Transcript:
so welcome to our impactful projects and

planning micro training series

I'm Jamie asdani

in today's session

we're going to talk about how to

initiate your projects and set your team

and stakeholders up for success

so how do your organizations projects

start what happens when your leadership

a staff member or team member or another

stakeholder brings forward an idea to

create something new to address a need

or challenge to further a mission or

priority so what actually happens when

we have an idea that we want to pursue

when our idea becomes a project

so often we jump straight into planning

we go from having some consensus around

pursuing an idea you know to asking well

what exactly are we going to build what

are we going to create what should it

look like what are the first steps we

want to take and in many mission-driven

organizations we sail straight from an

idea into detailed planning skipping

that project initiation activities that

could really help us make our project

more successful and impactful so there

are a couple of things we should be

doing during project initiation getting

some type of project approval setting

project parameters and holding a project

kickoff meeting

so let's talk about each of these and

why they matter

Project Approval

so I always recommend having some type

of project approval process now in many

mission-driven organizations or with

certain projects approvals are pretty

informal and ideas raised to the board

or staff meeting or during a discussion

leadership or team members think it

makes sense and some Lucky Soul or team

is asked to pursue it a project is born

simple is usually best and a formal

bureaucratic process doesn't need to

hinder collaboration or progress but I

would suggest taking a step back before

an informal approval and considering a

few things

first consider whether the project

aligns with your organization's

strategic priorities does it really

support our mission or objectives

second consider whether the project is

actually feasible given your existing

staff and resources if not and we need

to build capacity in some way or get

funding or resources is that feasible

and if we already had that capacity or

those resources is this how they'd be

best put to use

and third we want to consider the

short-term and long-term impacts of the

project and its outcomes on your team

your organization and your community so

who will the project itself impact who

will be impacted by what the project is

going to create and are we able to

sustain the outcomes that we build

these questions can still be considered

informally over a conversation or in a

team meeting but we do want to make sure

we're considering alignment feasibility

and impact when deciding to pursue a

Project Parameters

project

of course we can also approach approval

on these questions more formally with

our team so we can use a project

approval form or process we can conduct

project feasibility or sustainability

assessments

but it's been my experience in

mission-driven organizations that we

often leave the more formal approvals to

those who control the money and

resources because our projects are often

only feasible with Grant or special

funding we adopt our funders approval

process or Grant application process as

our project approval process if we get

the money or resources the Project's

approved and because we often have to

provide detailed plans to these donors

foundations or boards or submit lengthy

applications to get this funding or

support we jump straight from idea to

planning but I think when we put too

much Reliance on funding approvals we

often miss those other important

considerations around alignment and

impact so I recommend having some type

of approval process that considers

alignment feasibility and impact as a

precursor to pursuing funding even if

it's a very informal process

okay so the next activity we should be

doing during project initiation is

setting project parameters again often

we are asked to do this to secure

funding or resources and sometimes we

are handed a project with parameters

already set for us but it's something

that we want to Define very clearly and

confirm during initiation so when you

think of project parameters a few things

may come to mind like the budget there's

often a total funding amount defined

when a project is initiated or a

determination is made of available

resources that can be used for the

project

another parameter may be the final

deadline or dates we expect our outcomes

to be completed or delivered

and we may even have parameters or

criteria for the quality of our outcomes

or the project itself maybe our outcomes

need to meet certain standards include

specific elements or adhere to rules or

regulations these types of parameters

are often set during initiation and are

really important to understand before

moving into planning but there are other

parameters we can consider as well I

Other Parameters

often talk in these trainings about my

five key elements of impactful project

management scope stakeholders outcomes

or deliverables schedule and

Communications I found that these five

elements can greatly impact your

Project's success especially for

mission-driven organizations we use them

throughout a project to plan execute and

monitor progress

beyond the common parameters like

budgets deadlines quality I also

recommend focusing on scope and

stakeholders during project initiation

if we want engagement if we want to set

our teams and stakeholders up for

Success we need to spend time on scope

and stakeholders

so I recommend coming out of initiation

with a written scope statement I've

talked about scope in another training

so I I'm not going to belabor it here

but we do want to go into planning with

a really clear understanding of the

Project's purpose this purpose will

drive the rest of the project and is

critical in creating buy-in and

engagement so if you are handed a

project with a vague scope or the

project is not much more than just a

good idea your first task should be

writing a draft scope statement and

confirming it with leadership or

initiators

I also recommend drafting a list of your

key stakeholders and the roles they

might play in the project during

initiation a mission-driven

organizations are stakeholders our

project teams clients users are probably

the most critical element to project

success so we want to identify them

early we can confirm our stakeholders

and roles in planning but considering

all of our stakeholders and initiation

help set our project up for success

Project Kickoff

another activity that I recommend during

project initiation is a project kickoff

so often particularly if a project is

starting once funding is won or approved

we tend to dive right into the first

project team meeting

because of how critical our stakeholders

are to project success I recommend

ending project initiation with a launch

or kickoff meeting this meeting can mark

that transition from initiation into

planning and usually incorporate some of

our key stakeholders

so for your kickoff or launch meeting

you could invite initiators those folks

with that idea or who directed you to

begin the project your project team

members if you already know them and

other key stakeholders like those who

are going to be participating in or

impacted by the project or its outcomes

so you can use this initiation meeting

to discuss the project scope and how it

relates to your broader Mission or

strategic priorities ensuring everybody

is on the same page you can discuss and

confirm any parameters and you can

consider whether anyone is missing from

the stakeholder list and confirm or

start assigning project roles this type

of meeting can move us into planning so

you may want to begin some planning

activities during this meeting so our

goal with a kickoff is to clarify

purpose support buy-in and engagement

and set the stage for collaboration

when we move straight from idea to

planning and Skip or rush rush through

these initiation activities I think we

get off to a shakier start initiation

allows us to gain some clarity that can

support us and our teams throughout the

rest of the project how we begin can

influence how we end so start your

project off on firm footing

so for more help with project initiation

check out our project initiation meeting

agenda this free download of a meeting

agenda template to help kick off your

project is available at yasani

consulting.com resources so it can be

used to support project kickoff kickoff

or for your first team meeting or those

initial meetings with key stakeholder

groups there are also many other

templates available on our website at

that same link from planning checklists

and stakeholder role guides to meeting

agendas that can help with initiation

and planning and thank you

um Anne-Marie

for your comment I'm glad this is

helpful now if you need more Hands-On

support leading projects and teams or

initiating

projects visit our project Solutions

page at yazaniconsulting.com projects to

learn about how we can help Okay so I'm

happy to take questions you have about

project initiation

please add them in the comments there is

a bit of a streaming delay so I'm going

to give folks a few moments to add their

questions if I'm not able to answer your

question live I'm happy to respond later

in the comments and you can find all of

the ways to contact me at yazdani

consulting.com contact please reach out

if you'd like to talk about project

initiation

okay so a question I often get about

initiation is what's the difference

between initiation and planning some of

these activities seem really similar and

I would say that while there is some

overlap in the parameters and elements

we consider during both initiation and

planning their purpose and how we

consider them is really different so I

would say initiation is about

establishing value and creating buy-in

while planning is about how we will be

taking an action so we might plan um we

may consider during initiation who our

stakeholders are and the rules they're

they're going to play but we're going to

plan for how they're going to execute on

those roles during planning

um we might set a firm deadline for the

project and initiation but we're going

to really lay out that calendar of

events for the length of the project

during planning now many of us including

project managers aren't used to

participating in initiation activities

often these are done above us outside of

us and we think of our value as being in

planning right that's that's often what

we're brought in to do but I really

think we don't at least look back at

initiation to make sure we have Clarity

on things like parameters and scope

we really can lose

um lose momentum and often we start

planning for things that aren't what we

should be planning for and so we really

need to get that Clarity on value and

purpose and the expectations that we

need to meet so that we're able to plan

well and ensure engagement so when we

lead project initiation activities or at

least have a couple of conversations

with our leadership or other initiators

to understand

what they think about some of these

areas I really think you're setting

yourself up

um for a better project great so feel

free to comment or reach out and message

me with any additional questions and

thank you for participating in our imp

impactful projects and planning micro

training series you can visit

yazdaniconsulting.com IPP to view all of

the sessions in the series and learn

about upcoming micro trainings thank you

thank you