0:01

Welcome back! In the last course, you learned that initiation is the first phase within the project life
cycle, followed by planning, executing, and closing. Makes sense, right? Regardless of your chosen
methodology, all projects have to start somewhere. Let's talk more about initiation and why it's
important for the success of a project.

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Because initiation is the first phase of the project, it's really important to get it right. A well-planned
initiation results in a strong foundation for your project, and sets it up for success.

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Initiation begins after a problem or opportunity has been identified within an organization.

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Often, stakeholders like senior leaders at a company will initiate a project to address a specific need for
the business. For example, perhaps the company would like to roll out a new product, improve employee
well being, or reduce costs in a certain department.

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It's your responsibility as the project manager to help identify the project goals, resources, and other
details based on initial discussions with the project stakeholders. Even though someone else might come
up with an idea for the project, it's still your job to figure out all the important pieces that need to come
together in order to get the work done.

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The initiation phase is a crucial time for asking stakeholders the right questions, performing research,
determining resources, and clearly documenting the key components of a project. Doing this will help
you solidify the scope, or the boundary, of the project. If this seems a bit overwhelming, don't worry.
We'll talk more about project scope later on in this course. If the project isn't initiated properly, things
can go wrong pretty fast. For example, without sufficient understanding of the project's goals, you might
underestimate what resources you need or how long the project might take. Or, without agreeing with
stakeholders on what success looks like, you might think the project was completed successfully, while
the stakeholders might think it didn't accomplish their goals. Getting on the same page and gaining
clarity during the initiation phase can save a lot of time and extra work for everyone throughout the
project. Proper initiation also helps ensure that the benefits of the project outcomes will outweigh the
costs of the project. To determine this, you'll do what's called a cost benefit analysis, which is the process
of adding up the expected value of a project (the benefits) and comparing them to the dollar costs. To do
this, you will work with stakeholders to consider a few questions. To determine the benefits of a project,
those questions might include: What value will this project create? How much money could this project
save our organization? How much money will it bring in from existing customers? How much time will be
saved? How will the user experience be improved? And to determine the costs of the project, those
questions might include: How much time will people have to spend on this project? What will be the
one-time costs? Are there any ongoing costs? What about long-term costs? The benefits of a project
should always outweigh the costs, so it's really important that you consider these questions early on.
Coming up, we'll talk more about the initiation phase and explore the key components of initiating a
project.

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Bye for now!

0:01

Hello and welcome back. You just learned about the initiation phase of the project life cycle and why it's
so important to get it right. Next, I'll teach you about the key components that make up initiation, and
how these pieces lead to the planning phase of a project. There are several key components of initiation
that you need to consider in order for your project to be successful: goals, scope, deliverables, success
criteria, stakeholders and resources. First you need to consider the goals of the project, the goal is what
you've been asked to do and what you're trying to achieve. All projects should have clear goals and often
those will be determined by senior company leaders, with your help. From there, you will begin to
consider the project scope. This is the process to define the work that needs to happen to complete the
project. You also need to think about project deliverables. They're the products and services that you will
create for your customer, client or project sponsor. Deliverables can be anything from product features
and functionalities to documentation, processes and more, anything that enables the goal of your
project to be achieved. Deliverables are submitted to help you reach your project goals. Also, it's
important to keep in mind that the deliverables can be tangible or intangible. An example of a tangible
deliverable might be submitting a chapter of a manuscript. If the goal is to publish a textbook. Or if your
project goal is to finish implementation of a new point of sale software at a retail store, scheduling staff
training sessions could be an intangible deliverable. Once the goals, scope and deliverables are
determined, you need to consider success criteria. Success criteria are the standards by which you
measure how successful a project was in reaching its goals. Another important consideration is your
stakeholders. Stakeholders are key to making informed decisions at every step of the project, including
the initiation phase. They're the people who both have an interest in and are affected by the completion
and success of a project. As a result, they're often instrumental in determining the goals, objectives,
deliverables and success criteria of the project, from coming up with the idea to outlining the
expectations of its results. As you move through the initiation phase, it's your job to ensure that you
understand the needs of the project stakeholders early on. It's also your role to ensure that all
stakeholders are in agreement on the goals and overall mission of the project before moving on to the
next phase. Now, let's talk about resources, resources generally refer to the budget, people, materials,
and other items that you will have at your disposal. It's super important to think carefully about these
pieces early on. No one wants to get started on a project, only to realize halfway through that they don't
have enough money or enough people to complete the work. That would be a mess. Finally, once you've
established your goals, scope, deliverables, success criteria, stakeholders, and resources, it's time to
create a project charter. A project charter is a document that contains all the details of the project.
Project charters clearly define the project and its goals and outline what is needed to accomplish them.
A project charter allows you to get organized, set up a framework for what needs to be done and
communicate those details to others. Once you've drafted the charter, you would then review the
document with key stakeholders to get their approval to move into the planning stage. Coming up, you
learn more about project charters and even get the chance to create one yourself. Hopefully you're
starting to see how the key components of initiation help lay the foundation of a solid project. To quickly
recap, you gather information about your goals, scope, deliverables, success criteria, stakeholders, and
resources, and you document that information in the project charter. During the rest of this course, we'll
talk more about each of the components outlined so far. You've come so far and learned so much, keep
up the great work.

Performing a cost-benefit analysis

Previously, you learned that a cost-benefit analysis is the process of adding up the expected value of a
project—the benefits—and comparing them to the dollar costs. In this reading, we will discuss the
benefits of conducting a cost-benefit analysis, guiding questions to help you and your stakeholders
conduct one, and how to calculate return on investment (ROI).

The benefits of a cost-benefit analysis

A cost-benefit analysis can minimize risks and maximize gains for projects and organizations. It can help
you communicate clearly with stakeholders and executives and keep your project on track. Because this
type of analysis uses objective data, it can help reduce biases and keep stakeholder self-interest from
influencing decisions.

Comparing a project’s benefits to its costs can help you make a strong business case to stakeholders and
leadership and ensure your organization pursues the most profitable or useful projects. Organizations
use cost-benefit analysis to reduce waste and invest their resources responsibly.

Guiding questions for a cost-benefit analysis

When you’re pursuing a project, the benefits should outweigh the costs. It’s important for you and your
stakeholders to consider questions like the ones that follow early on, while you prepare the proposal.

To determine the benefits of a project, you might ask:

What value will this project create?

How much money could this project save our organization?

How much money will it bring in from existing customers?

How much time will it save?

How will it improve the customer experience?

And to determine the costs of a project, consider questions such as:

How much time will people have to spend on this project?

What are the one-time costs?

Are there any ongoing costs?

What about long-term costs?

You might also consider questions about intangible benefits. These are gains that are not quantifiable,
such as:

Customer satisfaction. Will the project increase customer retention, causing them to spend more on the
company’s products or services?

Employee satisfaction. Is the project likely to improve employee morale, reducing turnover?

Employee productivity. Will the project reduce employee’s overtime hours, saving the company money?

Brand perception. Is the project likely to improve the company’s brand perception and recognition,
attracting more customers or providing a competitive advantage?

You can also flip these questions to consider intangible costs. These are costs that are not quantifiable.
For example, might the project put customer retention, employee satisfaction, or brand perception at
risk?
When assigning values to tangible or intangible costs and benefits, you can reference similar past
projects, conduct industry research, or consult with experts.

Calculating costs and benefits

The process of calculating costs and benefits is also called calculating return on investment, or ROI. There
are many ways to determine a project’s ROI, but the easiest way is to compare the upfront and ongoing
costs to its benefits over time.

One common ROI formula is:

In this formula, G represents the financial gains you expect from the project, and C represents the
upfront and ongoing costs of your investment in the project.

For example, imagine your project costs $6,000 up front plus $25 per month for 12 months. This equals
$300 per year, but you estimate that the project will bring in $10,000 in revenue over the course of that
year. Using the formula above, you calculate the ROI as: ($10,000 - $6,300) ÷ $6,300 = 0.58 = 58%

The ROI comes to 0.58, or 58%. You consider this to be a strong ROI, so you decide to pursue the project.

Key takeaway

Performing a cost-benefit analysis can help you and your stakeholders determine if it makes sense to
take on a new project by evaluating if its benefits outweigh its costs. When conducting cost-benefit
analyses for your prospective projects, you can use the guiding questions and ROI formula provided in
this reading as a reference.

To learn more about performing a cost-benefit analysis, check out these articles:

Cost Benefit Analysis for Projects – A Step-by-Step Guide

Cost Benefit or Benefit Cost Analysis

0:00

Welcome back. By now you should have a better sense of how the different parts of the initiation come
together to form the beginnings of a project. So far, you've outlined the key components of project
initiation and, most importantly, you've learned that a lack of preparation during this stage can lead to
problems later on. We're going to continue honing your project preparation skills. Once we're done here,
you'll be able to define and create project goals and deliverables, the guiding stars of your project. You'll
also be able to define project scope, the boundaries of your project, that state what is and is not part of
your project. You'll be able to identify what's in-scope and out-of-scope for a project and you'll be able to
recognize scope creep, something you'll need to keep a close eye on to help you reach your project goal.
Finally, you'll be able to explain different ways of defining and measuring your project's success criteria.
Before we get started, I'd like to talk through an example that we'll follow for the rest of this course.
Imagine that you're the lead project manager at Office Green, a commercial landscaping company that
specializes in plant decor for offices and other businesses. The Director of Product at Office Green has an
idea for a new service called Plant Pals to offer high-volume customers small, low-maintenance plants,
like little cacti and leafy ferns, for their desks. As the project manager, you've been tasked with managing
the roll out of this new service. As we go through this course, we'll return to your role as the project
manager at Office Green, to help teach you about project goals, deliverables, and success criteria. You'll
also see the role your team and stakeholders play in creating and following these three important
components. At the end, you'll compile everything you've learned into a shared document that you can
use as a portfolio to share with future employers. After this course, you'll move on to the next phases of
the project life cycle, and so will your Office Green project. Enjoy.

0:00

Welcome back. In this video, I'll define project goals and deliverables and explain why they're important.
Then I'll teach you how to determine whether a goal or deliverable has been well-defined, which means
it's got enough detail and information to guide you towards success. First things first, to set up a project
for success, and to make your job easier, you want to figure out what needs to be done before you
actually get started. You need to define exactly what your goals and deliverables are, so that you'll be
able to tell your team members what to do. You need a clear picture of what you're trying to accomplish,
how you're going to accomplish it, and how you know when it has been accomplished. Let's define
project goals so that you can start to figure out what your project team needs to reach it. The project
goal is the desired outcome of the project. It's what you've been asked to do and what you're trying to
achieve. For example, your goal could be to improve the response time to customer inquiries via email
by 20 percent. The goal of your Office Green project might be to increase revenue by five percent
through a new service called Plant Pals that offers desk plants to top customers by the end of the year.
Goals are important because they give you a roadmap to your destination. Without a clear goal in mind,
how can you know where to go or how to get there? Now, one of the biggest differences between what
makes a good goal and a not-so-good goal is how well it's defined. Meaning: how clear and specific is the
goal. If the goal is your destination, are you confident you'll know when you've arrived? The examples I
mentioned before, to improve the response time to customer inquiries via email by 20 percent, and to
increase the Office Green revenue by five percent are two well-defined goals because they tell you what
you're trying to achieve. But wait, there's more. These goals also tell you how to do what you've been
asked to do. In this case, it's via email and through a new service offering, and that's not all. These goals
clarify the goal even further by saying "to improve by 20 percent and increase by five percent." Now we
know where we're going. Well-defined goals are both specific and measurable. They give you a clear
sense of what you are trying to accomplish. Really great goals have even more detail, but I'll get to that
soon. When you start a project, take time to review your goals and make sure they're well-defined. To do
this, you might need to get more information from your stakeholders. Talk to them about their vision for
the project. Ask how this aligns to the company's larger goals and mission. By the end of that
conversation, you and your stakeholders should agree to support the project goals in order to avoid
running into issues later on. Here's an example from my own experience as a project manager. Our team
had finished a new product feature. Our stated goal was to deliver an early version of this feature and
collect user feedback. When we delivered the feature to one of our key customers for user feedback, the
customer didn't have anyone available to try it out. Our team debated whether or not we had met the
goal if we hadn't collected user feedback. Some felt that we hadn't achieved the stated goal while others
thought we did. The customer was satisfied with our team's ability to deliver a feature in the timeline
stated. But our internal team, wasted valuable time going back and forth about it. That said, make sure
that before you start your project, you, your stakeholders, and your team are all clear on the project
goals so that you know you're making the right kind of progress. I'll teach you a process for how to do
this coming up. Once you have the goals nailed down, it's time to examine the project deliverables.
Project deliverables are the products or services that are created for the customer, client, or project
sponsor. In other words, a deliverable is what gets produced or presented at the end of a task, event, or
process. Take the goal to improve customer response time. the deliverable for that goal could be the
creation of email templates for responding to typical questions. Your Office Green project goal to
increase revenues could have these two deliverables: launching the plant service and a finished website
that highlights the new kinds of plants being offered. These are considered deliverables because they
describe tangible outputs that show stakeholders how additional revenues will be generated. There are
all sorts of project deliverable examples. A pretty common one is a report. When a goal is reached, you
can visibly see the results documented in the chart, graph, or presentation. Deliverables help us quantify
and realize the impact of the project. Just like needing well-defined goals, you need well-defined
deliverables for pretty much the same reasons. Deliverables are usually decided upfront with the
stakeholders or clients involved in the project. They hold everyone accountable and are typically a big
part of achieving the goal. Make sure to ask questions about what the deliverable should be and have
everyone share their vision and expectations of the deliverables so that you're all on the same page.
Coming up, you'll practice the art of defining your goals even further following the SMART method. Enjoy

0:00

Welcome back, by now you know that goals are important to the success of your project, and you know
that they need to be well-defined in order to help keep your project on track. Since your deliverables
depend on your goals, it's in your best interest to get those goals as well- defined as possible. Lucky for
you, I've got an easy method for doing just that: setting SMART goals. I already mentioned that goals
should be specific and measurable. The SMART method to evaluate goals add three more considerations
for success. Be attainable, be relevant, and be time-bound. Put them all together, and what do you have?
SMART goals. As an entry-level project manager, you may or may not be setting the project's main goals,
but you will need to be able to identify and clarify them as needed, and that's where the SMART method
can be a valuable tool. Let's take a closer look at each term. As I've already mentioned, if your goal is not
specific, you'll have trouble figuring out how long it should take to complete and whether or not you've
accomplished it. For example, if the goal is simply to improve customer service response time, that's not
very specific. It does tell you what you want to achieve in general, but it doesn't say anything else. If you
improve response time by one percent, is that enough? If after five years response time finally goes up,
is that enough? How about if only half of your staff improves their response times, but the other half
stays the same. Specific goals should answer at least two of the questions I'm about to ask. What do I
want to accomplish? Why is this a goal? Does it have a specific reason, purpose, or benefit? Who is
involved? Who is the recipient? Employees, customers, the community at large? Where should the goal
be delivered? Finally, to what degree? In other words, what are the requirements and constraints? Next,
we want to set goals that are measurable, meaning we can determine that they were objectively met.
Measuring is not only a way for people to track progress, but also a tool to help people stay motivated.
You can tell the goal is measurable by asking how much, how many, and how will I know when it's
accomplished? Sometimes the success of a goal can be measured with a simple yes or no. Did you learn
to play the guitar, yes or no? You will need to measure most of the goals you have with metrics. Metrics,
what you use to measure something like numbers or figures. For example, if your goal was to run a five
kilometer race, then distance in kilometers is your metric. At Office Green, the project goal is to increase
revenue by five percent. In this case, revenue is the metric. Lastly, consider benchmarks or points of
reference to make sure you're choosing accurate metrics. For instance, if your overall goal is to increase
revenue, you can look at last year's data as a benchmark for deciding how much to increase revenue this
year. If last year's revenue increased by three percent, then an increase by five percent in a booming
economy would be a reasonable goal for this year. Ok, so the goal is specific and measurable, but is it
attainable? Can it reasonably be reached based on the metrics? Typically, you want goals that are a little
challenging to encourage growth, otherwise, what's the point of the goal if nothing's going to change?
However, you don't want it to be too extreme or you'll never reach it. You'll have failed before you even
started. Aim to find a balance between the two extremes. For example, let's take the goal to run a 5K.
Say you regularly run 2.5 kilometers, three times a week. An attainable goal will be to go from running
2.5 kilometers to running five kilometers within four weeks. An unattainable goal might be earning first-
place in the 5K. I mean, it could happen, but it's not likely, especially if you've never run a race before.
But how can you know if a goal is attainable, if it's unfamiliar? A clue to helping you figure out if your
goal is attainable, is to ask: how can it be accomplished? Break down the goal into smaller parts and see
if it makes sense. Going from 2.5 kilometers to five kilometers over four weeks means increasing your
distance by a little over half a kilometer each week. That's not so bad, use the same process on your
Office Green project goal. Businesses usually conduct quarterly reviews. So let's assume that increase is
expected to occur over the course of a year or four quarters. In order to meet the goal, you need to see
an increase of at least 1.25 percent each quarter, seems pretty reasonable to me. What wouldn't be
reasonable is setting a goal of increasing revenues by 50 percent or 100 percent, unless your research
showed that business was improving that quickly. Your goal is specific, measurable, and attainable. Now
let's see if it's relevant. In other words, does it make sense to try and reach this goal? Think about how
the goal lines up with other goals, priorities and values. Ask whether the goal seems worthwhile. Does
the effort involved balance out the benefits? Does it match your organizations' other needs and
priorities? Everyone, from the client, the project team, and the people who will ultimately use the
product, need to feel like the goal is worth supporting. Also, consider the timing. Both the amount of
time the project will take, as well as the larger economic and social contexts can have big impacts. There
might be a budget to complete the project now, but will the company be able to sustain the project over
time? Is there an audience that will continue to use the product or service once it's delivered? Once
you've got the answers to these questions, you should have a clear goal to help steer the project. If you
still don't feel confident about the project's goals, keep digging. It's okay to ask questions if you have
doubts. Communicate your concerns with the project senior stakeholders and your direct supervisor if
you have one. They should be able to address some of your concerns so that you can feel confident
about moving forward. If you're feeling good about the project being relevant and attainable, and you've
made sure it's measurable, and has the specifics to keep you and your team focused the final item on the
checklist is to make sure it's time-bound. Time-bound means your goal has a deadline. Deadlines give
you a way to track your progress, otherwise, you may never reach your goal or never even get started.
Time and metrics often go hand in hand, because time can also be used as a metric. Making your goal
time-bound gives you a way to break down how much needs to be accomplished over time. For example,
if you need to increase revenues by the end of the year, you can break down how much you need to
increase each quarter, month, and week, and there you have it. Specific, measurable, attainable,
relevant, and time-bound: a nearly foolproof method to create and evaluate project goals. You know
what they say, work smarter, not harder. As we continue in this module, you'll learn about project scope
and see how having clear goals supports all other decisions that come up during a project.

SMART goals: Making goals meaningful

In this lesson you are learning to define and create measurable project goals and deliverables. Now, let's
focus on SMART goals.

Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART) goals are very helpful for
ensuring project success. As you start your career in project management, you may not directly set the
project goals, but you should be able to clarify and understand them. SMART goals help you see the full
scope of a goal, determine its feasibility, and clearly define project success in concrete terms. 

Let’s recap what we discussed in the previous video by taking a look at a breakdown of the criteria for
SMART goals below: 
  Specific: The objective has no ambiguity for the project team to misinterpret. 

 Measurable: Metrics help the project team determine when the objective is met.

 Attainable: The project team agrees the objective is realistic.

 Relevant: The goal fits the organization’s strategic plan and supports the project charter.

 Time-bound: The project team documents a date to achieve the goal.

You may see variations on what each letter in the “SMART” acronym stands for. (For example, you may
see “actionable” or “achievable” instead of “attainable” or “realistic” instead of “relevant.”) However, the
general intent of each of these terms—to make sure the goal is within reach—is always similar.

Focusing on the "M" in SMART

Let’s take a moment to zoom in on the M in SMART, which stands for measurable. Having measurable
goals allows you to assess the success of your project based on quantifiable or tangible metrics, such as
dollar amounts, number of outputs, quantities, etc. Measurable goals are important because they leave
little room for confusion around expectations from stakeholders. 

Not every metric will have value, so you will have to determine which metrics make sense for the
project. For example, measuring how many meetings the software engineers on your project attend on a
weekly basis may not be the most valuable metric for a productivity goal. Alternatively, you might
measure other aspects of the engineers’ productivity, such as a particular number of features created
per engineer or a specific number of issues flagged per day.
Defining a SMART goal

Let’s explore an example related to making a personal goal measurable. Imagine you are looking to make
a career change, and you set a goal to complete a Google Career Certificate. You can measure the
success of this goal because after completing the entire program, you will receive a certificate—a
tangible outcome.

Now, let’s determine how to make the remaining elements of this goal SMART. In this example, your
specific goal is to attain a Google Career Certificate. You can make this goal attainable by deciding that
you will complete one course per month. This goal is relevant because it supports your desire to make a
career change. Finally, you can make this goal time-bound by deciding that you will complete the
program within six months.

After defining each of these components, your SMART goal then becomes: Obtain a Google Career
Certificate by taking one course per month within the next six months.

Key takeaway

Determining metrics can be extremely helpful in capturing statuses, successes, delays, and more in a
project. As a project manager, identifying meaningful metrics can help move the project toward its goal.
Additionally, by defining each element of a project goal to make it SMART, you can determine what
success means for that goal and how to achieve it. 

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0:00

Hello again. Throughout the program, you have the chance to practice project management skills in a
few different ways. In addition to multiple choice and short answer quizzes, you complete hands on
activities to apply what you've learned. You'll solve common project problems in real world situations
and create the kinds of artifacts project managers use every day. Completing these hands on activities is
really important to your success in this program. They'll give you practical experience that can help you
describe your skills in interviews or use them to manage projects more effectively in your personal or
professional life. To help you prepare, I'll introduce you to two different types of hands on activities that
we prepared for you. I'll also share some tips and tricks that will let you get the most out of them. And
one type of activity, you review a project management scenario and follow step by step instructions to
move the project forward. Your job could be to learn about stakeholders, assigned task owners or
organized documents, so they're easy to find. You can recognize these exercises as quizzes with activity
in the title. When you finish an activity, we'll take you through an exemplar of the completed assignment
that you can compare to your own work. Be sure to review these exemplars carefully, so you know what
you did well and how you can improve next time. Keep in mind that some activities can have more than
one right answer, just like real problems can have more than one solution. The exemplars for these
activities explain one way of doing things, but they also point out where you could do things differently.
This helps you check your approach to an assignment, not just your answers. Certain activities also
include quiz questions that help you check your work. These quizzes can be graded or ungraded and give
you another way to measure your progress and expand your knowledge. Another type of hands on
activity is the peer review or peer graded assignment. These activities follow a similar format to the first,
you will review of project management scenario and complete a set of step by step instructions. But
there's one major difference, your classmates will grade your assignment and you'll grade theirs. For
each peer review, you need to grade at least two submissions, but you can grade more if you want. This
peer grading process is a key part of the learning experience for this program. That's because it gives you
objective feedback on your work and let you know how others are approaching the same challenges.
Peer grading gives you the chance to learn not just from us, the instructors but from each other as well.
To grade each other's work, you will use what's known as a rubric, a rubric as a checklist of items your
assignment must include, with each item worth a certain number of points. You typically need to score
at least 80% correct to pass a peer graded assignment. So for example if a rubric has 10 points, you need
a minimum of 8 points to pass. In addition to using these rubrics to grade your peers, you can review
them before you submit your own assignments, so you understand how you'll be graded. Peer grading is
also important because it lets you give and receive qualitative feedback. For example, if a peer does well,
you could tell them they did a great job refining a goal or that you like their creative solution to a
problem. Positive feedback helps you and your peers learn about your strength and motivates you to do
your best work. On the other hand, it's just as important if not more so to learn from your mistakes. If a
peer get something wrong, be sure to leave thoughtful, constructive feedback, so they understand why
they didn't get full credit. That way, they'll know what to review and how to improve, so they can
become better project managers. And don't worry, we'll give you some tips on how to leave constructive
feedback for each activity. Peer review is a valuable tool, but unlike other assessments in the program, it
may take some time to receive your grades. Remember that real people aren't as fast as computers, so
we can take up to 10 days for grades to appear. Additionally, it can take some time before there are
assignments available for you to grade. Be patient, your peers may be working through the course at a
different pace and remember you can always move on to other items in the course and come back if you
need to. If for any reason you aren't able to access a peer submission or if a submission is incomplete,
you can skip it and go to a different one. To learn how to do this, continue onto the optional reading. This
reading will also tell you more about the peer review process and link you to helpful resources on topics
like where to find your feedback and how to change your sharing settings and google docs. So be sure to
check it out. Great. Now that you know more about some of the hands on activities to find throughout
the program, you're ready to get started.

0:00

Hi there. So far you've been learning to define and create measurable project goals and deliverables. As
you broaden your understanding of project management and the different tools available to help you
succeed, I want to teach you about a popular tool used in many organizations and here at Google:
objectives and Key results, or OKRs. In this video, I'll discuss what OKRs are, how they are used by
organizations, and how they help focus a team's time and effort on activities that drive success. You've
just learned about, and practiced, the SMART method for defining project goals. Like the SMART
method, OKRs help establish and clarify goals or objectives for an organization, department, project or
person. OKRs take SMART goals a step further by combining a goal and more detailed metrics to
determine a measurable outcome. They not only state clearly what the goal is, they provide specific
details that allow you to measure the success of the goal. One way to think about OKRs is that they
separate the different components of SMART goals and clarify them even further, rather than grouping
everything into one statement. Let's break this down. The O stands for objective, and defines what needs
to be achieved. It describes the desired result or outcome, such as an increase in customer retention, or
an improvement on the employee onboarding process. KR stands for key results. These are the
measurable outcomes that define when the objective has been met. For example, if your objective is to
improve customer retention, then the key result might be to have 90 percent customer satisfaction
rating by the end of the first quarter. Recall that one of the SMART criteria is attainability, which means
it's practical to achieve the goal. Key results, however, should be a little more ambitious. Here at Google,
we actually use OKRs to set stretch goals as a way to challenge ourselves to do something we haven't
accomplished before. If we actually accomplish all of our key results, we may have made our OKRs a bit
too easy. Let's review quickly. Objectives define what needs to be achieved and describe a desired
outcome. Key results define how you'll know whether or not you've met your objective. How do OKRs
work in practice? How do you use them to manage a project? Organizations often set OKRs at different
levels, such as the company level, department or team level, and project level. Company-level OKRs are
commonly shared across an organization so that everyone is clear on the company's goals. They are
usually updated on an annual basis to help drive the organization in the direction it wants to go. These
high-level OKRs support the mission of the organization. Project-level OKRs should support and be
aligned with company-level OKRs. An example of a company-level objective at Office Green increase
customer retention by adapting to the changing workplace environment. This is a big, aspirational goal
that applies to the entire company and all of its endeavors. In order to focus their efforts to reach this
objective, Office Green might develop key results that include 95 percent of phone, chat, and email
customer support tickets are resolved during the first contact. Top three most requested new offerings
for distributed office environments are in pilot by the end of the second quarter, and sales and support
channels are available 24/7 by the end of the year. Some of these company-level key results could
become the basis for projects. For example, the key result, "top three most requested new offerings for
distributed office environments that are in pilot by the end of the second quarter," could become the
Plant Pals project. Team or department-level OKRs, support the company's broader OKRs and help drive
team performance. Departments may develop OKRs that are more specific to their job function as well.
For example, the company-level key result "sales and support channels are available 24/7 by the end of
the year," could lead to a related sales department objective like: increase the sales team presence
nationwide. And the key result: new sales offices are open in 10 cities by the end of the year. Project-
level OKRs are set during the initiation phase to help define measurable project goals. They're tracked
throughout the planning and execution stages to measure project success. Project-level OKRs need to
align with and support both company and department-level OKRs. For example, in order to align with
Office Green's company-wide objective to increase customer retention by adapting to the changing
workplace environment, a project objective for Plant Pals might be to enroll existing customers in the
Plant Pals service. A key result for this objective might be 25 percent of existing customers sign up for the
Plant Pals pilot. Let's recap. OKR stands for objectives and key results. They combine a goal and a metric
to determine a measurable outcome. Objectives define what needs to be achieved and describe a
desired outcome. Key results define how you will measure the outcome of your objective. Company-level
OKRs are shared across an organization so that everyone can align and focus their efforts to help the
company reach its goals. Project-level OKRs help define measurable project goals. They need to align
with and support both company and departmental-level OKRs. Great. Now that you have a better idea of
what OKRs are and how they function, you can practice creating OKRs on your own.

0:00

Welcome back. Project scope is a really important concept that I want to tell you about. You'll hear it
come up time and time again throughout each phase of the project life cycle. In fact, you may even find
yourself defending it, so let's get acquainted with scope. In this video, you will learn how to define and
determine scope. Simply put, your project scope includes the boundaries of a project. The way we define
it at Google is "an agreed upon understanding as to what is included or excluded from a project." Scope
helps ensure that your project is clearly defined and mapped out. That means knowing exactly who the
project will be delivered to and who will be using the end result of the project. You also need a firm
understanding of the project's complexity. Is it straightforward with an easily manageable list of tasks?
Or will it require extensive research, multiple rounds of approvals, and a large-scale production process
that will take years to complete? Scope also includes the project timeline, budget, and resources. You
need to clearly define these so that you can make sure you're working within those boundaries and
what's actually possible for the project to work. Poorly-defined scope or major changes to your scope
can cause changes to the budget, timeline, or even final outcome of the project. Let's look at the scope
of your Office Green project as an example. As a reminder, the new Plant Pals service offers customers
small, low-maintenance, plants like cacti and leafy ferns that they can place on their desks. Customers
can order them online or from a print catalog, and Office Green will ship the plants straight to the
customer's work address. Things to consider for your scope, then, might be whether or not to provide
replacement plants; which customer segments will be offered the service; whether or not the online
catalog is an app, a website, or both; and how to ensure customers can purchase from the online
catalog, whether by phone, PC, Mac, iPhone, or Android. You might also consider the dimensions of the
paper catalog and whether it needs to be in color or black and white and on what kind of paper. Now,
how do you actually figure out the scope of your project? It's simple: talk to your sponsors and
stakeholders, understand what their goals are, and find out what is, and this is really important, what is
not included in the project. We've covered a number of different ways to help you determine scope.
Here are a few more helpful questions to add to the list. Where did the project come from? Why is it
needed? What is the project expected to achieve? What does the project sponsor have in mind? Who
approves the final results? Now you'll really be set. As for timing, defining project scope should happen
during the initial planning stage. You want to start figuring out the scope early on so that everyone can
agree to the same set of expectations. It will help mitigate the risks of big changes down the line.
Although you can always adjust the scope as planning continues, if you need to. Once you understand
your project scope, you want to document all the details so that anyone can refer back to it throughout
the life cycle of the project. We'll talk about some best practices for that at the end of this module. Let's
recap: a clearly defined scope describes all the details of a project and regulates what can be added or
removed as it progresses. While it's ultimately the project manager's responsibility to monitor the
project and make sure all the work and resources fall within its scope, team members and stakeholders
can be encouraged to do their part by focusing on the task that are the most important to reaching the
project's goal. The next video talks about the concepts of "in-scope" and "out-of-scope" and the
phenomenon called "scope creep." All three will help with ensuring your project stays on track and
within budget. Stay tuned.
Gathering information to define scope

In this lesson, you are learning to define project scope status and differentiate in-scope, out-of-scope,
and scope creep factors that affect reaching the project goal. Let’s focus here on how to identify vital
elements of a project’s scope and examine the right questions to ask in order to define it.

Asking scope-defining questions

Imagine that while working in a restaurant management group, your manager calls and asks you to
“update the dining space,” then quickly hangs up the phone without providing further instruction. In this
initial handoff from the manager, you are missing a lot of information. How do you even know what to
ask?

Let’s quickly recap the concept of scope. The scope provides the boundaries for your project. You define
the scope to help identify necessary resources, resource costs, and a schedule for the project.

In the situation we just described, here are some questions you might ask your manager in order to get
the information you need to define the scope of the project:

Stakeholders

How did you arrive at the decision to update the dining space?

Did the request originate from the restaurant owner, customers, or other stakeholders?

Who will approve the scope for the project?

Goals

What is the reason for updating the dining space?

What isn't working in the current dining space?

What is the end goal of this project?

Deliverables

Which dining space is being updated?

What exactly needs to be updated?

Does the dining space need a remodel?

Resources

What materials, equipment, and people will be needed?

Will we need to hire contractors?

Will we need to attain a floor plan and building permits?

Budget

What is the budget for this project? Is it fixed or flexible?

Schedule

How much time do we have to complete the project?

When does the project need to be completed?

Flexibility

How much flexibility is there?

What is the highest priority: hitting the deadline, sticking to the budget, or making sure the result meets
all the quality targets?
Key takeaway

Taking the time to ask questions and ensure that you understand the scope of the project will help
reduce expenses, rework, frustration, and confusion. Make sure you understand the who, what, when,
where, why, and how as it applies to the scope. If you are missing any of that information, focus your
questions on those elements. The initiation phase of the project sets the foundation for the project, so
ensuring that you understand the scope and expectations during this stage is essential.

0:00

Hi there. As you now know, an important part of project management is keeping an eye on your project
scope and knowing which tasks are truly part of the plan and which aren't. Tasks that are included in the
project and contribute to the project's overall goal are considered to be in-scope. Tasks that aren't
included are called out-of-scope. It's your job as a project manager to set and maintain firm boundaries
for your project so that your team can stay on track. For example, if the copywriters or designers of the
Plant Pals catalog, came up with the idea to expand the type of plants being offered to top customers,
you would have to point out that their suggestion is out-of-scope and would take extra time and add to
your budget costs. As you progress through the project life cycle, you're going to encounter unexpected
challenges or have new details or ideas brought to your attention that could impact your project's
success. Changes, growth, and uncontrolled factors that affect a project scope at any point after the
project begins are referred to as "scope creep." Scope creep is a common problem, and it's not always
easy to control. It's one that we struggle with on every single project. It can happen on any project, in
any industry. Imagine you're working in a tech company and your project involves working with
designers and engineers to update the language icons' design on a mobile keyboard app for a
smartphone. While the team is making the update, they realize that the search icon and the voice input
icon also need a design refresh. These are very small features, and while technically not in-scope, the
team feels it would take minimal effort and provide lots of value. So they go ahead and make the
updates. During a stakeholder review, it's pointed out that there is a keyboard in English, but no
keyboards for other languages, and the suggestion is made to design additional keyboards. At this point,
the project's scope is in danger of expanding from a fairly simple icon update to a complex rollout of
multiple keyboard layouts. Adding the keyboards would impact the team's timelines, causing the project
to take longer to finish. It would also impact resourcing, because you would need to hire more people or
existing team members would have to work overtime. And it would increase the budget, since the team
did not anticipate costs for extra working hours or keyboard translations. This is just one example of
scope creep. Sometimes it's subtle ("Just design one or two more icons!") or more obvious ("Hey, can
you tack on designing keyboards for other languages?") By identifying scope creep and being proactive,
you protect your project and your project team. To help you combat scope creep, it's good to know that
there are two major sources from which it comes: external and internal. External sources of scope creep
are easier to recognize. For example, if you're working on a project with one main customer, the
customer might request changes, or the business environment around you might shift, or the underlying
technology you're using might change. While you can't control everything that happens, there are some
useful tips to keep in mind. First, make sure the stakeholders have visibility into the project. You want
them to know the details of what's going to be produced, what resources are required, how much it will
cost, and how much time it'll take. Also, get clarity on the requirements and ask for constructive criticism
of the initial product proposal. It's important to get this information before any contracts are signed. Be
sure to set ground rules and expectations for stakeholder involvement once the project gets started.
Come to an agreement on each of your roles and responsibilities during execution and status reviews.
Once you're clear on the project scope, come up with a plan for how to deal with out-of-scope requests.
Agree on who can make formal change requests and how those requests will be evaluated, accepted,
and performed. And finally, be sure to get these agreements in writing. This way, you'll always have
documentation to point if you, a stakeholder, or the customer have a disagreement down the line. One
of the leading causes of external scope creep is not being clear on the requirements before defining the
scope and getting formal approval to move forward with the project. This is where those specific and
measurable goals and deliverables come into play. If the requirements aren't specific and if you haven't
agreed on the project's processes, deliverables, and milestones, then you're almost guaranteed to be
dealing with scope creep once the project begins. Internal sources of scope creep are trickier to spot and
harder to control. This kind of creep comes from members of the project team who suggest or even
insist on process or product changes or improvements. It's possible that a product developer will justify a
decision on the grounds of making the product better, even though it's going to cost more, or a team
lead might decide that a certain process is more efficient without realizing the impact the change in
process will have on other team members tasked with different parts of the project. What you need to
make clear to your team is that any change outside of the project scope comes off the bottom line,
threatens the schedule, and increases risk. There are no small impacts to project scope. Any time a team
member takes on an unplanned task, more is lost than just the time spent working on that task. It's your
responsibility as the project manager to maintain the limits of the project. The best defense is to know
the details of your project in and out so you're always prepared with the most appropriate response to a
new idea or request. Let's recap. Monitor your project's scope and protect it at all costs. Even the most
minor change can mean major risk to your project's success. Coming up, I'll tell you about the triple
constraint model and how you can use it to help determine how your project changes affect scope. Stay
tuned.

0:01

Hi, and welcome back. In this video, we're going to talk about managing project scope. Managing scope
goes hand in hand with goal-setting. For example, redefining the scope can change the goal, and a
revision of the goal can change the scope. The concept of project scope is important throughout the
project. While your project will have its own specific goals, the overall goal for you as the project
manager is to deliver the project according to the scope agreements. This includes delivering the project
within the given deadline and the approved budget. You'll quickly find that this is easier said than done.
As you progress through your project, you will continually need to make compromises and weigh trade-
offs as new challenges and changes and factors present themselves. Any time a team member takes on
an unplanned task, more is lost than just the time spent working on that task. In order to decide if a
scope change is acceptable and what impact it will have, project managers usually refer to the triple
constraint model. The triple constraint model is the combination of the three most significant
restrictions of any project: scope, time, and cost. We've talked a bit about what scope is, so let's focus
now on time and cost. Time refers to the project schedule and deadlines. Cost includes the budget, and
it also covers resources and the people who will work on the project. Both time and budget have to be
carefully managed alongside scope. All three of these are linked; you can't change one without having an
impact on the others. For example, a decrease in cost means a change in time or scope. An increase in
time means a change in scope or cost, or both. Understanding how changing one impacts the other two
constraints is key. It's important to consider what trade-offs you're willing to make as the project
progresses. To do this successfully, you need a clear understanding of the project priorities. You have to
know what is most important when it comes to scope, time, and cost. If there's a specific deadline that
must be met, then you need to limit any changes to the scope that might cause the project to go past
the deadline.

Play video starting at :2:29 and follow transcript2:29

If the product must look or function in a certain way, then the requirements are a priority, and you could
justify changes in cost or time in order to meet the scope requirements. But just because you can make a
change, that doesn't mean you necessarily should make a change. And even though the limits of scope,
time, and costs have been set, you can still make changes if there's a good reason to do so. Don't worry,
you won't have to decide on these changes all by yourself. If there are scope decisions that need to be
made, the project manager will likely need to consult with the project sponsor and stakeholders to get
their approvals. Let's go through a few scenarios, so you can get familiar with weighing the value of a
trade-off and understanding the impacts of any changes.

Play video starting at :3:21 and follow transcript3:21

In the first scenario, a request has been made to improve the Plant Pals product features. The Director of
Product at Office Green wants to use pots that indicate when the plants need to be watered. Making
changes to the product is a scope change. You know that you can't change the budget, but you can
extend the timeline. So you can accept the scope change requests and extend the timeline, as long as
the budget doesn't increase. Here's another possible scenario. A request has been made to reduce the
budget without making any changes to the scope. The final outcome of Plant Pals still needs to look and
function as you all originally agreed. If you're going to reduce the budget and keep the scope, you may
need to extend the timeline. Okay, here's another scenario. There's a request to tighten up the timeline
and finish early, but you can't increase the budget. In order to do this, you need to make changes to the
scope, like limiting shipping options. Doing this will give your project more time, because you'll have one
less shipping contract to negotiate. The end result won't be exactly what was originally agreed on, but it
means getting it out earlier as requested and within budget. Let's try one more. In this last scenario, the
Director of Product informs you that the project deadline must be met— it's the most important thing. In
this case, your stakeholders are willing to increase the budget and make any necessary changes to the
scope requirements in order to meet the deadline. In the end, it's all about prioritizing which element of
the triangle matters the most in the project.

Play video starting at :5:10 and follow transcript5:10

Are you getting the hang of trade-offs? Keeping in mind scope, time, and cost as you manage your
project will help you navigate different conditions while still achieving your goals. Remember, change is
inevitable when managing projects, and understanding this framework can set you up to plan and
communicate accordingly so your project will succeed.

Play video starting at :5:36 and follow transcript5:36

When you understand the triple constraint model, you'll have the tools to evaluate scope changes.
Understanding how changes will be evaluated, accepted, and performed is key to scope management.
Don't worry if you still have questions. We'll be sure to talk more about this concept in Course 4. Up
next, we'll talk more about successfully launching and landing your project. See you soon!
0:01

Welcome back. At this point, you've learned a bit about setting SMART goals, along with defining and
managing the scope. It may be tempting to think that you're ready to kick off this project with these two
important pieces, but there is one common element that ensures you'll achieve these goals within
scope. And that key element is knowing when your project is delivered and you can call it a success.
Many people think the time to decide if a project is successful is when you've produced the final
outcome and presented it to the client. That's getting close. Delivering the final result of your project to
the client or user is what's called a project launch.

Play video starting at ::42 and follow transcript0:42

You finish building or creating a project, the tasks are completed, and the deliverables are done. You've
hit your goal. The project is successful and considered complete in that sense, but does it work well? Did
it achieve your desired outcome? The real deciding factor of project success is when you put the final
outcome to the test. Landing is when you actually measure the success of your project using the success
criteria established at the outset of the project.

Play video starting at :1:13 and follow transcript1:13

This is a crucial part of goal setting that is often overlooked in the initiation phase. For example, think
about taking a trip on an airplane. It's not enough for the pilot to be able to get the plane off the ground.
To arrive safely at your destination, they've got to know how to land.

Play video starting at :1:34 and follow transcript1:34

Your success has to continue beyond the point of delivering the final project. You need to be able to
measure whether the project functions as intended once it's put into practice.

Play video starting at :1:47 and follow transcript1:47

Let's take the example of your project Plant Pals. You've managed to launch the new service with
success, the website has launched, the catalogs have been printed and delivered, orders have been
received, and revenue is starting to go up. It would be easy to call this a win and move on. But what
happens if the customers are unhappy once the plants are delivered? What if the plants start to wilt and
discolor after a couple of weeks? Just because launching the project and getting it out the door looks like
success on paper, that doesn't mean the project has managed to land. For most projects, a launch itself
isn't a meaningful measure of success. It's what comes after the launch that really counts. Launches are
only a means to an end, and looking beyond the launch is important to ensure the launch achieves your
overall goals.

Play video starting at :2:43 and follow transcript2:43

If you start off looking beyond the launch to the landing, you're more likely to get where you're trying to
go. Since landing is a concept and not a finite definition, it's important to define what a successful
landing looks like for a particular project. Luckily, we have a way to measure and help you ensure the
success of your project. It's called success criteria, and if you can manage to follow it through the life
cycle of your project, you'll ultimately have a smooth landing.

Play video starting at :3:16 and follow transcript3:16

The success criteria includes all the specific details of your goals and deliverables, and it can be a guide
so you know whether you've accomplished what you set out to do.

Play video starting at :3:27 and follow transcript3:27

Success criteria will set standards for how your project will be judged.

Play video starting at :3:33 and follow transcript3:33

In the next video, I'll outline what you need to know about defining success criteria and communicating
project success.

0:00

Hello again. We've learned about the differences between launching and landing, and we've also learned
about the differences between delivering your project and finding out if the outcome performs as
expected. But how exactly do you know that your project is a success? How do you know if you've
actually landed? At the beginning of the project, you defined goals and deliverables that are measurable
—meaning that you can determine if they were met. Similarly, you need to define success criteria that
can also be measured so you'll know whether they were met. The success criteria will tell you whether
or not the project as a whole was successful. They are the specific details of your goals and deliverables
that tell you whether you've accomplished what you set out to do. They are the standards by which the
project will be judged once it's been delivered to stakeholders and customers. Defining success criteria
also clarifies for your team what they're trying to accomplish beyond just launching something to users.
Is it to increase customer satisfaction with the service so they can continue to purchase more products?
Enhance an existing feature to retain customers? Depending on the project, the answers will be
different. But, it's important that a team is aligned and working towards a shared goal. Sometimes
forcing the conversation and clarifying what the end result looks like can bring to light questions and
areas of disagreement.

Play video starting at :1:32 and follow transcript1:32

There isn't a set process for determining success criteria, but I'll break down a couple of key points to
consider.

Play video starting at :1:40 and follow transcript1:40

Remember the measurable part of your SMART goals? One of the questions to ask when making your
goals measurable is: How will I know when it is accomplished? The same question applies to your
project: How will you know when it's done? Only in this case, you want to ask: How will I know when it's
successfully accomplished? You can measure to determine your project success in a similar way to
measuring a goal. So go through your project goals and deliverables, review the scope, and identify the
measurable aspects of your project. These are going to be any of the metrics used in the goals and
deliverables, along with your budget and schedule details. Another thing you'll need to do is get clarity
from stakeholders on the project requirements and expectations. This is key! There are lots of people
involved with any project, and that means lots of ideas about what success looks like to each person.
You'll want to ask questions, such as: Who ultimately says whether or not the project is successful? What
criteria will be measured to determine success? What's the success of this project based on? Once
you've collected clarifying information, document and share all of it so that you, your team, and your
stakeholders can refer to it later. Let's try creating success criteria with the Office Green project. For
example, the goal is to increase revenue by 5% by the end of the year. One of the deliverables is a
website with a gallery of the different plant selections that are offered. It's not enough just to make a list
of criteria; you need a process for measuring success from start to finish throughout the entire project
life cycle. This way, you can make adjustments and ensure success by the time you're ready to land.
There are many metrics you can use, and for some products, it will make sense to use more than one.
The metrics you choose should be as closely aligned to your project's goal as possible. For example,
"happiness metrics" measure user attitudes and satisfaction, or perceived ease of use, and you can
measure these through surveys. For the Plant Pals project, we may consider a customer satisfaction rate
of 85% within the first three months of launching as a way to measure success. You can also consider
customer adoption and engagement metrics, along with more business-oriented metrics that track
things like sales and growth. Adoption refers to how the customer uses and adopts a product or service
without any issues. Engagement refers to how often or meaningful customer interaction and
participation is over time.

Play video starting at :4:37 and follow transcript4:37

Adoption metrics might include launching a new product to a group of users and having a high amount
of them use or adopt it. Engagement metrics might include increasing the daily usage of a design feature
or increasing orders and customer interactions. Using the Office Green example, tracking how many
customers initially sign up for and use to Plant Pals service is an adoption metric. Tracking how many
customers renew their Plant Pals service, post about it, or share feedback are engagement metrics.

Play video starting at :5:15 and follow transcript5:15

Once you've defined the metrics that you'll be measuring, think about how you track these metrics.
Evaluate which tools can help you collect the data you need to ensure you're staying on track. For
example, if you're measuring business metrics like revenue, consider tracking that in a spreadsheet or
dashboard, where you can easily spot gaps and trends. If you're measuring customer satisfaction, you
can think of a way to incentivize customers to participate in regular email surveys and create a system to
measure their responses when they participate. You can also utilize your project management tools to
check on efficiency metrics, like what percent of tasks are completed or whether the project is
progressing alongside the planned timelines.

Play video starting at :6:5 and follow transcript6:05

It's smart to measure success with your team as a project or product is in progress. For example, you can
hold a project review once a month, have team members complete task checklists by certain deadlines,
or hold live feedback sessions with your users or customers.

Play video starting at :6:25 and follow transcript6:25

There are many different ways to measure success. The key is to pick the methods that work best for
your success criteria. It's a good idea that, along with each success criteria on your list, to also include
the methods for how success will be measured, how often it's measured, and who's responsible for
measuring it. Share your success criteria document with your stakeholders and ask if they agree with
how the project's success will be determined. It's also a good idea to have the appropriate stakeholders
sign off on the success criteria. This way, everyone will be clear on who is responsible for which tasks,
and you'll all thoroughly understand what the path to success entails. Keep this documentation visible
throughout the duration of the project and clearly communicate it with your team every step of the way.
They're the ones who will be attempting to meet all the different requirements, so don't keep them in
the dark about what they're supposed to do or how they're supposed to do it. If done correctly, defining
your success criteria should create greater alignment within the team and give everybody better visibility
into how to achieve success. Clarity around success metrics also helps teams prioritize which efforts are
most impactful to their users.

Play video starting at :7:51 and follow transcript7:51

Defining project success is a complex but crucial part of project management. With more and more
practice, this process will come more naturally to you in the planning stages and throughout your
project. We'll continue exploring and talking more about these concepts throughout the course. Nice
job! You're almost done with Module 2. I'll see you in a bit to review what we've covered.

Review: The building blocks of a project dream team

In the previous video, we explored some considerations for choosing your project team and assigning
their roles and responsibilities. Let’s recap what you learned and expand upon what to think about when
building your project team.

Image of building blocks (bricks) with a shovel

Too big, too small, or just right?

Once you lay the foundation for your project by outlining your goals and expectations, it is time to build
your dream team! Though before we can build our dream team, we need to figure out how many people
we need. This number will largely depend on the size of the project itself. Complex projects with large
divisions of work will usually require larger project teams. Simple projects with straightforward
expectations may only require a few people on the project team. As a project manager, it is your job to
help find the right balance based on what is needed.

The right skills and abilities to fill the role

Multiple roles exist in every project. On smaller teams, multiple roles may be filled by one person. To
meet the needs of more specialized projects, project managers might require people who have the
necessary technical skills. Technical skills are the skills specific to the task that needs to be performed.
For example, on the Office Green project, necessary technical skills may include indoor landscaping
design for the layout of the plants within the offices and floral design of plant arranging.

Technical skills are highly valued, but they are not the only skills that are important for high functioning
teams. Interpersonal skills, also known as people skills or soft skills, such as patience and conflict
mediation, can help team members. This allows the team to blend their technical expertise with
collaborative skills in order to get the job done. When a team applies their interpersonal skills, they can
minimize team-related issues.

Problem-solving skills are a must for all team members, especially when it comes to large, complex
projects. As a project manager, you will not be able to solve every problem for your team. At some point,
they will need to use their own judgment to problem-solve and get the work done.

An underrated skill set for project team members are leadership skills. Strong leadership skills help team
members navigate organizational boundaries and effectively communicate with stakeholders to generate
buy-in.

Who is available?

In projects, the availability of your team is always a big concern. This is especially true in Matrix
organizations, where team members have multiple bosses. It is not uncommon to pull a team member
onto another project before your project is complete. In a perfect world, you only pick those who can
stay on the project for its entire life cycle. You may find that you don’t get to pick certain members of
your team at all, which is called a pre-assignment. In these cases, the sponsor assigns team members to
your project.

Keep in mind that you need to value diversity early on when building your team. On diverse teams,
everyone is able to use their unique professional and personal experiences to contribute to a more
successful project. Diversity is best leveraged when it is acknowledged and highlighted as an asset. Many
people avoid discussing their differences, but if you encourage those conversations, you will find a richer
understanding and greater creativity that comes from people working together across identity
differences. To do this effectively, it is important to dedicate time early on in the team building process to
develop trust between team members. Team members who understand one another are more likely to
trust each other and feel safe sharing different points of view or offer a competing perspective. This will
also allow them to more easily offer constructive feedback or be supportive if the team dynamics face
challenges at any point.

What motivates them?

Be sure to take note of the motivation level of your team members and the impact it may have on your
project. Just because a person is pre-assigned to a project, doesn’t necessarily mean they have low
interest in it, but a person who proactively volunteered for it may have additional motivation to do the
work.
As a project manager, it is your responsibility to engage your team and keep them motivated. This is
where your influence as a leader is required to keep the team engaged and ready to overcome any
obstacles that may appear. Engaging in a respectful manner and maintaining a positive outlook with your
team during times of adversity are simple ways to keep your team motivated.

Key takeaway

In summary, team size, skills, availability, and motivation are the building blocks to creating your very
own dream team. Always keep in mind that a project manager does not just select dream teams, they
create dream teams through collaboration under great leadership. This is the leadership that you will
provide as a project manager.

Essential project roles

In this lesson, you are learning to define project roles and responsibilities. Let’s now build on what you
have learned about building your project team and focus on how to further identify the core roles and
responsibilities that are critical to any project.

The project manager

Although all team members are responsible for their individual parts of the project, the project manager
is responsible for the overall success of the team, and ultimately, the project as a whole. A project
manager understands that paying close attention to team dynamics is essential to successfully
completing a project, and they use team-building techniques, motivation, influencing, decision-making,
and coaching skills, to keep their teams strong.

Project managers integrate all project work by developing the project management plan, directing the
work, documenting reports, controlling change, and monitoring quality.

In addition, project managers are responsible for balancing the scope, schedule, and cost of a project by
managing engagement with stakeholders. When managing engagement with stakeholders, project
managers rely on strong communication skills, political and cultural awareness, negotiation, trust-
building, and conflict management skills.

An image of a project manager juggling multiple items -- people, budgets, emails, tasks, and milestones.

Stakeholders

Have you ever heard the phrase “the stakes are high"? When we talk about “stakes,” we are referring to
the important parts of a business, situation, or project that might be at risk if something goes wrong. To
hold stake in a business, situation, or project means you are invested in its success. There will often be
several parties that will hold stake in the outcome of a project. Each group’s level of investment will
differ based on how the outcome of the project may impact them. Stakeholders are often divided into
two groups: primary stakeholders, also known as key stakeholders, and secondary stakeholders. A
primary stakeholder is directly affected by the outcome of the project, while a secondary stakeholder is
indirectly affected by the outcome of the project.

Primary stakeholders usually include team members, senior leaders, and customers. For example,
imagine that you are a project manager for a construction company that is commissioned to build out a
new event space for a local catering company. On this project, the owners of the catering company
would be primary stakeholders since they are paying for the project.

Another primary stakeholder could be the CEO of your construction company. If the CEO likes to be
directly involved with projects for local businesses like the catering company, that would make them a
primary stakeholder.

An example of a secondary stakeholder might be the project’s point of contact in legal. While the project
outcome might not affect them directly, the project itself would impact their work when they process
the contract. Each project will have a different set of stakeholders, which is why it’s important for the
project manager to know who they are, what they need, and how to communicate with them.

Project team members

Every successful team needs strong leadership and membership, and project management is no
exception! Project team members are also considered primary stakeholders, since they play a crucial role
in getting the job done. Your team members will vary depending on the type, complexity, and size of the
project. It’s important to consider these variables as you select your project team and begin to work with
them. Remember that choosing teammates with the right technical skills and interpersonal skills will be
valuable as you work to meet your project goals. If you are not able to select your project team, be sure
to champion diversity and build trust to create harmony within the team.

Sponsor

The project sponsor is another primary stakeholder. A sponsor initiates the project and is responsible for
presenting a business case for its existence, signing the project charter, and releasing resources to the
project manager. The sponsor is very important to the project, so it’s critical to communicate with them
frequently throughout all project phases. In our construction company example, the CEO could also be
the project sponsor.

Key takeaway
Although the roles involved in each project will vary, all projects will include a project manager and
primary stakeholders who are directly impacted by the project’s outcome, such as team members, senior
leaders, the customer, and the project sponsor. Secondary stakeholders, whose work less directly
impacts the project, may also play a role. Keep these roles in mind as we take a closer look at the
importance of stakeholders.

Prioritizing stakeholders and generating their buy-in

In this lesson, you are learning to complete a stakeholder analysis and explain its significance. Let’s focus
here on how to prioritize the various types of stakeholders that can exist on a project, generate
stakeholder buy-in, and manage their expectations.

Conducting a stakeholder analysis

Stakeholders are an essential part of any project. A project manager’s ability to balance stakeholder
requirements, get their buy-in, and understand when and how to involve them is key to successfully
fulfilling a project.

It is key to keep stakeholders organized in order to understand when and how to involve them at the
right time. In an earlier video, we introduced the stakeholder analysis, a useful tool that project
managers use to understand stakeholders’ needs and help minimize hiccups during your project life
cycle.

Let’s review the key steps in the stakeholder analysis:

Make a list of all the stakeholders the project impacts. When generating this list, ask yourself: Who is
invested in the project? Who is impacted by this project? Who contributes to this project?

Determine the level of interest and influence for each stakeholder—this step helps you determine who
your key stakeholders are. The higher the level of interest and influence, the more important it will be to
prioritize their needs throughout the project.

Assess stakeholders’ ability to participate and then find ways to involve them. Various types of projects
will yield various types of stakeholders—some will be active stakeholders with more opinions and
touchpoints and others will be passive stakeholders, preferring only high-level updates and not involved
in the day-to-day. That said, just because a stakeholder does not participate as often as others does not
mean they are not important. There are lots of factors that will play a role in determining a stakeholder’s
ability to participate in a project, like physical distance from the project and their existing workload.
Pro tip: You might want to form a steering committee during some projects. A steering committee is a
collection of key stakeholders who have a high level of power and interest in a project. A steering
committee can influence multiple departments within the organization, which means that they have the
potential to release a greater number of resources to the project manager.

Visualizing your analysis

A power grid shows stakeholder interest in the project versus their influence over the project. This four-
quadrant tool helps project managers evaluate how to manage their stakeholders. It is used to
determine the appropriate level of engagement required by the project team needed to gain the
stakeholders’ trust and buy-in. The upper half of the grid represents higher influence, and the lower half
of the grid represents lower influence. Meanwhile, the left half of the grid represents lower interest, and
the right half of the grid represents higher interest. With that in mind, you'll find the upper left quadrant
to be labeled "meets their needs," the upper right quadrant "manage closely," the bottom left quadrant
is labeled "monitor," and the bottom right quadrant is labeled "show consideration."

Take the time at the start of the project to establish your stakeholder approach. List the stakeholders and
then place them into the appropriate places on the grid. Being able to visualize their placement will help
you manage communications and expectations. Having a quick reference tool to drive your
communication actions will also allow you to have the ability to spend more time doing other tasks on
your project.

Pro tip: While these tools help organize information, they do not necessarily make the difference
between successful and unsuccessful stakeholder engagement. What will make for successful
stakeholder engagement is the project manager’s ability to know their stakeholders’ motivations and
inspirations. This takes time, interpersonal skills, and insight into the organization’s internal political
workings. Remember, each project is different, and your project may need tweaks along the way as you
grow as a project manager. Making necessary changes means you are doing something right. Just make
sure to check in and ensure that you are well on track, engaging your stakeholders successfully, and
delivering on your project!

Generating stakeholder buy-in

Once you organize and assess your stakeholders, it is time to start making some decisions on whose buy-
in is absolutely necessary for success, whose requirements deserve the most attention, and what level of
communication each stakeholder will require.
Gaining key stakeholder buy-in is essential to ensuring that your project is not deprioritized or deprived
of resources.

Tips for gaining key stakeholder buy-in include:

Clearly mapping the work of the project to the goals of the stakeholder.

Describing how the project aligns with the goals of the stakeholder's department or team.

Listening to feedback from the stakeholder and finding ways to incorporate their feedback into the
project's charter where appropriate.

Manage your stakeholders’ expectations by presenting a realistic view of your team’s abilities. Do not
over-promise and under-deliver!

Optional reading

This article, titled

Roll Call: We Asked the Project Management Community: What Steps Do You Take To Identify and
Prioritize All Stakeholders at the Start of a Project?

, describes additional strategies for identifying stakeholders to further increase your understanding.

Building out a RACI chart

A RACI chart can be an extremely effective way to define project roles, give direction to each team
member and stakeholder, and ensure work gets done efficiently. Having a RACI chart available
throughout the duration of your project as a quick visual can be invaluable. In this reading, we will
cover the function of a RACI chart and its components and explore how project managers use RACI
charts to define and document project roles and responsibilities. 

Elements of a RACI chart

A RACI chart creates clear roles and gives direction to each team member and stakeholder. Over
your career, you may hear a RACI chart referred to as a Responsibility Assignment Matrix (RAM),
RACI diagram, or RACI matrix. The ultimate goal of this chart is to clarify each person’s role on your
project. 
First, let’s break down each of the roles people can be assigned:

R: Responsible: who gets the work done

A: Accountable: who makes sure the work is done

C: Consulted: who gives input or feedback on work

I: Informed: who needs to know the outcome

Note that RACI charts can be organized in different ways,  depending on personal
preference, number of tasks being assigned, and number of people involved. In the previous video,
we showed you one RACI chart format. The template below shows another way a typical RACI chart
might be organized.

Let’s further examine each of the roles and how to determine which team member should be
assigned to which role.

Responsible
Individuals who are assigned the “responsible” role for a task are the ones who are actually doing
the work to complete the task. Every task needs at least one responsible party. It’s a best practice to
try to limit the number of team members assigned to a task’s  responsible role, but in some cases,
you may have more than one. 
A couple of questions to ask yourself when determining which person or people should be placed in
the responsible role for a given task are:

 What department does the work fall under?

 Who will perform the work?
It is helpful to evaluate the people on your team to determine the role that suits them. Remember
that you may need to list roles rather than names, if some people take on more than one role. 

Let’s dig deeper into our example with Office Green. Our task is to develop price points for the
project, and the Financial Analyst will complete the work for this task. Therefore, we will list
“Financial Analyst” in the responsible role for this task in the RACI chart.

Accountable
The “accountable” person is responsible for making sure the task gets done. It is important to have
only one individual accountable for each task. This helps clarify ownership of the task. The
accountable person ultimately has the authority to approve the deliverable of the responsible party. 

In order to determine who should be tagged as the accountable team member, consider:

 Who will delegate the task to be completed?

 Who will review the work to determine if the task is complete?
You may encounter a situation where the responsible party is also accountable, but where possible,
it is helpful to separate these roles. Ensuring that accountability is not shared ensures that there is
no confusion on who the ownership belongs to.

Continuing with our Office Green example, you have assigned the “accountable” role to the Head of
Finance. The Head of Finance has to make sure the project stays in budget and makes a profit, so
they have the ultimate authority over the price points for the product. Therefore, they will need to
approve the Financial Analyst’s work on the task. 

Consulted
Team members or stakeholders who are placed in the “consulted” role have useful information to
help complete the task. There is no maximum or minimum number of people who can be assigned a
“consulted” role, but it’s important that each person has a reason for being there.

Here are a few ways you can help identify who is appropriate for the role:

 Who will the task impact?

 Who will have input or feedback for the responsible person to help the work be completed?
 Who are the subject matter experts (SMEs) for the task?
The consulted people will be in frequent, two-way communication with the responsible party, so it is
key to make sure that the right people are in this role to help accomplish the task efficiently and
correctly.

Back to the project at Office Green, we’ve got a “responsible” Financial Analyst and an “accountable”
Head of Finance. Who else would need to provide input on the product’s price points? Whose
decisions and feedback will directly affect the task? The Director of Product will need to be consulted
on the matter, as they oversee all product offerings. This person will have information about potential
changes to the product and how these changes might affect price points.

Informed
Individuals who are identified as needing to be “informed” need to know the final decisions that were
made and when a task is completed. It is common to have many people assigned to this category
and for some team members to be informed on most tasks. Team members or stakeholders here will
not be asked for feedback, so it is key to make sure people who are in this group only require status
updates and do not need to provide any direct feedback for the completion of the effort. 

Key questions to ask yourself in order to ensure that you have appropriately captured individuals in
the “informed” role are:

 Who cares about this task’s completion?

 Who will be affected by the outcome?
Now that you’ve determined who is responsible, accountable, and consulted on the Office Green
project task, it is time to determine who needs to be informed about the task. Your Financial Analyst
has set the price points with input from the Director of Product, and the Head of Finance has
approved. You will now need to inform the Sales Team about the final price points, as they will need
this information to sell the product. 
Pro tip: You could end up with a large number of team members and stakeholders who are placed in
the “informed” role. If so, make sure that you have a plan to keep them informed that is not labor-
intensive. Something as easy as view-only access to your project plan or meeting notes could
prevent you from having to create separate communications along the way.  

Key takeaway
The RACI chart is a valuable tool. It can help you define and document project roles and
responsibilities, give direction to each team member and stakeholder, and ensure work gets done
efficiently. A RACI chart can also help you analyze and balance the workload of your team. While it
may take many revisions to make sure that your team members and stakeholders are being placed
into the right roles in your RACI chart, doing this work up front helps save time and prevent
miscommunications later on. 

Getting the most out of a RACI chart

In the previous video, you learned how critical a RACI chart is for creating clear roles and
giving direction to each team member on a project. In this reading, we will further explore the
function and components of RACI charts and how to use them to communicate responsibilities to
project teams. 

Definition and structure

Determining who is Responsible, Accountable, Consulted and Informed on your projects allows
you to keep control of the stakeholders roles on your project. 
Workload balance 
Are there too many tasks assigned to one stakeholder? When you complete your chart, it is a
good idea to go back through and tally the number of Rs assigned to each stakeholder. This can
help you identify potentially overloading one team member with work. Using a RACI chart to
determine responsibility for tasks can help mitigate single points of failure (known as creating
silos, where the knowledge and responsibility for a task falls on one person) and allow you, as
the project manager, to delegate tasks and avoid burnout. Maintaining workload balance is a
critical part of project management. It is easy to fall into the pattern of relying on your top
performers to keep the project moving forward. But this isn’t always healthy for the project or
your team. If you find that you don’t have the right people to assign responsibilities to, take a
step back and evaluate your team. 

Put your RACI into practice

Once you have created your RACI chart, it is time to put it into practice. You will first need to
share your RACI chart with your sponsors and stakeholders to get buy-in and sign-off. When you
get stakeholder buy-in, you will be able to set clear expectations for your team and ensure that
everyone is aligned on their responsibilities. 

You can document your team and stakeholders’ acknowledgment of these expectations through
the project charter, meeting notes, and in the RACI chart itself. Think back to a time when you
were expected to do something you did not agree with, or weren’t clear on. That disagreement or
lack of clarity made it difficult to do your best work, right? Getting buy-in and continually
checking in with your stakeholders and your team is the way to avoid this potential pitfall! 
As you take the time to ensure that each task has an owner identified with the appropriate level
of engagement, you are streamlining your communication and decision-making process over the
life cycle of your project. 

When should you use a RACI chart?

If you are wondering if you should use a RACI chart on your project, it is a good idea to evaluate
the complexity of the effort. For example, if you have a very small project team with a small
number of stakeholders, clearly defined roles, and a short timeline, introducing a RACI chart
could possibly slow down the project. However, larger projects, or even projects that involve a
large number of stakeholders, could greatly benefit from a RACI chart. It is always a good idea
to work through the creation of a RACI chart and evaluate the outcome. Even if you do not end
up using the RACI chart, you will have a better understanding of the project, and your effort will
contribute to your project management experience overall.

Activity Exemplar: Assign project roles

and responsibilities in a RACI chart
Here is a completed exemplar along with an explanation of how the exemplar fulfills the expectations
for the activity. 

Completed Exemplar
To view the exemplar for this course item, click the link below and select “Use Template.”

Link to exemplar: RACI chart

OR

If you don’t have a Google account, you can download the exemplar directly from the attachment
below.

Activity Exemplar_ RACI chart - Phase 2

XLSX File
Assessment of Exemplar

Compare the exemplar to your completed RACI chart. Review your work using each of the criteria in
the exemplar. What did you do well? Where can you improve? Use your answers to these questions
to guide you as you continue to progress through the course. 

Note: Your answers may vary (particularly for Consulted and Informed individuals), depending how
you interpreted each stakeholder’s responsibilities.

Let’s review the six tasks in the RACI chart. The exemplar includes RACI assignments for each task
and role:

Design a landing page 

 The Web Manager has the final say on many aspects of the project. They are accountable for
most tasks, including the initial design of the page. 
 The Web Designer is responsible for designing the landing page, which they submit to the
Web Manager for approval.
 The Graphic Designer is consulted on the landing page design.
 The Web Developer, Quality Assurance Tester, and Content Writer can all be kept informed
on the state of the design throughout the process. 
Create landing page mockup

 The Web Designer is responsible for creating the landing page mockup and incorporating it
into the Office Green website.
 The Web Manager signs off on the mockup, making them accountable.
 The Graphic Designer, Web Developer, and Content Writer are all consulted on the mockup
because they contribute content and design elements to the landing page. 
 The Quality Assurance tester can be kept informed. 
Design image assets

 The Graphic Designer is responsible for creating the image assets for the landing page. 
 The Web Designer signs off on the image assets, making them accountable. 
 All other stakeholders can be kept informed.
Write content

 The Content Writer is responsible for writing the landing page content.
 The Web Manager signs off on the content, making them accountable.
 All other stakeholders can be kept informed.
Code the landing page

 The Web Developer is responsible for writing the code that powers the landing page. 
 The Web Manager makes sure the Web Developer produces functional code, making them
accountable.
 All other stakeholders can be kept informed. 
Test the landing page

 The Quality Assurance tester is responsible for running quality tests for the landing page. 
 The Web Developer should be consulted about coding requirements. 
  The Web Manager signs off on the final product, making them accountable.
 All other stakeholders can be kept informed.

Managing resources to get the job done

As we continue learning the tools and techniques that will help you succeed in project management,
let’s consider the importance of project resources. Project resources are who and what you depend
on to complete a project, including budget, materials, and people. While each resource is a separate
entity, they all depend on one another—your team cannot do the work without materials, and you
cannot purchase materials without a budget. In this reading, we will discuss some key project
resources and tips for managing them.

Budget
Have you ever created a budget for yourself or your family? If you have, you know that a budget
includes a wide variety of expenses. For example, a monthly personal budget can contain items that
include anything from food to transportation costs to rent. With only a certain amount of funding to
cover each expense, it is important to closely monitor your spending to avoid going over budget. If
you go over in one category of your budget, you will impact the others and will need to make
adjustments. As a project manager, you will take the same general approach with your project
budget. 

Common aspects of your project budget will include:

 Team: the cost of the people performing the work

 Services: any outside vendors helping your project
 Materials: any tangible items purchased to complete the project
Throughout your project management career, you will encounter various types of projects with a
wide range of budgets. Some budgets will have no margin for error, whereas other budgets may be
more flexible. Regardless of this variability, budget issues will inevitably arise, so it is important to
make sure that the budget is aligned with the project scope and the stakeholders’ asks. 

People
People are a vital resource on your project; you cannot complete your project on your own! You will
need to rely on a strong team of people with a variety of skill sets and specialties to get the job done.
As a project manager, make sure that you have commitment and buy-in on the number of hours it
will take for your resources to complete their tasks. Additionally, you will find the best partners on a
project are people who are aligned to the goals of the project or who are most interested in the
project's work.

Materials
Materials can be different on every project. For example, if you were working on an IT project,
materials could include hard drives and computers to handle the coding efforts. You can also have
materials that are intangible. For example, on the same IT project, online storage, software
programs, or employee training may also be considered materials. It is important to account for any
and all potential materials in order to execute a successful project with the right people and within
budget. 

Key takeaway
Your project resources include things like the budget, people, and materials. As a project manager,
remembering that your resources are dependent on one another is key to understanding the function
of each resource and determining how to manage all of them. Take the time to interview
stakeholders and potential team members about what resources they think they will need in order to
deliver the project. They may have an idea of materials they require that you may not have
accounted for within the budget, for example, or can identify people with expertise that would make
them an asset to the project team. 

Next, we will discuss project charters, which are important tools that project managers use to gain
clarity on the resources that they will need for a project.  

Project charters: Elements and formats

A project charter clearly defines the project and outlines the necessary details for the project to
reach its goals. A well-documented project charter can be a project manager’s secret weapon to
success. In this reading, we will go over the function, key elements, and significance of a project
charter and learn how to create one. 

The charter is the formal way that the project’s goals, values, benefits, and details are captured. You
can think of the charter as the compass for your project since you will use it throughout the life cycle
of the project. Many stakeholders will look to your project charter to ensure that you are indeed
aligned with strategic goals and set up for achieving the desired end goal. Since the project charter
carries so much importance, it is important to incorporate the right amount of detail while omitting
miscellaneous elements.

As with any of your project documents, it is a good idea to collaborate with your team and
stakeholders early and often. Developing the project charter in collaboration with both groups can
help you make sure that your project charter addresses your key stakeholders’ most important
concerns and keeps your team aligned. Be sure to use the business case—the reason for initiating
the project—as the guiding direction to your project charter. Project charters can vary from
organization to organization and from project to project. It is key for a project manager to identify the
best type of charter for the project in order to capture the relevant information and set your project up
for success. Project charters will vary but usually include some combination of the following key
information:

 introduction/project summary
  goals/objectives 
 business case/benefits and costs
 project team
 scope
 success criteria
 major requirements or key deliverables
 budget
 schedule/timeline or milestones
 constraints and assumptions
 risks
 OKRs
 approvals
You will likely use many different project charter formats throughout your project management
career. One example is a condensed, simplified document, like the one you'll learn about in the
upcoming video and the one linked in the activities. A short and simple project charter can be used
on smaller projects that are not very complex. 

For more complex projects, you may link to additional analysis or documents. You can house these
items in the appendix. 

Your organization may have a unique template for you to use, or you may have the flexibility to
leverage one you come across in your career. As your project progresses, you may also encounter
revisions to your project charter—and that is okay. Remember, it is a living document; let it grow with
your project, and review and revisit it often to ensure you are aligned.