Project Initiation

This is where our project starts. Someone wants a project done and they have engaged us to make it happen, so we call a meeting with this agenda:

Project Initiation Agenda

• All: Introductions

• Sponsor: Share high level project vision

• Sponsor: Describe current state this project will change

• Sponsor: Describe future state after project completion

• Sponsor: List expenses of current state that will be reduced or eliminated

• Sponsor: List expenses reduced, and/or revenues realized by future state

• Sponsor: List expected investments required to realize future state (including this project)

• Sponsor: Describe related items in project scope

• Sponsor: Describe related items not in project scope

• Sponsor: List stakeholders for research phase

• Consultant: Review our understanding of the project

• Consultant: Assign task to us: Create high level cost/benefit analysis and project schedule

• All: Schedule next meeting

Our goal is to get enough information to know who the stakeholders are and learn enough about the project so we can create a first pass project schedule and, with that schedule, determine if the project seems economically feasible. After introductions, we ask the sponsor to share their vision. Make sure it includes how things related to the project work now (Current State) and how things will work after the project (Future State). Ask for what expenses in the current state will be offset by the benefits of the future state and what revenues will be gained in the future state. Ask who the stake holders are, what their roles in the project are (See RACI)  and how to contact them. Try to get the sponsor to articulate everything that is in-scope and what is out-of-scope. Conclude the meeting by thanking the sponsors for the opportunity, and schedule the follow up meeting where we can provide an estimate of the time required and a simple cost/benefit analysis.

Estimating Time

Customers are always delighted when we deliver sooner than expected. So our estimates should always be on the high side. In my experience, whatever time estimate comes into our head for how long it would take us to code a project, triple it. Out first guess is always based on two factors that will never prove true: 

1. We know all that we need to know to start the project and 

2. Everything will go right the first time. 

There are always unknowns and our first pass will always require corrections. Thus, if we think it will take us a day to create a model, estimate three days. 

In my experience, however long it takes to code a project, the development phase is only a third of the project effort. Thus, if development takes three days, our project will take nine or more. These are SWAGs (Systematic Wild @$$ Guesses). SWAGs can be used as Sanity Checks which means if our final project shows six days but our SWAG says nine we need to check our project plan. 

Creating a First Pass Project Plan

In the previous section we learned about the SDLC for complex Excel projects. That provides the map for our project plan. We can plug that into our favorite project planning tool. I recommend MS Project. But if we want to keep this about Excel, we can use PapaGantt (free Excel Gantt Chart app). Below is our SDLC typed into PapaGantt with an estimate provided for each task for an imaginary project.