write all the product descriptions which include the quality requirements
- 06:54 – So once we have the product descriptions, we’ve got a much better idea on how much the project costs because we’ll have an estimation and a cost for each product, which will be put into the Project Plan
- 07:07 – So the Executive then can then refine the Business Case
- 07:11 – Actually we can say, they can transform the data from the outline Business Case to a full Business Case document
- 07:18 – Note here that the Executive is responsible for the Business Case, but they can get the Project Manager to assist
- 07:27 – Then you put all this documentation together into one folder
- 07:30 – PRINCE2 calls this Assemble the PID
- 07:35 – And this is it for the IP activities where the project is broken down
- 07:41 – Next, the Project Manager will ask the Project Board, “Can the project continue?”
- 07:47 – So the PM sends a request to the Project Board and this is going to be their second decision
- 07:54 – So the Project Board will evaluate the documents
- 07:57 – So, for example, they will evaluate the Business Case, the project product description, the Project Plan, the risks
- 08:04 – Notice as well, there’s also a second question mark
- 08:07 – So there’s an extra decision that they take here
- 08:10 – So the Project Manager also needs to create a plan for the next stage
- 08:15 – So that will be the first, what we call, delivery stage
- 08:19 – And this is done in the Stage Boundary Process
- 08:22 – So the Project Manager will ask the Project Board then two decisions
- 08:27 – One, to deliver a project, and two, to request the start to the next stage
- 08:35 – So let’s take a quick look at the inputs and outputs as this gives a good overview
- 08:39 – So the inputs was, or were, a trigger which was a decision by the Project Board
- 08:46 – We have the Project Brief which gave us all the information that we had about the project today
- 08:50 – And we had the Stage Plan, which was a day-to-day plan used by the Project Manager during this process
- 08:58 – Then we have the outputs, actually all the outputs go into what we call the PID
- 09:04 – The Benefits Management Approach is a separate document and this has an overview of all the expected benefits we will get in the project
- 09:11 – And then lastly, we have a request to deliver a project, which is sent to the Project Board
- 09:18 – So that’s it for the IP process
- 09:21 – Just a reminder of the purpose
- 09:23 – The purpose of the IP process is to establish a solid foundation, so a Project Plan
- 09:29 – So the organization understands what they have to invest in.
Then what?
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