One of the more useful PRINCE2 ideas is its approach to starting a project. One of the greatest temptations in any initiative is to stop talking and planning the project and just get on with the real work. Wasting time with unnecessary analysis is of course a bad thing, but rushing into the work can actually turn out to be a false economy, leading to more wasted time later on.
What are the common problems caused by starting project too quickly? Here’s my top seven:
- Not thinking through or being vague about what the project will create. This usually leads to client dissatisfaction when what they thought was being created isn’t or the users changing their minds during the building of the products.
- Not taking time to identify all the important stakeholders to the project and agree the project’s scope with them. This usually leads to these important stakeholders appearing later on in the initiative and wanting major changes to the project definition which then lead to cost or schedule overruns.
- Not working and consulting with those who disagree with the initiative, especially if those who disagree have power or influence. It’s better to have the arguments and power struggles up front before resources have been committed.
- Not agreeing who is doing what on a project. Later on it becomes clear that either there are a number of people working at cross-purposes to each other or important project responsibilities are not being attended to.
- Senior stakeholders getting too involved with the details of the project. Senior stakeholders should concern themselves with the key decisions in the project and helping to clear major roadblocks to the project. They rarely have the necessary technical skills to make product decisions or the management time to operate on a day-to-day basis. Unfortunately if they do get involved with the detail of the project their opinions are given too much weight due to their authority in the organization.
- Senior stakeholders not getting involved enough in a project. This seems to contradict the last point, but if the senior stakeholders are completely hands off on the project, then they won’t be available to commit resources or resolve difficult problems
- Not focusing on and clearly defining what the project objectives are and how the organization should benefit. If this isn’t done how does the project team know when the initiative should stop and also whether the project has been successful?
Can you think of any more starting a project gotcha’s? All comments welcome.
PRINCE2 helps to avoid many of these problems by disciplining an organization to stop before they create any products for a project and create a Project Initiation Documentation. This document clearly defines the project, it’s scope, it’s objectives and it’s products. PRINCE2 then ensures that this document is agreed with all the major stakeholders on a project before the work can commence.
In the next part of this series of blogs I will look at the Project Initiation Documentation in more detail and how it increases the likelihood of a successful project.
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