Best Practices for Launching IT Projects Successfully

Discover the key elements of professional project initiation

Imagine your next IT project reaching go-live on time, within budget, with stakeholders already confident because risks, dependencies, and handover activities were all thought through in advance. The project initiation document is concise but complete, the governance forums know exactly what they’ve approved, and the team can point to clear critical success factors that tie back to the organisation’s strategic objectives. Our project initiation course is built around that future state: using professional project initiation to reduce failure risk and give your projects a stronger start.

Where initiation fits in the lifecycle

At this stage, it helps to be clear that project initiation is the first phase of the project lifecycle, where scope, objectives and deliverables are defined and the decision to proceed is made. You’ll look at how this phase sets up later work on both linear (Waterfall) and iterative (Agile) projects and why appropriate initiation is required on all projects, from small departmental changes through to major transformation programmes.

Why weak starts drive failure

Research highlighted in this course shows that poor project initiation is a major factor in most IT project failures. You’ll explore how insufficient attention at this stage can lead to budget issues, misalignment with strategic objectives, resource constraints and other downstream problems, including the escalating cost of correcting omissions later in the lifecycle.

Core principles and documentation focus

This course concentrates on project initiation principles and the format and contents of project initiation documents. You’ll examine how to define background, objectives, key success factors and deliverables; confirm scope and stakeholders; and prepare core plans and initiation artefacts, including work packages, in a way that is pragmatic but rigorous rather than excessive.

Governance and pragmatic application

A recurring theme is that professional initiation must be tailored to project size, complexity and methodology, while still providing a solid governance foundation. You’ll see how initiation supports project boards and other governance bodies, how documentation can remain fit for purpose on Agile and Waterfall projects, and how a holistic view of your project helps you decide what to include.

Summary

These project initiation activities are key to success. Research carried out by a leading consultancy in London found that issues with project initiation were a major contributing factor in eighty per cent of project failures. Gain insights on project initiation and eliminate this risk.

For more information on these activities, please request a free copy of the Pathway Project Management Toolkit ebook.