When you are in the early stages of your construction project, it is essential to know that you will need to finalize all the details from your project’s scope and deliverables to budgets, timelines, and tasks. For construction project management to go well, it needs to start on the right foot. You can be sure that all the right things are done before the project begins with an efficient and effective project initiation stage.
If you want to learn about the initial stages of project management and how you and your team can make the most of them, then you have come to the right place. This article will tell you everything you need to know about this vital part of the process that is often overlooked or not given enough credit.
What is Project Initiation?
In a nutshell, the easiest way to think of the project initiation process is that it is everything that happens before a project is accepted and planning starts in earnest. This is where you decide why you are doing the project and what the value of doing it is. During this time, the project manager and other stakeholders usually ensure everyone understands three essential things, which are the project’s goal, scope, and limitations. Then, they use that information to create the project charter, which the stakeholders will look over and, ideally, agree to. Once that is completed, the project’s planning phase officially starts, where the timelines, budgets, and other details are laid out in more detail.
What is The Difference between Initiating and Planning a Project?
People often mix up the two terms, initiation and planning, and use them interchangeably. Luckily, The Project Management Body of Knowledge makes it clear that these are two separate steps of project management that happen in a particular order. These are the first two of five stages, which are:
- Project Initiation
- Project Planning
- Project Execution
- Project Monitoring
- Project Close-out
Project initiation can be thought of as “doing a pitch” before the project is accepted. It usually focuses on the significant reasons why you should do the project and what you can gain from doing that. After that, the planning part is where all the little details are worked out so that the work can start.
Why Is the Project Initiation Important?
In construction, people often need to catch up on the beginning and go straight to planning and carrying it out. However, it is critical to set aside some time and prioritize the project initiation phase for a number of reasons. In this way, you will be able to identify why the project is worth doing and if you should do it.
The main goal during the initiation process should be to make a business case for the project. As a result, making sure everyone knows the project’s value right away brings them together around a common goal. In this section, let us look at some of the benefits of an efficient and effective project initiation.
Find Out if The Construction Project is Possible
The difference between a job that is hard and one that is impossible is big. As you work out the project’s scope and goals at the start, you should also figure out what the project’s limits are. The project initiation phase does not mean finding flaws in the idea and making everyone give up on it. Instead, it is intended to help you and your team figure out if the concept is actually doable with your finite resources, such as time, money, and tools.
Set Standards Early On
As with any other industry, people, teams, and stakeholders are meant to work toward the same goal, but their contributions to the project are often affected by their different ideas, expectations, and even motivations.
A thorough project initiation also ensures that everyone is on the same page about the project, how it will help the business, who is responsible for making it happen, and the standards for how the project should be executed and delivered.
Consult With Your Project Stakeholders
Since construction projects require a significant number of resources upfront, it is critical to ensure the project’s success. In construction, stakeholders need to be involved from the start of a project with careful planning and a project charter. This stops people from asking at the last minute and being annoyed.
Six Steps to Take to Ace the Project Initiation Phase
It is tempting to skip the project’s initial phase and go straight into project planning, which is one of the most complex parts of starting a project. However, it is critical to remember that project initiation is different from project planning, which is the time to get down to the specifics of your project.
Project initiation is a high-level outline of your project that you need to get approval for before you move forward. With that in mind, here are some steps you can take to make the beginning of your project as helpful as possible.
Find the “Whys” Behind the Project
This must be stressed more, but before you start a job, you need to know why it is essential. Ask yourself these questions:
- Why should you do it in the first place?
- What is the final goal?
- What does this project want to achieve?
- Why now?
- What good things will this do for our business?
If this is a project that has been done before or is close to one that has been done before, you may already have a business case for it. But if not, then it is time to make one. It is essential to have a clear understanding of why the project is being done when putting together the project charter and asking partners to approve it.
Make a Project Charter
Making your project charter, which you may also hear called your “project initiation document,” is one of the most essential parts of the “project initiation” step.
The project charter is a short document that lists and suggests the critical parts of your project, such as its goals, scope, key partners, and resources. It is sort of like a project plan that helps you build a strong foundation for success. You decide what to include in your project. The specifics don’t matter; try to keep it short. This is your first pitch or proposal, not your entire project plan. The information should be enough for people who need to know to ask questions and give their approval, but not so much that you and your team have to use it like a complete project plan.
Here are some of the essential things you should write down on your paper:
- Project name
- Short description of the project
- Target start and end dates
- Deliverables
- Stakeholders
- Scope
- Limitations such as cost, staffing, time constraints, quality
- Risks
Know Your Stakeholders
Before starting a project, you must determine the leading players – your stakeholders. You can make a list of everyone who will be affected by or involved in the project later, but during the start phase, you should agree on the critical stakeholders. These are the people whose decisions will have the most significant effect on the project over its lifetime. This could include the people who own the business processes, the top executives, and other essential decision-makers.
Do A Feasibility Study
Now that you have pitched your idea and shown that it adds value and fits with your company’s overall strategic plan. Now is the time to do a feasibility study to ensure that your project can be done with the tools you have available.
A feasibility study basically checks to see if your idea has a chance of succeeding. You will have a solid case to go back to stakeholders and ask for more money or resources if your feasibility study shows that you need more of them.
Look At Your Resources
One of the most important things you can do in the project initiation process is make sure the project is possible. A lot of this depends on the resources you have available. You can find out if it’s possible to finish the project with the resources you have by doing feasibility studies.
You can start planning your resources in great detail later. Instead, your goal here is to figure out what essential resources you’ll need to finish the job and deliver it successfully. Make sure that you and the people who have a stake in the project have a starting point as you go through the reviews, negotiations, and final acceptance of the project charter.
Make A Project Business Case
The project charter is done, and you are almost halfway through the project start step. Before you can start making plans, though, you need one more thing: approval.
If you have already put your project partners into the categories mentioned above, you should have a good idea of who you need to persuade to sign off on the project charter. However, it might be a good idea to get other essential people to look over the plan, even if they do not need to sign it. There are times when this approval process is not clear-cut, and having a lot of stakeholders involved lets you get feedback and make strategic changes before anyone starts working on the actual project deliverables.
