Project Management Tool - Initiating a Project

Initiating a project
A good reason for adopting a project management method is that initially the idea is greeted with great enthusiasm within the organisation. Project briefs and PIDs (Project Initiation Documents) fly about like shrapnel. Adoption of a project management method is however, almost always accompanied by a rise in sickness as project managers fall victim to the deadly 'Post Stage Plan Stress Disorder'. It was examination of post stage plan stress disorder that led army psychologists to discover 'Post traumatic stress disorder which strikes down soldiers following active combat duty.

However...you will need to adopt a few techniques and adress a number of tricky issues in this phase.
Risk management
What are project risks for a Project manager?

  • a project sponsor that nit-picks and insists upon concrete, clearly defined results
  • appointing a project board
  • some idiot insisting that go/no go decisions are necessary
  • Sponsors who insist upon meaningful status reports with accurate resource and financial figures and will definitely not accept a load of very colourful graphs and pie charts.


The best method is the tried and trusted method shown opposite. It must work otherwise it wouldn't appear in so many books.