Initiating is one of the most overlooked phases of a project lifecycle (so as is Closing), you have to keep in my mind that if you start wrong, chances are you will end wrong, just like a building’s foundation, if the foundation is not solid the building may collapse any time before or after completing the building, same thing applies to any project, the problem with initiating phase is that it is mostly handled without the project manager, most of project sponsor start appointing a project manager only when the project is approved and after the business case, if there is any, has been built.

It is always advisable to the project sponsor to appoint the project manager as early as possible and definitely prior to accepting the business case and signing the project charter, however some sponsors only appoint the project manager after the project has been formally started, and in fact this model is very common with contractor project managers, the following part of the master mind map highlights the root causes identified under the initiating phase

Not Aligned with Strategy

Again, if you start wrong you will end wrong, the problem with this reason is that, for about 90% of projects the project manager is not involved in this stage, it is more of portfolio management rather than project management, portfolio management is the key to decide whether the project is aligned with the company/customer/sponsor’s strategy or not, many organizations lack formal project portfolio management office, and so the selection criteria for projects get messy, biased, and based on shallow study, however this kind of organizations pay the price when projects fail and they do! The risk associated with selecting the wrong project to start is that the project may get cancelled in the middle and so it will be considered a failure, it may be cancelled for several reasons such as:

• Assigning project resources to another more important project which is more aligned with the organization strategy
• The project turn out to be valueless
• As the project is not aligned with the organization strategy, it will receive less attention and support from the project sponsor which will makes the project manager power less
• Resources may need to work with other more important projects which will make them more valuable to the organization, this implies job security, bonus, and appreciation

In general you have to ensure you do the right things before doing things right, and this requires leadership rather than management, you have to ensure effectiveness before thinking of efficiency

Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things
Peter Drucker

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things
Peter Drucker

Fragile Business Case

This is tightly linked to the first cause, if the project has no solid business case, this will make the project valueless, a project manager should ensure delivering a value rather than focusing on time, cost, and scope, however the problem with the business case is that the project manager gets into the project only after the whole initiating phase has been done, nevertheless, the project manager can always revise the business case and ensure that a value will be delivered out of the project, this is the real value a professional project manager adds rather than just managing time, cost, and scope as a robot! A fair business case should include the following:

• Business Goals, Objectives, and Need
• Deliverables
• Stakeholders
• Project Cost ( direct and indirect for all the resources and equipments )
• Project Schedule
• Risks, Assumptions & Constraints
• Financial Information such as: Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR) , Return on Investment (ROI), Pay Back Period, Break Even Analysis, Cash Flow, Internal Rate of Return (IRR), etc.

Undefined Critical Success Factors

Two persons can always argue whether a project has been successfully completed and delivered intended outcome or not, so it is so important to define the critical success factors before establishing any new initiative or idea as a project, the critical success factor can make or break your project, and it could be anything, for example it can include factors that will make you retain customers (e.g. iPhone user interface), make employees want to work for you (e.g. Google work environment), cost effectiveness, etc., again why is this related to project failure, because your project is not running in silo it has to deliver a value and this is how each and every stakeholder will consider the project successful, you can not simply say I have delivered the project on time, within budget and to specification and so I am successful, no that time is gone!

Big Bang

One of the biggest project failure causes, having it all once, you will always find people tending to have a 2-3 years project to achieve a certain goal, however this is not advisable, every time you receive a new project try to divide it into phases, personally I think a project should not last for over a year, otherwise the project must be broken down into phases, if you had the chance to work on vendor side, you must have seen this before, when you go to a customer and do your analysis then suggest to have a phased implementation to the project, the client will always think that you are over-estimating the project and that you need to extend the lifetime of the engagement, however, you have to have the guts to stick to this approach, otherwise it is very much expected that things will go wrong!

Starting without a Project Charter

It is just a couple of pages and sometimes a single page only, however it is very important for your project, it is very risky to start without a project charter, otherwise the project and the project manager will face lots of issues such as:

• Project Identity: the project charter is the birth certificate of the project
• Resources: If you are working in a matrix organization unless the project sponsor signs the project charter, it will be very difficult to you to get resource commitment from functional managers
• Authority: the project manager has to have some kind of authority to start moving things, speaking to stakeholders, and get listened in the first place

A project charter should include most of the topics included in the business case, if you already have a solid business case, this will make creating the project charter a piece of cake, you can pick a project charter template or ideally fill the one provided by your Project Management Office (PMO), a project charter should include the following:

• Project Manager and Sponsor’s name
• Stakeholders
• Business Objectives and Business Need
• Deliverables, Cost, and Schedule
• Risks, Assumptions, and Constraints

You can always add more to the project charter, however it is advisable to limit it to a couple of pages, after you have create the charter, get it reviewed by a trusted person, and get it signed by the project sponsor.

While PMI recommends that the project charter get created by the project sponsor, this is not what is happening in the real life project management, often times, the project manager is the one who’s creating the charter based on inputs from the business case and project sponsor, no harm in doing so, as long as all the information is accurate.

Please if you have more to add under project initiation leave a comment.

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