Starting Up a Project (SU)

A project mandate does not formally start a project. The project mandate triggers an investigation and information-gathering process named Starting Up a Project.

Three Key Deliverables

• Outline Business Case — justifies why the project should be initiated
• Project Brief — describes objectives, scope, approach, and management team
• Initiation Stage Plan — documents the detailed planning approach for the next stage

These are presented to the Project Board for approval. The Outline Business Case also requires Corporate/Programme-level approval. Before compiling these documents, the Executive and Project Manager roles must first be established.

Six Main Activities

1. Appoint the Executive and the Project Manager
2. Capture previous lessons
3. Design and appoint the project management team
4. Prepare the Outline Business Case
5. Select the project approach and assemble the Project Brief
6. Plan the Initiation Stage

Common Pitfalls

• Excessive startup time — especially when project approval is already obvious. SU should be brief.
• Premature detailed planning — attempting final time and cost numbers in the Project Brief. These belong in the Initiation Stage and Project Plan.
• Building the full Project Plan — the Project Brief should not contain a complete project plan; that is developed in Initiating a Project.
• Full Business Case instead of Outline — the full Business Case is developed during Initiating a Project, not here.
• Documents as formalities — producing documents without using them as genuine tools for reflection and alignment is a waste of effort.