Project Quickstart Session

Click here to download this overview as a pdf.

If you have ever been involved in a project that was less than successful, you typically look back and lament that you wish you would have spent more time planning. The lack of up-front planning is seen by many people as the most common reason for project problems.

Let’s face it. Before a project begins, you need to spend some quality time planning the work. This is not ‘overhead’ time. This is the time the project manager spends ensuring that the project team and the client have a common understanding and expectation for the project.

TenStep, Inc. can facilitate a session for your entire project team to guide you through the project definition process. This starts off with a discussion of the project, background, context and business benefit. This discussion ensures everyone in the session has a common, minimum understanding of the project. From there we will build a consensus for:

• Project objectives (what the project will accomplish)
• The scope of the project
• Project assumptions
• Project risks and an initial risk plan for each high level risk
• Initial estimates for the project duration, cost and effort
• Project staffing and organization needs
• Overall project approach
• Recommendations on who should review and approve the Project Charter
• Next steps

This information represents the foundation of the project and the work should not be started unless this information is known.

By the end of the session, you should be in a position to quickly draft the following documents:

• Project Charter, including overview, scope, estimated effort, cost and duration, assumptions, risks, organization and project approach.
• Project Management Procedures
• High-level project schedule, with project milestones
• Project organization chart

After the session we will be available to review your draft project deliverables. In fact, we will even create the first draft of these deliverables for you.

Whether you are starting a crucial project, or just need general help with all projects, TenStep Consulting Services can help you get started right, using proven techniques and templates from the TenStep Project Management Process.