NYU SCPS Basic Project Management
Project Definition Checklist
Project Definition Checklist[1]
Use this template as a way to think about your project to set it up for success.
Any project – large or small – will have a better chance of success if you spend the time, even as little as half an hour, going over the points here. As soon as you get a project, go down the checklist and answer the questions that are applicable to the extent you can at that point in time.
Note the issues that come up, the information you don’t have but need, the people you must talk to and get involved, the next questions you must get answered, the gaps in requirements, the factors that are missing, the points that are critical. Use this checklist to sketch out large everything, in short, that you will touch on from now until the project is finished.
Do this thinking and you will understand upfront what chance the project has of being delivered successfully, what needs to be done to raise its chances and where you need to focus moving forward.
Don’t do this thinking and the time you spend firefighting, cobbling together work-a rounds, doing rework, fighting scope creep and waiting for resources will increase dramatically.
TOC
Executive Summary 3
Project Environment 3
Business Value 3
Project Goal 4
Critical Success Factors 4
Major Constraints 4
Project Scope Boundaries 4
Project Estimations 4
Issues and Pending Decisions 5
Assumptions and Risks 5
Project Strategy & Approach 5
Project Organization 5
Responsibility Matrix 5
Project Management Procedures 5
Approval Page 5
Appendix A: Getting Stakeholders to Read the Project’s Definition 6
Appendix B: Executive Summary 8
Appendix C: Project Environment Details 9
Appendix D: Business Value Details 10
Appendix E: Project Goal Details 12
Appendix F: Critical Success Factors Details 13
Appendix G: Major Constraints Details 14
Appendix H: Project Scope Boundaries Details 15
Appendix I: Project Estimations Details 18
Appendix J: Issues and Pending Decisions Details 20
Appendix K: Assumptions and Risks Details 21
Appendix L: Project Strategy & Approach Details 25
Appendix M: Project Organization Details 26
Appendix N: Responsibility Matrix Details 27
Appendix O: Project Management Procedures Details 29
Appendix P: Approval Page Details 31
Executive Summary
· An optional section used f this document will end up in the hands of the Project Sponsors who will need a brief introduction.Project Environment
Project Description
What is the project?Current State
How are things currently done as they relate to this project? As-Is.Future State
How does this project change the future state? To-Be.Background
What history led to this project?Business Value
Business Need
Why should the business do this project?What problem is this project solving?
What pain is it alleviating?
What opportunity is it achieving?
Fit with Strategic Vision
What is your organizations Mission or Vision?How does this project support Corporate Vision?
Project Benefits
What factors are driving this project?What is the benefit in terms of dollars of doing this project?
Alternatives and Recommendations
What else could be done to meet this need?Do you recommend doing this project or not? Why?
Project Goal
What is the project goal?In what way does this goal provide value to the business?
How does it lead to the project benefits to the business in terms of cost, speed, quality, etc.?
Critical Success Factors
What does project success look-and-feel like to the user?What are the project objectives that must be met for the project to be considered a success?
What are the most important objectives?
Major Constraints
What are the time, budgetary, resource and quality constraints on the project?What is the project’s Primary Constraint?
Project Scope Boundaries
In Scope
Project Objectives
What is the project producing?What are the measurable ways you will know that this project is meeting the goals set forth by the sponsor? SMART
Deliverables
What are the results, work packages, milestones that make up the objectives?What are the key deliverables from the project?
Out of scope
What is out of scope?Project Estimations
Estimated Effort Hours
What is the effort required?Estimated Cost
How much will this project cost at a high level?Estimated Duration
When is the project expected to start and finish?Issues and Pending Decisions
Are there any open issues that need resolving before the project can start?
Are there any key decisions that the project team is dependent upon being made?
Assumptions and Risks
Major Assumptions
What assumptions and dependencies is the project's success reliant upon?What major assumptions have been made in planning the project and estimating?
Major Risks
What are the top 3to 5 risks to project success?What contingency plans are in place to minimise the impact of any key risks?
Project Strategy & Approach
How will the required final product / solution be delivered?Project Organization
Who are the stakeholders?Responsibility Matrix
What are the key responsibilities for each role for each major deliverable for each key stakeholder?Project Management Procedures
What are the basic procedures that will be used to manage the project?Approval Page
Who are the people that need to approve the project?Who is the Project Sponsor?
Appendix A: Getting Stakeholders to Read the Project’s Definition
Ideally all stakeholders will comprehensively study and read through the document because it provides a reference point for the entire project. In reality this is rarely the case. To encourage reading:
Make the document interesting
· Structure it into short headed sections so that people can focus on the areas of most interest to them.
· Keep the document short and punchy.
Use Appendixes
· Keep the main body of the document as short as possible while still including the important points that will structure your project to increase the chances of success.
· Try not to have any section be longer than a page with the possible exception of very important areas that you want to emphasize because they are critical to your success.
· If a section is longer that a page, your audience isn’t likely to read it. Pull out any material in any of your sections that goes on too long into an Appendix. If more material is of interest to a reader, they will go to the relevant appendix.
Use diagrams to illustrate key points
· People are more likely to study diagrams than read through reams of continuous text.
Engage the Stakeholders Individually
· Engage with stakeholders instead of simply sending the document as an e-mail attachment.
· Walk through the document with key individuals over a coffee or lunch if the opportunity arises.
Get the readers to contribute to the document
· This is a great approach that guarantees people will take an interest in the document.
· Work at getting their personal feedback and comments early on in the review process and circulating it to the other project stakeholders.
Be creative
· Represent the key points in different presentation formats. This would need to be tailored to the project's context and sensitivity but useful formats include PowerPoint presentations, poster campaigns, even a web-site or project blog.
Make it visible
· A lot of valuable feedback can be gathered just by displaying the contents in an open manner.
· Keep some of the brainstorming outputs on a white board and provide some pens and blank post-its for people to leave comments and ideas.
Let a key influencer take the credit
· You will be amazed how many more people will read and comment on the document if it appears that it was crated by an influential member of the organization.
Appendix B: Executive Summary
The full Project Definition can become large and difficult for people to digest. So, put an Executive Overview at the very beginning in order to provide a summary.
An Executive Overview is not merely an overview of the project. That’s found in the Project Environment section. It’s a very high level, succinct review of everything in the Project Definition. It is useful in focusing the executives on those aspects of the project that they most need to see.
Please, don’t let this section be longer than one page.
Appendix C: Project Environment Details
Project Description
What is the project?
Describe briefly the purpose of the project and the business benefit as you have described them in detail them in the Business Value and Project Objectives sections below. Share any business goals and objectives that this project is trying to achieve.
Current State
How are things currently done as they relate to this project?
Consider hardware, software, organizational structure, HR etc.
Future State
How does this project change the future state?
Consider hardware, software, changes to organizational structure, additional employees, etc.
After this project is complete, how will things be done? What are the process changes?
How will this project impact the current technological system? Is it a new system? What is the preliminary architecture of this system?
Background
What history led to this project?
Provide context as to why the project is being executed now, any related initiatives and any other historical background the reader should know.
Appendix D: Business Value Details
Business Need
Why should the business do this project?
The value to the business of a project is found only by answering the following questions.
· What problem is this project solving?
· What pain is it alleviating?
· What opportunity is it achieving?
The answer to these questions gives you the yardstick to evaluate any and all client requirements, requests, deliverables, objectives, goals, functionality or wish list items and determine if they should be done or not done.
If these client requests don’t help your project to get to the answer, then they don’t provide business value. And projects that don’t provide business value are easy to cancel, hard to get resources for and rarely successful.
Fit with Strategic Vision
A Note on Vision, Goals, Objectives [2]
Vision statements, goals and objectives are often confused.
Vision statements indicate business direction and aspiration.
Goals are high-level statements that describe what your organization is trying to achieve over a one to three year horizon.
Objectives are concrete statements that describe the things the project is trying to achieve.
Goals are vague - objectives are concrete. A project goal of “achieving a perfect client experience” is not actually possible with any combination of projects. It may instead be a vision statement, which is a higher-level statement showing direction and aspiration, but one which may never actually be achieved.
How does this project support corporate goals?
How does it fit with the other projects in the company portfolio?
Which other projects (either planned or currently underway) have a dependency on the project?
What is the level of urgency here?
Project Benefits
Project benefit category
· Compliance· Regulatory
· Efficiency
· Productivity
· Good Will
· Cost reduction
· Revenue increase
Market Analysis
Customer Need:
· Do customers request this project? What factors are driving this project?
Competitive Analysis:
· What are other companies in your market doing related to this project?
Competitive Advantage:
· How will this project help your company stay ahead of the competition?
Cost Benefit Analysis
What is the benefit in terms of dollars of doing this project?
Tangible Benefits· Benefit
· Value & Probability
· Assumptions Driving Value
Intangible Benefits
· Benefit
· Value & Probability
· Assumptions Driving Value
Financial Return on Investment (ROI)
Alternatives and Recommendations
What else could be done to meet this need?
Why recommend this project?
What are the benefits to doing this project instead of another?
Appendix E: Project Goal Details [3]
State the goal of the project.
Goals describe high-level achievements
Goals are high-level statements that provide overall context for what your organization is trying to achieve in the next three years.
Objectives are lower level statements that describe the specific, tangible products and deliverables that the project will deliver.
The definition of goals and objectives is more of an art than a science and it can be difficult to define them and align them correctly. However, through practice and the use of some common definitions, you can start to identify and tell the difference between goals and objectives.
For example one of the goals of the IT Support group might be to "increase the overall satisfaction levels for clients calling to the company helpdesk".
Because the goal is at a high-level, it may take more than one project to achieve. There may be a technology component to increasing client satisfaction. There may also be new procedures, new training classes, reorganization of the helpdesk department and modification of the company rewards system. It may take many projects over a long period of time to achieve the goal.
Goals achieve business value
The goal should reference the business benefit in terms of cost, speed and / or quality. If it does, it provides business value.
In the example above, the focus is on quality of service. Even if the project is not directly in support of the business, there should be an indirect tie.
For instance, an IT infrastructure project to install new web servers may ultimately allow faster client response, better performance or some other business benefit. If there is no business value to the project, the project should not be started.
If you can measure the achievement of your goal, it is probably written at too low a level and is more of an objective.
If your goal is not achievable through any combination of projects, it is probably written at too high a level and is more of a vision statement.
Appendix F: Critical Success Factors Details
What does project success look-and-feel like to the user?
What are the functions that must be met for the project to be considered a success?
What is the most important factor?
Users are the ultimate judges of a projects’ success. If they believe it has failed, it doesn’t matter how well you did it. Therefore, it’s critically important for your success, your team’s success and the success of your project that you nail down exactly what “success” means.