Project Initiation, Scope, and Structure
Read this section and pay special attention to the phase in which various project documents are created.
Physics tells us that light is both particle and wave. Project management has a similarly dual nature; it is both a series of distinct phases with a clear beginning and end, and a continuous, circular process in which each ending leads to a new beginning. Throughout a project, a successful project manager strives to anticipate changing conditions, rather than simply responding to them as they arise.
Let's start with the more traditional view, which describes project management as a series of sequential phases, with project initiation coming right after project selection. You can think of these phases, shown in Figure 3-1, as the particle nature of project management.
Figure 3-1: Traditional view of project management
But while project initiation marks the official beginning of a project, doing it well also requires looking past the making stage to the entire life cycle of the project's end result. You can think of this as the wave nature of project management. As illustrated in Figure 3-2, the making stage, in which a project is initiated and executed, is one part of the larger cycle that includes the operating/using/changing stage, in which the customer makes use of the project; and the demolishing stage, when the project is retired so it can be replaced by something new and better.
Figure 3-2: To successfully initiate a project, you need to envision the entire life cycle of the project's result
Taking this holistic, life-cycle view will encourage you to ask better questions about what "success" really means for your project. For example, as sustainability becomes an ever-present engineering concern, project managers often need to factor
in long-term environmental effects when judging a project's success. This entails the use of tools like life cycle assessments (LCA) for evaluating the "potential environmental impacts of a product, material, process, or activity" and for "assessing
a range of environmental impacts across the full life cycle of a product system, from materials acquisition to manufacturing, use, and final disposition". (United States Environmental Protection Agency n.d.).
An LCA analysis early in the initiation phase can help to broaden your view of the potential effects of a project and to increase the range of options you consider as you set the project in motion. In the construction industry, LCAs often focus on energy and water use of a building's life cycle. In product development, LCAs are used to assess the impacts of raw materials processing, production, packaging, and recycling, among other things. For an interesting example of an apparel industry analysis.
An LCA is just one of many ways to kick-start the knowledge acquisition process that unfolds throughout a project. It's not unusual to know little to nothing about a project at the start. By the time you finish, you know everything you wished you knew at the beginning, and you have acquired knowledge that you can carry forward to new projects. Anything you learn about a project is important, but the information you compile during initiation sets you up to respond to the living order uncertainty that will inevitably arise as the project unfolds. It can encourage you to look past the initiation phase to the project's entire life cycle, and then to circle back using your new knowledge to take a more holistic approach to project initiation.
One of the best ways to learn about a project is to talk to everyone involved:
- Engage with the customer to learn all you can about what they want out of the project over the long term. In other words, find out how the customer defines the project's value. Be prepared to ask lots of questions. In some situations, it might be helpful to watch the customer use a product to get a better idea of unmet needs. Keep in mind that customers don't always know exactly what they want, and it may not have occurred to them that they can shape their thinking around the project's life cycle. They might need the help of an informed, experienced, sensitive project manager to formulate their goals.
- Think broadly about who the customer is and include the needs of the end user - the ultimate customer - in your thinking. For example, if you are building a new clinic, don't confine yourself to the executives of the HMO paying for the building. Take time to talk to the people who will really be using the building - doctors, nurses, technicians, administrative staff, maintenance workers, and patients.
- Talk to stakeholders - the people who will be affected by or who can affect the project - and ask about their concerns and needs. Make sure you understand their basic assumptions.
- As when identifying customers, think broadly about who the stakeholders are. The customer and end users are clearly stakeholders, as is the manager sponsoring the project, and the project team members. But don't forget about vendors, resource owners, government officials and regulatory bodies, and members of other departments in your organization.
Making these conversations and analyses of needs a priority will give you a broader view of your project's overall life cycle. Though of course, in the day-to-day running of a project, you can't spend every minute looking ahead, you do have to pay attention to the traditional phases of project management, focusing on details like schedules and personnel. Even so, as you complete the tasks related to one phase, you often need to be thinking ahead to tasks related to a subsequent phase. Significant overlap between the various phases is common, as shown in Figure 3-3. You will often need to look back at and revise the information you compiled during the initiation phase as you learn more about the project.
Remember, a project is a learning acquisition activity. In most cases, what you know during project initiation is only a small fraction of what you will know when the project is finished. You have to be prepared to adapt as you learn more about your project.
Source: Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System,
https://wisc.pb.unizin.org/technicalpm/chapter/project-initiation-scope-and-structure/
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