How to properly define a project?

This is most important stage because it builds the foundation for all other project management activities and sets the stage for our eventual project success (or failure).

The irony of this is that depending on your organization and industry, you (the project manager) might be the primary agent in getting this done, or you might not be involved at all until after project definition is complete.

In either case, you need to know how to properly define a project and how to evaluate if a project definition performed by others is complete before starting any detailed project planning efforts.

With all this in mind, in this post we will review the critical importance this step plays, the key questions that must be answered and agreed upon, the “must-have” elements of your Project Definition document, and the success criteria for the project definition process.

Setting the Stage for Success depends on getting the key project participants to agree on the answers to these seven basic project definition questions:

• Why are we doing this? (Purpose)
• What organizational level goal(s) does this project support? (Goals and Objectives)
• How does this project fit with the other projects that are going on? (Scope, Project Context, Project Dependencies)
• What is the expected benefit from this project? (Expected Benefits, Business Case, Value, Success Criteria)
• What are we going to do? (Scope)
• Who is affected by this and who must be involved? (Stakeholders)
• How will we know when we are done and whether the project was successful? (Success Criteria)

Gaining consensus on these questions is paramount to managing the organizational-level factors that get projects in trouble (such as alignment with organization and management support) and to controlling key project-level factors that impact project success: stakeholder expectations and scope
management.

Defining a project is part of the project planning process, however, it is important to make the distinction for several reasons:

• Before you develop a detailed and complete project plan, you need to know the parameters and boundaries for the project.
• You need to know the key stakeholders are in agreement with the project mission (project purpose, goals, objectives, and success criteria) before proceeding.
• The work to properly define a project is often not trivial. In fact, many process-focused and disciplined organizations handle “project definitions” as separate projects. Common examples include business case development projects, cost-benefit analysis projects, selection projects, and assessment projects.
• Detailed project planning and general project management are inefficient, and difficult at best, if project definition is not performed.
• Effective execution of the project definition process enables the organization to leverage portfolio project management processes. This enables the organization to better invest its limited resources in initiatives that offer the greatest return.

Now the question comes "how do we get the key project participants to agree on the answers to the seven basic project definition questions discussed above?"

We write down the questions and get everyone to formally sign off on this document. We will refer to this document as the Project Definition document. There are many different names for the Project Definition document. Some of the most common alternative names are Project Brief, Project Charter, Project Initiation, Scope Statement, and Statement of Work. We'll review both the “must-have” elements and “good-to-have” elements of the Project Definition document in our next post.