HOWTO Start a

Project Right

7867 • Updated 03.2018

© American Management Association. All rights reserved.

 How to Start a Project Right

Table of Contents

Case Study: WIND Corporate Move................................................................................................................................1

Projects, Programs, and Portfolios.................................................................................................................................3
Triple Constraints.............................................................................................................................................................4
Project Priorities..............................................................................................................................................................5
Business Case...................................................................................................................................................................6
Stakeholders....................................................................................................................................................................7
Project Management Process Framework......................................................................................................................9
The Process of Defining the Scope of the Project.......................................................................................................10
Project vs. Product Requirements.................................................................................................................................12
Creating Well-Defined Requirements..........................................................................................................................15
Techniques for Gathering Project and Product Requirements...................................................................................17
Action Plan.....................................................................................................................................................................18

This publication contains portions of material from A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Sixth Edition,
which is copyrighted material of, and owned by, Project Management Institute, Inc. (PMI), Copyright © 2017. This publication has been
developed and reproduced with the permission of PMI. Unauthorized reproduction of this material is strictly prohibited. These Course Materials
are the copyrighted materials of and owned by, American Management Association International, Copyright © 2014, 2018.

© American Management Association. All rights reserved. i

 How to Start a Project Right

Case Study: WIND Corporate Move

Due to the unprecedented growth and expansion in the WIND division, additional development space is needed.
The management committee has approved a plan to move Warehouse Operations to a facility two blocks away,
and refit the existing warehouse into several lab areas where the engineers located in the building next door can
do their research. Some issues have been raised which must be considered:

™™ Shutting down the warehouse operation during the week is not feasible, and the move must be accomplished
in the next 3 months.

™™ The new warehouse space is currently set up as a discount plumbing store.

™™ There is a concern that the existing “back-door” loading area is not large enough to handle the size of the
wind generators, thereby requiring some major construction.

™™ The cost of moving Warehouse Operations will be borne by the division as a whole.

™™ The refitting of the warehouse into labs needs to take into account three different engineering groups.

™™ The existing warehouse space needs to be divided into “rooms” with extensive electrical work done to handle
the equipment which will be housed in the rooms. One of the engineering groups has expressed an interest in
actually moving their office space to the new lab area.

™™ The refitting of the warehouse can be accomplished over the next year.

™™ The costs of refitting the lab will be borne by the engineering groups. The exact breakdown needs to be
negotiated.

While the project has been approved, no one seems to know what to do first. The general manager (GM) of the
Products Division, Madeleine Wei, has appointed you as project manager and asked you to get the job done. Her
top priority for the next fiscal year is to improve efficiency. She feels that both a larger warehouse space and better
engineering labs will be critical to meeting that goal.

1. What is the business case?

Problem:
______________________________________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Solution:
______________________________________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Benefits:
______________________________________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Estimated Costs (Personal and Expenses):

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

© American Management Association. All rights reserved. 1

 How to Start a Project Right

2. Identify customers/users and their requirements:

Customers/Users Requirements

© American Management Association. All rights reserved. 2

 How to Start a Project Right

Projects, Programs, and Portfolios

At the highest level, organizations select, manage,
Portfolio fund, resource, prioritize and even cancel projects
Level based on the strategic goals. This collection of
projects is called a portfolio.

At the program level,

projects may be grouped
Program and managed to achieve
Level efficiencies and control
that can’t be achieved by
managing them individually.

Project Project
Level Level

Project Project
Level Level

Project Project
Level Level

Projects can be broken down into subprojects

Subproject to make them more manageable and have the
same characteristics as a project.
Figure 1–1: Projects, Programs, and Portfolios

A project* is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result.

A program* is a group of related projects, subprograms, and program activities managed in a coordinated
way to obtain benefits not available from managing them individually.

A portfolio* refers to projects, programs, subportfolios, and operations managed as a group to achieve
strategic objectives.

Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Sixth Edition, Project Management
Institute, Inc., 2017, Pg. 715, 715, and 714.

© American Management Association. All rights reserved. 3

 How to Start a Project Right

Triple Constraints
Projects are undertaken within the triple constraints of scope, time, and cost. This concept is commonly referred
to as the project triangle, which is depicted in the following figure. Time translates to the schedule and cost to the
budget.

(Bu
ule

Co get)
ch e
(S Tim
ed

st
Scope d
Figure 1–2: The Project Triangle

The Project Triangle

The three core elements of any project are scope (work to be accomplished), schedule (time to accomplish the
work), and budget (cost to accomplish the work). For a defined amount of work, it is reasonable to say that it will
take a certain amount of time to accomplish given a certain amount of resources/budget.

The challenge of the project manager is to keep all sides of the project triangle balanced. If the triangle is not
balanced, the project will fail along one of the three sides. For example, if you start with a “balanced” triangle and
then receive a request for additional features from your customer (increase in scope), you need to recognize that
an adjustment to time and/or cost must be made. Otherwise, you simply won’t be able to accomplish the increased
amount of work in the time and within the budget previously defined. This concept also highlights the importance
of defining project requirements during the project initiation process, which will be discussed in detail in Module 2.

© American Management Association. All rights reserved. 4

 How to Start a Project Right

Project Priorities
It is good practice to determine the sponsor’s and/or customer’s priorities early in the project, as well as any
flexibility they may have. This is done by asking these simple questions:

™™ “Which side of the project triangle is most important to you (least flexible)?”

™™ “Second most important (flexible)?”

™™ “Third most important (most flexible)?”

The results are easily captured in the matrix below. You should also gain agreement on flexibility ranges, if possible.
Understanding the priorities of the sponsor and customer will help you make the right trade-off decisions down
the road.

Note: Constraining more than one side of the project triangle is not recommended, as it will reduce flexibility and
options down the road.
(Flexible)
Flexible)

Flexible)
(Least

(Most
2nd

3rd
1st

Flexibility Range
Scope X All customer-facing requirements, internal
requirements as schedule/budget allow

Time X No longer than 3 months

Cost X $35,000–$50,000

Figure 1–3: Priority Matrix

© American Management Association. All rights reserved. 5

 How to Start a Project Right

Business Case
In addition to understanding the project itself, it’s often valuable for the project manager to understand the
business reasons for the project being undertaken at all. This is articulated as the business case. Often, the business
case provides the financial justification for pursuing the project; however, not all projects are pursued for purely
financial reasons. Nonetheless, these reasons would still be considered as the business case. Business cases have the
following core components, all of which must be understood by the project manager:

™™ Problem/Opportunity: What is the problem that the project is intended to resolve? Or what are the
opportunities that we wish to capitalize on?

™™ Solution/Vision: What will the situation look like after the project is complete (the deliverable has been turned
over to the customer and is being used)?

™™ Expected Benefits: What are the expected benefits?

™™ Estimated Costs:

–– Personnel costs: How many people will be allocated to the project?

–– Expense costs: What out-of-pocket expenses will be spent on the project?

Note: These are based on the best available information at the time. Early in the project, they are typically
high-level (rough) estimates that will be refined as the project progresses.

© American Management Association. All rights reserved. 6

 How to Start a Project Right

Stakeholders
Stakeholders are people or organizations with a vested interest in the project. They include the following:

™™ Those who benefit from the project

™™ Those who contribute to the project

™™ Those who are impacted by the project

It is important to identify ALL project stakeholders as soon as possible. Project managers also need to realize
that not all stakeholders will have a high interest in project! Project managers need to be aware of the so-called
“negative” stakeholders so that their concerns can be addressed (if possible). Project managers don’t need to be
blindsided. Once stakeholders are identified, they are often analyzed along the dimensions of interest and power.

High

•B

Keep Manage
Satisfied Closely
•H
•A
•F
Power
•G •C

Keep
Monitor
Informed
•E
•D

Low
Low Interest High

Figure 1–4: Stakeholder Analysis

© American Management Association. All rights reserved. 7

 How to Start a Project Right

Key Stakeholders
™™ Sponsor: The project sponsor is the person within the performing organization who authorizes the project and
allocates organizational resources (people, money, equipment, etc.) toward its fulfillment.

™™ Customer: The customer is the person or organization who wants the project undertaken, usually to solve a
problem. The customer may be internal or external to the performing organization. Internal customers may or
may not be the same person as the sponsor.

™™ User: The user is the person(s) who will directly use the deliverable created by the project. The user may or may
not be the same person as the customer.

™™ Project Manager (PM): The project manager is the person responsible for managing the overall project,
including initiating, planning, executing, monitoring, controlling, and closing it.

™™ Core Team Member*: A core team member is a person on the project team responsible for representing the
interests of his/her specific functional area/department.

™™ Extended Team Member*: An extended team member is a person on the project team from a specific
functional area/department who works under the direction of the core team member (as opposed to the
project manager).

™™ Subject Matter Expert (SME): The SME is a person with deep expertise in an area related to the project. SMEs
may also be core or extended team members.

*Note: The core and extended team member roles are typically only used on large projects when it would be
unwieldy for the PM to directly oversee every team member and/or when the PM doesn’t have the technical
expertise or familiarity to oversee all team members.

© American Management Association. All rights reserved. 8

 How to Start a Project Right

Project Management Process Framework

PMI has identified the following core project management processes:

™™ Initiating Process Group—Defines and authorizes the project or project phase

™™ Planning Process Group—Determines the course of action (scope, schedule, budget) required to create the
deliverables and attain the objectives that the project was undertaken to address

™™ Executing Process Group—Integrates people and other resources to carry out the project management plan for
the project

™™ Monitoring and Controlling Process Group—Regularly measures and monitors progress to identify variances
from the project plan so that corrective action can be undertaken when necessary to keep the project on track

™™ Closing Process Group—Formalizes acceptance of the product, service, or result and brings the project or
project phase to an orderly end

Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, (PMBOK® Guide) – Sixth Edition, Pg. 562, Project
Management Institute, Inc., 2017

© American Management Association. All rights reserved. 9

 How to Start a Project Right

The Process of Defining the Scope of the Project

There are two types of scope that project managers must understand: product scope and project scope. As project
manager, you are concerned with project scope, which is the foundation of the project triangle. But to get there,
you must first understand product scope.

The Many Definitions of Scope

There are three closely related definitions for scope from the PMBOK® Guide. It is extremely important that, when
discussing scope, all parties have a clear understanding of the term and how it is being used.

Scope*: The sum of the products, services, and results to be provided as a project.

Product Scope*: The features and functions that characterize a product, service, or result.

Project Scope*: The work that must be performed to deliver a product, service, or result with
the specified features and functions.

In defining the scope of a project, there are two countervailing tendencies:

™™ One impulse is to insist on total definition and documentation before any real work is started.

™™ At the other end of the spectrum, the thought is to hit the ground running and plan as you go.

Ultimately, the amount of time spent defining the scope of the project should be proportional to the project’s
importance to the organization, as well as its size, complexity, and risk.

The definition of project scope starts in the initiation process and finishes in the planning process of a project.
During initiation, the “requirements” that will shape both the project and the project deliverable are defined. A
solid understanding of both project and product requirements is necessary before project scope can be completed.

Note: In practice, requirements are captured in many different documents with varying but similar names and
overlapping content including:

™™ Project requirements document (PRD) ™™ Project definition document

™™ Product requirements document (PRD) ™™ Project data sheet

™™ Business requirements document (BRD) ™™ Charter

™™ Project requirements specification (PRS) ™™ Scope statement (PMBOK® Guide)

™™ Preliminary scope statement (PMBOK® Guide)

Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Sixth Edition, Project Management
Institute, Inc., 2017, Pg. 722, 715, 717.

© American Management Association. All rights reserved. 10

 How to Start a Project Right

Note: This course employs what we believe to be common industry practices for documentation used to capture
project and product requirements, although we understand that document names may not be exactly the same
from organization to organization.

This graphic below provides a high-level view of the evolution of the project initiation documentation. It reflects
current trends in defining project scope in which project requirements are gathered by the project manager and
product requirements are gathered by the business analyst or product manager.

1. Define the Project 2. Define the Deliverable 3. Define the Work Tasks

Product
Charter Work Breakdown
Requirements
Document Structure
Document

Created by PM, Created by Product Created by PM and

approved by Sponsor Manager, Business Team
Analyst, and/or PM

Describes the Project Describes the Describes the Work

Deliverable of the Tasks necessary to
project create the deliverable

Initiation Planning

Figure 1–6: Process of Defining Scope

In the diagram, there are two documents that must be created and approved to exit the initiating process and
begin the planning process: the project charter and the product requirements. While the product requirements may
be created by the business analyst or product manager, the project manager must have a good understanding of
them to plan the project.

Furthermore, if there is not a business analyst or product manager involved in the project, this responsibility falls
on the project manager.

Starting with the initiating and ending with the planning process, the team’s focus is on accurately understanding
the customer’s needs and wants as well as the constraints and objectives of the performing organization.

© American Management Association. All rights reserved. 11

 How to Start a Project Right

Project vs. Product Requirements

It is important to differentiate between project and product requirements. A misunderstanding of either could
cause a critical item to fall through the cracks, which could of course be disastrous.

Project Requirement
A project requirement is a characteristic of the project, which is commonly captured in the project charter. Project
requirements may include constraints, assumptions, priorities, external dependencies, milestones, and risks, and
they are owned by the project manager. See the following definitions along with tables that can be used to capture
and track the various types of project information.

Constraint is anything that limits the team’s options in creating the project deliverable. The most common
constraints are those related to the project triangle—limited time and cost.

Constraint Active
The cleanup can only take one Saturday in July. Yes
GREEN will contribute $5,000 to the cleanup. Yes

Assumption is a factor that one believes to be true but is not proven to be so. Assumptions are commonly made to
support a project decision or answer a question when all desired facts are not available.

Assumption Date Made Validated

Sufficient employees will volunteer to do the cleanup. 02-Jun-YY No

Local companies will provide refreshments for the cleanup day. 03-Jun-YY No

External dependency is a task, event, or deliverable that is outside of the project manager’s control—performed by
someone not on the project team—that must happen before the project can progress. Project managers don’t need
to manage the details of how the external dependency will be completed (as they must with internal parts of the
project), only ensure that it will be completed on time, on budget, and as defined.

Internal External
External Dependency Date Owner Owner Met
The local newspaper will provide publicity Leda Joe
28-Jun-YY No
for the cleanup day. Preston Stanton

© American Management Association. All rights reserved. 12

 How to Start a Project Right

Milestone is a key progress indicator usually associated with the creation of an interim deliverable or a significant
event.

Milestone Date Met

All teams are trained in proper cleanup procedures. 15-Jul-YY No
Riverbanks pass environmental review. 15-Aug-YY No
Landscaping of employee picnic area is completed. 27-Aug-YY No

Risk is a future event or condition that, if it occurs, will have either a positive or negative effect on the project.
(PMBOK® Guide)

Outcome/
Risk Result Owner P I Active
Claire
Hazardous waste is discovered. H H Yes
Drain
Construction upstream will
Leda
continue to contaminate the M M Yes
Preston
riverbanks.

Product Requirement
Product requirements are characteristics of the project deliverable. These commonly fall into various categories,
such as customer and user requirements. Product requirements are commonly owned by a business analyst or
product manager; however, on smaller projects, these roles often do not exist, and therefore, the responsibility falls
on the project manager.

Product Requirement Priority Level of Effort Fulfilled

Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Sixth Edition, Project Management
Institute, Inc., 2017, Pg. 720

© American Management Association. All rights reserved. 13

 How to Start a Project Right

No matter what format you use and whether you use one or a combination of documents, the key is to have a
good understanding of the characteristics of both your project and product before starting the planning process.
For the purposes of this course, you will use what are the most commonly practiced formats.

Project charter includes project requirements plus authorization and identification of the
project manager. The charter is owned by the project manager and approved by the sponsor.

Note that the PMBOK® Guide defines the charter as: “A document issued by the project initiator or sponsor that
formally authorizes the existence of a project and provides the project manager with the authority to apply
organizational resources to project activities.”

This is the most basic definition. In practice (and encouraged by the PMBOK® Guide), most charters are expanded to
include the reasons why the project was initiated or is being proposed to be initiated (business case), the sponsor’s
priorities (priority matrix), and other high-level characteristics of the project (project requirements).

Product requirements document (PRD) includes the product requirements. Note that while
the term product requirements is commonly used, this really means the requirements of the
deliverable, which can be a product, service, or result. This is owned by the business analyst
and approved by the customer. In the absence of a business analyst, the project manager
owns it.

On larger, more complex projects, there are logistical reasons for breaking product requirements out into a
separate document from the charter. First, on larger projects, it is owned by the business analyst or product
manager, not the project manager. Second, a product requirements document and a charter have different
audiences. Third, on larger projects, the PRD can be quite large, so a combined document could become unwieldy
and other important points in the document could become overshadowed.

On smaller, less complex projects, the product requirements are often rolled into a separate section in the charter
to simplify the project management process.

As long as you capture the core intent of each document, it doesn’t really matter what you call them or how many
you have. In fact, it is the project manager’s responsibility to simplify the process for the team, not make it more
complicated.

Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) – Sixth Edition, Project Management
Institute, Inc., 2017, Pg. 715.

© American Management Association. All rights reserved. 14

 How to Start a Project Right

Creating Well-Defined Requirements

Well-written requirements are critical to both successfully creating the deliverable and facilitating customer
acceptance of it. “Fuzzy” requirements are probably the number one cause of project failure (over schedule, over
budget) and can basically be summed up as a misunderstanding between the customer and the project team
(project manager, business analyst, and/or product manager).

The SMART* tool is often used to help write effective requirements:

S Specific

M Measurable

A Agreed to

R Realistic

T Time-bound

*Peter Drucker, in his 1954 work, The Practice of Management, coined the usage of the acronym for SMART objectives.

© American Management Association. All rights reserved. 15

 How to Start a Project Right

The table below lists the characteristics of SMART requirements and provides a brief description of their
implementation.

Characteristics What It Does Why It Works

Urges the author/team to abandon Removes ambiguity and forces hidden
“waffle” words and search for precision agenda items into view; clarifies
S Specific erroneous assumptions

Defines the acceptance criteria against Defines the quality of the requirement—
which the requirement can be evaluated; the product either meets the standard of
M Measurable establishes project metrics for success quality or does not
early

Ensures that all stakeholders buy into the Establishes expectations and reduces
requirement before the project begins politics
A Agreed to

Forces the author to ensure that Prevents cost and schedule overruns as
sufficient resources and time are well as technical debacles
R Realistic available to create the deliverable(s);
ensures that outcomes do not violate the
known laws of the physical universe

Forces the author/team to ensure that Establishes client and stakeholder

sufficient time is available to create the expectations; ensures sufficient time is
T Time-bound deliverable available to meet the requirements

Another technique often used to provide clarity when writing objectives and creating scope documents is
answering the following questions:

™™ What?

™™ Why?

™™ How?

™™ Who?

™™ Where?

™™ When?

™™ How many?

© American Management Association. All rights reserved. 16

 How to Start a Project Right

Techniques for Gathering Project and Product

Requirements
™™ Interviews are the most traditional means of establishing requirements and determining project scope.
Interviews may be either informal or formal and tailored to each type of stakeholder. Interviewing techniques
are well documented. Skills can improve with practice.

™™ Expert judgment is a technique that relies on the experience of others. It involves consulting with experts
who—based on their history of working on similar projects—know and understand the project and its
application. While it is often used, expert judgment may be biased.

™™ SWOT Analysis* is, classically, a tool used in strategic planning and capital budgeting. SWOT stands for
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. At the project level, it may provide rationale or
justification. Strengths and weaknesses deal with internal appraisals of need, while opportunities and threats
address external or market issues.

™™ Walk-throughs of the client’s process can be conducted by the project team in order to understand the business
process and to document flows of data, materials, supplies, correspondence, etc. This is helpful when the
project involves replacing a process, usually through automation and/or for process improvement.

™™ Brainstorming is a group process used to quickly generate a large number of ideas on a particular topic.

™™ Mind mapping is a tool for processing information in both serial and associative forms. You begin with a
central idea and then ask teammates to identify and list whatever comes to mind, periodically regrouping the
ideas under headings that seem natural and appropriate.

™™ Focus groups are a form of research in which a group of people are asked about their knowledge of or attitude
toward a product or service. Questions are asked in an interactive group setting where participants are free to
talk with other group members.

™™ Gap analysis is the difference between what is needed and what is available—between where you are and
where you want to be.

™™ Prototypes/Demonstrations are methods of obtaining early feedback on requirements by providing an early

working model of the expected product or project outcome without actually building it.

*SWOT is a technique credited to Albert Humphrey, who led a research project at Stanford University in the 1960s and 1970s (using data from
Fortune 500 companies).

© American Management Association. All rights reserved. 17

 How to Start a Project Right

Action Plan
Choose one or two key behavioral changes you believe will make the greatest impact on your job performance. For
each, complete the information below.

™™ Change #1:

______________________________________________________________________________________________________
–– To implement this change, I will need support from (manager, peer, family, etc.):

__________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

–– What types of support will I need, and how can I request it?

__________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

™™ Change #2:

______________________________________________________________________________________________________
–– To implement this change, I will need support from (manager, peer, family, etc.):

__________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

–– What types of support will I need, and how can I request it?

__________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________

© American Management Association. All rights reserved. 18