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Once a project is approved, the project planning starts in earnest. In this lesson learn the best practices for this start of project planning are presented and discussed.

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Quick reference

Approval and Kickoff

Most projects will have a specific date or event at which the stakeholders will approve the Project Charter in order to authorize work to begin.  Often this is immediately followed by a kickoff meeting with the project team and stakeholders to ensure alignment on project goals and objectives.

When to use

Projects can be approved in many different manners.  Large projects are often approved as part of a strategic planning or annual budgeting process.  During those meetings, many Project Charters are reviewed and a subset is selected for approval.  Smaller projects are more likely to be approved at staff meetings or business review meetings.  Externally funded projects are often approved when the contract is awarded by the customer or funding agency.  Regardless of how the project is approved, the project manager will normally call a Kickoff meeting at the start of detailed project planning to explain the elements of the project charter and ensure alignment with all key stakeholders.   

Instructions

The Project Charter approval process is driven by local practice and procedures. The only best practice is to do it!  The project manager and project sponsor should have a clear point when the project manager has been authorized to begin work.  At that point, the project manager will acquire a project team (unless one has already been appointed) and initiate any project accounting that must be done with Finance or Purchasing so that the project can begin to spend money. 

In many organizations, this authorization is part of a formal stage-gate or toll-gate process.  The business leadership reviews and approves the Project Charter and the project is authorized to start work.  However, in some organizations or for some category of projects, the authority to start is much more informal.  The project manager will meet with the sponsor in a one-on-one meeting, or the Project Charter may be one of many items covered at a staff meeting.  In fact, the Project Charter may not even be a formal document, it may just be an action item assigned from the meeting.  If the approval is informal, I still recommend that you follow up with a formal email or another document that provides the elements of the project charter with the date and authority for approval.

Regardless of how the approval is received, it is always a good idea for the project manager to conduct a kickoff meeting.   This meeting is used to answer any questions about the project and to gain alignment among stakeholders on the project goals and objectives along with any assumptions or constraints.  The attendance at this meeting should be the project sponsor, the project manager, the project management team, and any other team members who have already been identified.  In addition, the meeting will sometimes have customers, suppliers, operational and functional managers, along with any project management support.  Basically, it will be any of the key critical stakeholders that were identified during the stakeholder analysis.

This is an important meeting, especially if the project manager or some of the team members do not know each other.  There is an old saying that, “You only get one chance to make a first impression.”  This kickoff meeting is the first impression that many of the stakeholders will have for how this project will be managed and executed.  It is a great time to clarify expectations, build team comradery, establish team ground rules for communication and decision-making, and start the planning process. During this meeting, the context of the project should be clear: a customer need, a business improvement, a technology upgrade, or a regulatory requirement.

I often use the “W’s” as an outline for this meeting:

  • What: the intended project goal or objective.
  • Why:  the reason the project is needed.
  • Who: the project stakeholders and team members.
  • When: the project start date and desired finish date.
  • Where: location of key project activities (if the team is not co-located)
  • How: assumptions and constraints around the options available for planning and executing the project.
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  • 00:04 Hi, this is Ray Sheen.
  • 00:05 Let's start our discussion of project planning by talking about the approval of
  • 00:09 the project charter and the project kickoff meeting.
  • 00:12 The project starter documents the project goals and objectives,
  • 00:16 along with some key assumptions and constraints.
  • 00:18 The approval of that charter is an approval by the stakeholders for
  • 00:22 the project to actually get underway.
  • 00:24 The project manager can recruit team members and
  • 00:27 begin to spend money associated with conducting the detailed project planning.
  • 00:32 In many organizations, this approval is made at a formal stage gate or
  • 00:36 Tollgate meeting.
  • 00:37 This is especially true if the project is a large strategic or
  • 00:41 capital intensive project.
  • 00:43 In those cases, the business wants to have a formal recognition of the project, and
  • 00:48 ensure the goals and boundaries are documented.
  • 00:51 Now the team can create the detailed project plan.
  • 00:54 For the smaller project or smaller organizations,
  • 00:57 the approval may be less formal.
  • 00:59 It may come from a staff meeting or one-on-one meeting with the sponsor.
  • 01:04 On more than one occasion, I receive formal approval for
  • 01:07 a project based upon a hallway conversation with the boss.
  • 01:10 When that happens, I still recommend following up with an email or
  • 01:14 some other formal document that the project has started.
  • 01:18 If the project is likely to be a big spender, the approval is needed by finance
  • 01:23 to set up any cost accounts that will be used by the project.
  • 01:26 Approval of the project charter is directly tied to the project initiation
  • 01:31 context.
  • 01:31 Let me explain.
  • 01:33 There's a reason behind doing this project.
  • 01:35 Most organizations are resource constrained,
  • 01:38 when they decide to do one project, they're giving up the opportunity to do
  • 01:42 some other projects because they won't have enough money or people.
  • 01:46 The approval of the project occurs with the understanding that the project is
  • 01:51 focused or constrained towards reaching the specific project objective.
  • 01:55 That objective could be to satisfy the needs of key customers or stakeholders.
  • 02:00 That objective could be to implement changes to business processes or
  • 02:04 products as part of a change in business or technology strategy.
  • 02:09 It could be to fix a problem with the current products, processes, or services.
  • 02:13 And sometimes the project objective is to ensure compliance with the new or
  • 02:18 modified regulatory, legal or social requirement.
  • 02:22 This objective constrains the project team to ensure the project resources
  • 02:26 are applied to the priorities that have been set by the business stakeholders.
  • 02:30 By understanding why this project is done,
  • 02:33 they can optimize the plan and project performance.
  • 02:37 This context also affects the risk sensitivity of the project.
  • 02:41 For instance, a project incorporating new technology may be more focused primarily
  • 02:45 on risk associated with proving the technology is effective,
  • 02:49 even if it takes longer than planned.
  • 02:51 While a project that is addressing a regulatory requirement will be focused on
  • 02:56 fully complying by a certain date specified by the regulator.
  • 02:59 Many of the day-to-day decisions of a project manager involve risk trade-offs.
  • 03:04 Understanding the context is essential for making the correct decisions.
  • 03:09 This context should be explained to the project team during the kickoff meeting.
  • 03:14 This will help them understand the constraints that have been imposed, and
  • 03:18 help them minimize risks to the project as they help to plan the project.
  • 03:22 So let's talk about this kickoff meeting.
  • 03:25 The meeting has many purposes.
  • 03:27 These includes starting the project team building, laying out the ground rules for
  • 03:31 project planning, and how project communication and updates will be handled.
  • 03:35 Articulating the project objective to ensure all are on the same page.
  • 03:39 And clarifying constraints to clear up any confusions or
  • 03:42 doubts about how the project will be planned and managed.
  • 03:46 All of these serve to align the project team and get them working together.
  • 03:51 There's an old saying, you get one chance to make a first impression.
  • 03:55 This kickoff meeting is the first impression about the project for
  • 03:58 most of the project team members and stakeholders.
  • 04:01 If the meeting sends a message of confusion, disorder, or bureaucracy,
  • 04:06 the first impression will be hard to overcome.
  • 04:09 So plan the meeting, decide what you will say, who will be present, and
  • 04:13 how you will engage the stakeholders.
  • 04:15 Ensure all the project core team will attend.
  • 04:18 This is also an opportunity for core team members,
  • 04:21 who are working together for the first time, to make their first impression.
  • 04:25 A no show sends the message that the core team member can't be relied
  • 04:30 upon to do their share of the project work.
  • 04:33 A great technique that I have found works well for
  • 04:36 planning the meeting is to go through the project W's.
  • 04:40 What is the project goal?
  • 04:41 Why are you doing this?
  • 04:43 Who is the customer and team members?
  • 04:45 When do we start and finish?
  • 04:47 Where will project activities occur?
  • 04:50 And how will the project be planned and managed?
  • 04:54 The project charter approval and
  • 04:56 the kickoff meeting are the transition from initiation to planning.
  • 05:00 These form the foundation for this next phase.

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