Chapter 4

Kicking Off the Project

In This Chapter

Making sure that the Idea is workable

Checking the content of the Recommendation

Checking out the Outline Charter

Being sure that you’re ready to roll with the project

Before you get deep into the full planning of your project, it pays to be sure the overall idea is viable and that it looks like it is worth pursuing. Even if the project is mandatory and so must be done, it will pay you to get a high-level view of what it’s all about before you plunge into the detail, and that includes getting an idea about costs, staff resource, risk and timescales.

In his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, published by Simon and Schuster, Steven Covey has as his second habit:

Begin with the end in mind.

Covey’s advice is sensible when it comes to projects as well as general effectiveness, and too many projects get started without being clear or agreed on the objectives or what the project is going to deliver; both of those are considered in Kick Off. However his example of the second habit is especially relevant and that is, before you climb a ladder you make sure that you’ve it propped against the right wall. Don’t climb to the top and then think ‘Whoops, wrong wall.’ You just have to get down again, move the ladder and climb up all over again.

So, before you go to all the effort of producing the project plans, it’s worth making sure that you have the basics right and that the ladder is against the right wall … and that everyone agrees it is against the right wall too.

If you’re in a hurry you may be tempted to skip Kick Off and get straight on with the full planning. However Kick Off really will earn its keep and save you time. You get a clear view of what you’re dealing with and, importantly, others do too. You can feel sure that you’re clear on the project, and perhaps you are. But you run the risk of others disagreeing with you when they finally see the plans. It’s a lot more work to change the detailed plans than ever it is to do Kick Off, make any adjustments there, and then get the planning spot-on the first time around.

I suggest in Chapter 1 that you sketch out an ‘Idea’ very briefly first, then, if that looks good, investigate any options for taking it forward and producing a more detailed ‘Recommendation’. If everything’s still looking good at that point, move on to develop an Outline Charter, or just Outline for short. As you go through the three you will put in increasing amounts of work.

Producing an Idea, then a Recommendation and then an Outline isn’t duplicating the work. Rather, you are taking each one as a base to work into more detail for the next bit, and involving more people, such as project specialists, to do that. This approach allows your organisation to add resource gradually as you show that the project is worth doing, or to back out without too much waste of effort if it isn’t.

As you produce the Idea, Recommendation and then Outline in turn (or your organisation’s equivalent) use the checklists in this chapter to help make sure that you’ve got them right.

The Idea Checklist

The Idea should normally be on a single side of paper, or the equivalent – perhaps as a meeting item. In the Idea you should explain briefly what your project ‘idea’ is and get approval to do a bit more investigation and produce a Recommendation. You must spell things out very clearly in the Idea. Don’t forget that while your head may have been buzzing with all this stuff for a while, the manager receiving the Idea may be considering it all for the first time.

• Background: Check the wording of the Idea to be sure that you’ve explained clearly and concisely why the project is needed or would be advantageous.
• Description: Check that you’ve spelled out what the idea actually is, and in terms that your manager will understand.
• The business perspective: Make sure that the proposed project would genuinely help your organisation and that it isn’t merely something you’d like to do, perhaps because it looks interesting.
• Advantages: Have you been clear and realistic about the advantages and benefits of running the project, neither overstating nor understating them? If you are not sure of the amount of benefit, err on the side of slightly understating it rather than overstating it.
• Resources and timing: Double-check that the resource levels and timescale you have specified are realistic, and that you haven’t been over-optimistic. You’ll be aware from your own experience that many things take longer than you first thought they would.

The Recommendation Checklist

A recommendation normally takes up about five to ten sides of paper, or the equivalent in a business presentation. It provides information for a decision on whether or not to go on with the more extensive work to create an Outline Charter. It covers the same ground as the Idea, just in more detail, so you’ll need to apply some of the same checks.

• The options: Have you thought of all of the viable options or are you still thinking ‘inside the box’? Prepare to be dramatic to get maximum advantage. Are there further options that you haven’t considered?
• Workability: Check that each option is genuinely workable and take out any that are just plain unrealistic. Contrary to the claims of one well known project method, there isn’t always a ‘do nothing’ option; you may have to do something. So don’t include ‘do nothing’ unless it is a serious and sensible option. It’s usually advantageous to check things out with others to make sure that the options are sensible and workable, and you’ll find a Consultation Checklist following this one with some ideas on who to talk to.
• The recommended project: Check that you’ve explained simply and clearly what the recommended project is. You’ll often need to state the obvious, because it won’t be obvious to people who are less familiar than you with this area of the organisation.
• Reasoning: Have you explained clearly why you are recommending the option that you are and why the others are less suitable? Don’t go into huge detail here but rather keep things simple. However keep the additional detail readily to hand in case you’re asked for it to back up your recommendation.
• Terms and wording: Check the terms you’ve used because the Recommendation may be seen by a wider group of managers, not just by your line manager. Those people may not understand the TLAs that you use day-to-day.
• Justification: Have you spelled out the justification clearly and accurately? That includes saying if the project is mandatory and must be done anyway even if there are no benefits. Check out the Justification Checklist in Chapter 5 to be sure you’ve got this right.
• Benefits: Again check out Chapter 5 to be sure that you have categorised the benefits correctly. Then check that you have been realistic about your claims of benefits. You might want to get someone else to have a look at your figures to confirm that the benefit levels are achievable; perhaps someone with some project or finance expertise.

Don’t promise the moon and the stars when you can only deliver the moon. As mentioned in the checklist, the Recommendation is likely to go to more senior managers than just your line manager. Your ‘promises’ of benefits are likely to be remembered, even though you say that they’re just an early estimate. Being over-optimistic now could result in your project being seen as a failure later. Your project turned out to be an astounding success; it cost just $10,000 and saved $1 million. However senior managers are disappointed because in the Recommendation you led them to believe it would save $2 million. Don’t try to ‘talk up’ the project to get it approved and in doing so take it into the realms of the unachievable. This is a really important point, so don’t be surprised when you see it crop up again in the book.

• Resources: Are the resource levels you have specified realistic, or have you been over-optimistic? You might want to check out your estimates with a few other people.
• Resource availability: Do you believe that the staff resource and finance will be available for this proposed project, or is there a problem that you should point out? Perhaps the project will need input from particular technical specialists and you know they’re already heavily committed on other work.

By the way, the letters TLA mentioned in the list above stand for Three Letter Acronym. If you were unfamiliar with ‘TLA’, you’ll now see what a problem it is if you hit an abbreviation or acronym that you don’t understand. And your project is a whole lot more important than a single item on a checklist in this book.

Consultation Checklist

You might have a really good project in mind, but your Recommendation for it can be badly undermined if it contains factual errors. To be sure that the Recommendation is credible and that you’ve got things right, consider checking out the detail with people with specific expertise such as:

• Legal and compliance: To ensure that the proposed project will comply with any legal requirements, existing contracts and codes of practice.
• Technical: Engineers, for example, to be sure that the project outcome will be practical.
• Business user management: To be sure that the project will deliver things of genuine use.
• Financial: To check that benefits levels are realistic and that you’ve set them down accurately. The finance staff may also be able to advise on whether funding is likely to be available for the project or whether your managers will need a special case to secure it.
• Senior management: To ensure that the recommended project is in line with corporate objectives and strategy.
• Project: People with project expertise to help check that your cost, staff resource and time estimates are realistic, based on their experience of any similar projects.

The Outline Checklist

The Outline Charter, is really the foundation for the project, pinning down precisely what it is before starting the project and going on to full planning. You may think that you’ve already done that with the Recommendation, but the Outline now adds a project perspective to the business perspective on which the Idea and Recommendation were based. Consequently, the Outline should be produced by staff with project experience, and often including the person who will be the Project Manager if the project goes ahead. If the Outline is approved, the project will normally start soon after, so you’ll also need people ready to take on the various project roles.

• Scope: Ensure that the scope of the project is clear and unambiguous. Is it crystal clear what the project will cover and what it will deliver?
• Negative scope: Make clear what the project won’t cover, if any of those things could be misunderstood and people could otherwise assume they’re included.
• Justification and Business Case: Are you sure that the project is genuinely justified? As you do more work on the justification to produce a Business Case for the project, stand back and be as objective as possible. Try hard not to be swayed by really wanting to do the project.
• Benefits: The benefits set down in the Business Case are still an approximation at the moment, but they should still be in the right ball park, so check them. Make sure that you’ve specified the benefit types correctly. See Chapter 5 for more on the three types of benefit.
• Roles: Ensure that you’ve identified people to take on all of the roles in the project. Use the checklist in Chapter 6 to help make quite sure.
• Availability: Confirm that people that you want to fill the roles in the project are both willing and available to take on the work. If anyone isn’t sure that they will have the time to do the job properly, it’s much better to find someone else now. You don’t want to hit problems later on because someone doesn’t have sufficient availability and then causes a whole series of delays.
• Timing: Is your estimate of how long the project will take realistic? How do you know? Should you check this out with others who have experience? Have a look back at the Consultation checklist that was before this one.
• Costs: As with the timing, are you confident that your figure is roughly right, even though it’s still an estimate? If you’re feeling uncertain, or it just looks wrong somehow, do the costing again. You may want to consult others again if you remain unsure. Other people with experience, particularly project experience, may be able to spot things that you’ve missed or confirm that actually you’re right even though you were a bit unsure.

The Ready-to-roll Checklist

Unless the Project Steering Group (PSG) has decided that there will be a delay between the Outline and starting the full planning, the project can start with the Planning Stage immediately after the Outline has been approved. To be sure that you’re absolutely ready to start that first stage, check the items on this list. They cover the things that you must have ready to pass on to the PSG, such as the Outline and the practical things that you’ll need to have in place to be ready to roll.

• Outline: Check through the Outline to make sure that it’s complete but also that it’s clear and understandable.
• Stage Plan for the Planning Stage: Make sure that your Stage Plan for the Planning Stage is complete and realistic. This Stage Plan will go to the PSG for approval along with the Outline. There’s another checklist after this one to help you think about the plan to be sure you’ve included enough time for the different parts of the planning work.
• Staff for planning: Check that the staff who will take part in the planning are aware of their involvement and also when they’ll be needed.
• Accommodation: Check that the accommodation will be ready and available, such as a team room. Also make sure that you’ll have the necessary equipment such as a large whiteboard, markers and flip charts.
• PSG: Be sure that Project Steering Group (PSG) members are aware of their involvement in the Planning Stage on things such as resource planning and the risk management. If you’re intending to have a Planning Workshop (strongly recommended) then make sure that you’ve told the PSG members the date and checked that they’ll be available.
• Planning Workshop: Check that the room is booked for the time that you’ll need it, and that participants in the workshop know that they’ll be needed and when. You may start the workshop with just the PSG and the Project Manager and then open it out to others later to tackle things such as the Project Plan. And don’t forget to book the refreshments, unless you work in the UK government, where they’re usually so terrible that you’re better off without them.
• Charter and PMP content: Be sure that the PSG members and Project Manager are clear on the nature and content of the Charter and PMP for this project. PMP members can’t work on the documents and make an effective contribution if they’re unclear on what they are, why they’re needed or how they’ll be used.
• Interdependencies: A recurring theme on the checklists in this book, but interdependencies are important. Check to see whether your project is dependent on other areas of work such as other projects, and whether other areas are dependent on your project. If the project does interact with other ones you won’t be able to create a workable plan if you don’t understand the degree and nature of the interaction.

Planning Stage Checklist

The previous checklist included advice that you should make sure that the Stage Plan for the first project stage, the Planning Stage, is complete and realistic. Part of your check will be to make sure that you have put in enough planning time for the various elements. In turn, that will depend on the nature of the project. For example, if the project is high risk, have you allowed sufficient time for extensive risk analysis and planning? Here’s a short checklist to help you make sure that your Stage Plan will be workable.

• Scope: If the scope is still a bit unclear, or if there may be hidden parts of the project making the scope bigger than everyone expected, be sure that you’ve allocated enough time to think about the scope and to discuss and amend the Scope Statement for the full Project Charter (developed from the Outline Charter that you prepared in Kick Off).
• Risk: Picking up on the point in the paragraph before this checklist, make sure that your plan includes enough time for risk analysis and deciding risk action, and also that you’ve thought about the people that you’ll need to help with it. For example, you may want to run a Risk Workshop.
• Quality: If you have to hit a high level of quality you’ll need a lot more time to think through your approach than for a lower quality level. Quality planning can be far reaching and time consuming so think about this aspect carefully.
• Interdependencies: Yes, this item pops up on yet another checklist. However, allow time for working on any interdependencies. Not just to identify them this time but rather to investigate the nature of the dependencies and co-ordinate the Project Plans.

I ran a workshop with a client recently to plan a series of projects. The interdependencies were significant. One project was producing a particular product and until that product was ready and passed to a second project, the second project couldn’t get far at all. The second project then had to go on to produce a series of products, and one of the later ones was needed as an input back in the first project. The first project team suddenly found that there was going to be a big gap in their project. They needed the product from the second project and assumed that it would be ready quickly, but in fact it was going to take several weeks to produce so they had to recast their plan. If you think that’s tough, the second project also had interdependencies with a third project with further timing implications, and in turn those affected the first project again. But wait there’s more, so much more. Shall I continue? No, perhaps not as I guess you’ve now got the point about allowing sufficient time in the Planning Stage.

• Resource levelling: Resource levelling (making sure that the required resource for the project is within the limits of available resource) is time consuming at the best of times. The bad news is that if you are sharing a resource pool with other work or projects, then you’ll need to resource level across projects not just within your own one. Six projects can’t all have the electrical team in Week 17. The amount of work needed for resource levelling will jump up significantly if you have to consider other work areas. You’ll have to talk to other managers and look at their plans, go back and adjust your plans, resolve new conflicts, go back to the other projects a second time to see if there are new implications (or they might have now found new things that affect yours), and even that might not be the end of it. There can be a lot to do but one thing’s for sure; your project won’t work without resource levelling.
• Draft documents: if the PSG wants to see a draft Charter and PMP before agreeing to the final ones, don’t forget to allow time in the plan to produce and circulate the draft documents, time for PSG members to review them, ask any questions and comment, then time to process those comments and produce the final versions.