Project Initiation Phase – From Idea to Action – Full Guide

An idea without a purpose is not an idea worth pursuing. At least not in project management.

Every project is an ambitious venture. To take your idea and give it legs, it needs to pass the project initiation phase with flying colors. This means you need to construct and develop an irresistible business case. One that’s hard to say no to, because it captures and demonstrates the absolute necessity and clear strategic business benefit of your idea coming to life.

No matter how big or small your idea or initiative is, it needs to be developed, analyzed, and framed with a purpose before it can be approved and launched. To help you set the first project wheels in motion, we’ve come up with a 6-part guide to the project initiation phase.

While it’s by no means the only possible path you can take to a successful project pitch, it is a path worth trying out because it explains how you should position your pitch and argument to give your project idea the best chance of success.

What is The Project Initiation Phase?

Project initiation is a detailed, multi-step process that helps you come up with a persuasive project pitch and supporting documents. The project initiation phase is the first phase of a project’s life cycle, where your key stakeholders and decision makers approve or dismiss your project idea.

It establishes two key components:

1. Why does the project need to happen? Will it solve a problem, meet a customer need, take advantage of a new business opportunity, or meet legal industry requirements?
2. What value will it bring? Will it make you more competitive in the market, streamline or simplify processes, improve the customer experience, or bring new business?

The purpose of the project initiation phase is to research, develop, and evaluate your idea so you can present it to stakeholders and sponsors and get their support, funding, and final approval for launch. The idea is to present the benefits the project will produce so you get the backing of key decision-makers.

How is Project Initiation Different From Project Planning?

The main difference between project initiation and project planning is that they are two separate phases of the project management process, which has five stages:

1. Project Initiation – Develop and pitch your business case for project buy-in.
2. Project Planning – Defining project tasks, timelines, resources, and execution strategy.
3. Project Execution – Completing the tasks of your project plan.
4. Project Performance – Measuring the performance and success of your project.
5. Project Closure – Final debrief of project deliverables and successful closure to stakeholders.

Why is Project Initiation Important?

Project initiation is important because it determines and demonstrates whether your project is worth undertaking. This prevents you from investing time, money, and effort into long-term initiatives that might not achieve the results you hoped or imagined.

But it also sets the groundwork for your project planning phase. If you don’t know what your project’s ultimate purpose is, it will be hard to determine and outline the deliverables and tasks you’ll need to communicate and assign to the project team.

6 Parts Of The Project Initiation Phase

There are a couple of different iterations of the project initiation phase, some with fewer and others with more stages, but we’d break it down into six core parts:

Part 1: Establish Your Stakeholders

A crucial part of the project initiation phase is to identify and create a stakeholder register.

You should have two key groups:

1. Primary stakeholders – These are your approvers. It includes executive leaders, project sponsors, and any cross-functional teams that must be included and need to have a say in the approval of the project.
2. Secondary stakeholders – These are your influencers. It might include teams from the business who are or will be impacted by your project. While they don’t need to participate in the approval process, their insights might be invaluable in the development stages of deliverables. It's a good idea to include them to make sure the business isn’t adversely impacted during and post project implementation.

Knowing exactly who your primary stakeholders are will help you write up a more compelling business case which is positioned to appeal to your ‘approvers’.

Also, getting in touch with your secondary stakeholders will help you land on a solution the business will benefit from. It can also prevent roadblocks or backlash from this group during the project implementation phase, which can delay the project.

Part 2: Build Your Business Case

The next step is to build your business case. This is a document that outlines the purpose of your project and establishes the value it presents to the business’s overall strategy and stakeholders.

Your business case should include:

• Executive summary – Key points of your business case, including the problem or opportunity, the suggested solution as well as the expected benefits.
• Problem/opportunity – Clear outline of the problem or opportunity you’ve identified.
• Solution options – List of potential solutions, their pros and cons, and costs.
• Recommended solution – Outline of the recommended solution along with the reason for this selection.
• Implementation plan – Broad outline of project scope, timelines, deliverables, and necessary resources.
• Cost-benefit analysis – A breakdown of the project’s cost-benefit analysis and return on investment (ROI).
• Risk assessment – Outline of potential risks of the project and how they can be managed.
• Stakeholder analysis – Rundown of teams the project will impact to determine their influence, interest, and participation.
• Concluding pitch – A persuasive summary of the project potential. You want to convince the decision-makers this is a worthwhile venture that strategically aligns to, supports or drives your business vision.

This document can be anywhere from a few pages for small initiatives to several dozen pages for more complex projects. However, its length is not as important as the arguments you use to back your claims and pitch.

A couple of tips for building a business case:

• Ask yourself, how can I bring this closer to the decision-makers? What do they care about most? Try to find and establish the link between their key interests and your project’s purpose.
• Avoid vague claims and figures. Instead of saying: ‘Feedback shows that…’ say, ‘A survey report of 500 customers identified’. And instead of saying, ‘50% of the budget will be allocated to this deliverable,’ include the actual dollar-figure.

Part 3: Run a Feasibility Study

A feasibility study is just a fancy term for an evaluation of whether or not your project is an achievable and worthy feat based on the resources you have to work with.

It could include all or some of the following assessments (depending on how comprehensive your want to be):

• Technical – Do you have the technical expertise, and how much will you need to use for the project?
• Resources – Do you have the human resources needed for the project?
• Economic – Will the benefits of the project outweigh the cost of its implementation and development?
• Legal – Will the project adhere to legal requirements of the business and industry?
• Operational – Will the business’s needs be met by the project’s completion?
• Scheduling – Can the project be completed and milestones reached in the set timeframe with the given resources?
• Risk – What are the potential risks and mitigation or contingency plans?

A couple of tips for running a feasibility study:

• Consider if you need to run a feasibility study: While it is recommended, it might not be necessary if your project is small, if you’ve done a similar project recently, or if your competitors have already beat you to the punch and are already reaping the benefits of a similar project.
• Be comprehensive: The more detailed your feasibility study is, the greater your chance of getting your project over the line. The study is as valuable to the project manager as it is to the decision-makers of the project. If you spot potential feasibility issues in any areas, it’s worth investigating to see if there are other more viable options.

Part 4: Develop The Project Initiation Document Or Project Charter

Your Project Initiation Document (PID) is the final document you need to develop before you go and pitch your idea to key stakeholders who will, or won’t approve the project.

Sometimes, project managers will create a project charter instead, which can be used to get sign off from project sponsors, but if you’re seeking formal approval for your project from sponsors as well as executive stakeholders, a PID would be the way to go.

One thing to note: While a project initiation document is referred to as one document, it can actually be a collection of documents.

A project initiation document should include:

• Project definition – Summary of purpose, goals and objectives, success criteria and assumptions and constraints.
• Business case – If you follow the process in this blog, you’ll already have the business case you created in Part 2. This is the document that justifies the project’s need.
• Scope – This is a clear-cut outline of what deliverables will be included in the project.
• Budget – A breakdown of the budget you will need to deliver all project tasks.
• Schedule – You can construct a project schedule and work breakdown structure, which includes the entire task workflow with start and finish dates. Once you have that, you will have a visual representation of the project’s timeline.
• Resources – A list of all the resources needed, including personnel and equipment.
• Risk plan – Outline of potential risks and mitigation plans.
• Roles & responsibilities – Full list of all team members’ roles and clearly defined responsibilities.
• Project controls – Processes that will be used to monitor and manage various parts of the project, including the schedule, resources, and risks.
• Communication plan – A clear process for project communications and updates. It outlines who should and will be informed, when, and how.

A couple of tips for improving the process of creating a project initiation document:

• Ask questions and get confirmation: As the project manager, you might own the entire initiation phase process, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask, get advice, insights, and confirmation from relevant stakeholders and key business partners. Give stakeholders, in particular, the opportunity to ask questions and share their thoughts because if they are unclear on something, you can address it before you pitch the project.
• Be clear-cut on the scope: Scope creep is a huge issue in projects. This is why you want to be as comprehensive and as detailed as you can in the scope section of your PID. It can save a lot of pain later down the line.

Part 5: Project Pitch

The project pitch is the part where you need to be a storyteller. Remember, all the work you’ve done to this point has been preparation for the hour or so you’ll have to present your vision to the leadership team and stakeholders.

And that’s exactly how you should present your project pitch: as a vision.

Here’s what your pitch should be:

• Purposeful – This is the storytelling part. You need to make the pitch a compelling one. Think about key real-life examples that will help your audience not just understand but resonate with your ideas.
• Sincere – Avoid being evasive about things that might present as an issue or obstacle to your project’s approval. This can ruin your chances from the onset. Instead, be the first to identify, share, and evaluate concerns.
• Relevant – Emphasize how it endorses and drives a strategic focus or interest for the business.
• Impactful – Showcase the benefits and the positive impact the project’s delivery will achieve for all parties involved.
• Visual – Tell your story in pictures, videos, numbers, direct quotes, and whatever other elements you can use that will support your ideas.
• Interactive – You might do most of the speaking, but make sure you give your audience the opportunity to ask questions and share any concerns they have throughout the pitch.

Tips for making a better project pitch:

• Be ready for adjustments: The approval process might not end up being a quick and smooth sign-off and approval. You may need to make adjustments to your project based on feedback. It’s important to be ready and aware that there might be some back and forth between stakeholders before you get the final green light.

Part 6: Assemble Your Project Team

If you’ve managed to successfully convince your stakeholders of your project’s value, you can move to the final stage of the project initiation phase: assembling your team.

This is where you consider and establish the following:

• Who will make your team – It might be internal employees who will need to be reassigned to your project, new hires, or external contractors and consultants. The main thing to focus on here is to onboard people with the right set of skills and experience.
• Confirm roles and responsibilities – You’ll need to define the roles and responsibilities of all your team members.
• Virtual or in-office – The next thing you need to be clear about is whether your project will be run in a virtual or in-office setting. This will determine the types of tools and infrastructure you’ll need to run the show.
• Tools – If you haven’t already, you’ll need to do a bit of research to land the right toolset for the successful execution of your project workflow. These could be specialty-designed tools for project management, task management, or team collaboration, like ActiveCollab.

Common Challenges in Project Initiation

Project managers can come face-to-face with some common challenges that might slow down the progress from idea to pitch and risk the idea being dropped.

Some of these challenges include not having a concise purpose, getting stakeholder backing, unclear project scope, and finding convincing data that backs your idea.

Landing Your Purpose

Unless you can strategically link your project purpose with the business vision, it’s unlikely your pitch will be successful. Try to establish and communicate your project’s purpose with as much tangible value as possible. To do that, you need to know who will benefit most from your project and how. Focus on this group as your target audience and base the pitch around their story.

Getting Stakeholder Backing

One of the best ways to get your stakeholders' backing is to have a project or executive sponsor who is passionate about your initiative, interested, and highly involved throughout the initiation phase and the entire project. These are the best types of sponsors because their passion will transfer to become an influential power in the pitching process.

Unclear Project Scope

Unclear project scope can creep up on you at all stages of a project, but it can be highly detrimental in the initiation phase because it’s also where you do a breakdown of your budget. If you leave your scope vague in this phase it can be hard to land a realistic budget.

Finding The Data To Back Value

If you don’t have the data to prove your project will be a profitable investment, be prepared to answer the question: “How can we be certain of the ROI”? That’s why a feasibility study is a good idea. It might be costly and time-consuming, but it will give you the numbers and rationale to avoid these questions.

How ActiveCollab Helps You Set Up A Smooth Project Initiation Phase

To start a project, you need to get buy-in from all your stakeholders. You need to come up with a convincing and impressive argument for why it's worth pursuing. The project initiation phase is a multi-step process that helps you gather all the information you need to make a persuasive pitch.

One way ActiveCollab can support you in this process is to simplify your communication and collaboration with various stakeholders and teams who will be invaluable in the development of arguments and documentation of project initiation.

With its project management, budgeting, scheduling, and resource management capabilities, it’s a powerful tool that houses and tracks all the processes and documents needed for project initiation, which will take you from idea to pitch.

Simply create your project, invite and set permissions for your stakeholders and team members, log tasks for each of the six parts we discussed above, and start setting the groundwork for your project idea.

ActiveCollab is a simple-to-use productivity and collaboration workspace that has been created with project managers in mind. We run on the idea that your project should be a smooth and uncomplicated ride. That’s why our tool removes and simplifies any multi-step process that requires the input of a dozen or several dozen contributors or subject matter experts.

If you’re in the early stages of a project’s development and want to make the journey a little less manual and a little more streamlined and automated, then why not check out our virtual platform? Sign up for our 14–day free trial or book a demo for a guided tour!