Pick your cliché of choice here: “getting everyone on the same page,” “singing from the same songbook,” “dancing to the same beat,” “pointed in the same direction,” or “painting the picture.” They all apply, and they all communicate the importance of getting the key project participants to agree on the answers to these seven basic project definition questions:
- Why are we doing this? (Purpose)
- What organizational-level goal(s) does this project support? (Goals and Objectives)
- How does this project fit with the other projects that are going on? (Scope, Project Context, Project Dependencies)
- What is the expected benefit from this project? (Expected Benefits, Business Case, Value, Success Criteria)
- What are we going to do? (Scope)
- Who is affected by this and who must be involved? (Stakeholders)
- How will we know when we are done and whether the project was successful? (Success Criteria)
Gaining consensus on these questions is paramount to managing the organizational-level factors that get projects in trouble (such as alignment with organization and management support) and to controlling key project-level factors that impact project success: stakeholder expectations and scope management.
Note
As with all project management processes, the time and rigor invested should be consistent with the size and risk level of the project.
As a general guideline, 20% of the total project duration should be invested in definition and planning activities.
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