
PMP Free Course. Initiating Process Group
During this article we will describe the major outputs and reasons for starting the initiating process group.
Initiate phase of a project starts with authorize the project and assignment of the project manager.
A business case, market demand, social needs, etc. Can cause the initiating of a project. After evaluation of a project if the decision is initiate the project, sponsor of the project authorize the project and finical support the project activities and the organization assign the project manager for this new project.
- Major outputs for initiating process group.
- Project charter.
Project charter describes the high-level information about the project. It includes sponsor information, high level scope, business need, high level risks, project manager information, etc.
- Identified stakeholders.
Stakeholders are people or groups who might be affected from outputs of a project. management of powerful and influencing project stakeholders is crucial for project success.
Stakeholders analysis and identification is done during initiating process group.
- Strategy for managing stakeholders.
After stakeholders identified and analyzed proper stakeholders managing strategy is generated, respectively.
For example, a director that will decide whether the product of the project will be accepted or not, he is very critical stakeholder of the project. These kinds of stakeholders must be manage closely and their expectations must be satisfied to execute the project successfully.
- Progressive elaboration.
Project management required progressive elaboration. Estimates, product scope and some other steps might start in initiating and iterated in planning process because as long as the project progress and new information about the project is collected, more accurate and presides planning can be done. Therefore, re-planning is done throughout the project.
Although, project management plan s finalized in planning but detailed estimate, scope and some other points might be clarified during execution or monitoring & controlling because as long as the project work is accomplished, unclear points effecting presides and accurate plan will be estimate.
- Project manager assigned.
Project manager is assigned early in the process because as long as the project is authorized that is will be a lot of project management activities need to coordinate and manage. Project manager will do these works to complete the project in better way.
however, this is not the case in real world for many cases project managers are generally assigned when a project is start in real world.
- Business case.
The reason why the project started is taken into account throughout the project because if the business case cannot be addressed with the completion, project will be considered as failed.
- High level planning.
This includes a very high-level steps and deliverable of the project. Detailed planning is completed during planning phase of the project.
Creating high-level WBS is completed in initiating phase. This high level WBS include major works packages and deliverables of the project. Detailed WBS is finalized during planning phase.
Order of magnitude estimate (+/- 50%) is done during initiating process group because there is a very little information about the project and with a limited information and high level assumptions it is not possible to make accurate and presides estimation. Order of magnitude estimate has a variance of +/- 50%, this mean actual value of estimation can reach to 50% higher or lower of estimation value.
- High level risk identification.
If there are risk responses for these risks. there are documented as well. However, detail risk identification and plan risk response strategy are done during planning phase.
- Reasons to start initiating process.
There are three main reasons:
- Business need.
- Begin a new phase of the project.
- Project has so many problems that you re-evaluate the business need.
Market demand, social needs, etc. are reasons for project initiating. After evaluation of the project business need if the senior management of a company decide to initiate the project, the project is authorized and project manager is assigned respectively to manage and coordinate the project. If the project is a large project and if this a lot of phases, initiating process group trigger at the beginning of each phase. And finally initiating process group is triggered if there are so many problems or conflicts in the project and if the stakeholders start to criticize the business need because if there are so many conflicts in a project, the reason why the project started might be not a valid case anymore. In this case, we evaluation of the business case is done by we initiating the initiating process group.