What do clients think? – We are all guilty of hearing what we would like to hear – but if it is a customer, is it ours or their fault? Now there is not a lot you can do to change how information is interpreted by people, so let us assume the onus is on us to ensure this doesn’t happen.
Explain the impact – it has to be large enough to be worth fixing. Bear in mind that this is not possible to drive without some notion of an alternative that is probably, a project plan, and an implementation program. To put it differently, it would be wonderful to have a Costing Study and a Feasibility was performed but it can not be done at this point.
Aims – Figuring out exactly what the job must achieve. Aim for a couple of statements which precisely and succinctly say what is to be attained. Not how it is going to be achieved – that is the solution that you are likely to drive. Be careful not to have too many goals – you can shoot an arrow. Of whether an item has been fulfilled, A great test is to ask whether the problem was solved.
Every project needs a host – a manager who is and, depending on the company culture, prepared to fund it. Although the sponsor may not have the budget but will have the ability to seek to finance from management. Find out who is hurting the most work up from there, if in doubt as to who the host is.
Constraints – Establish the limitations within which the job has to be conducted. The more you have of them, the more difficult your job may be to handle. You want to take note of assumed and implied limitations, in addition to the ‘obvious’ ones. Most constraints are going to be in one of 3 classes time, money and performance(quality) at the end deliverable. If it’s an issue then what is it from doing preventing us – what is the impact on the business, on clients and on employees?
But the name of the document is not as important as what is in it – and that signs it off.
Avoid statements like communications between departments because these kinds of projects are to canceled in tough times. Attempt to describe opportunity projects concerning a problem e.g. bad communications between sections is costing us X hours per person each week in doing re-work.
It’s a project where the scope is known at the start, you might need to re-visit this paragraph. Stakeholders – Are there any other individuals, departments, or external organizations that are interested in this project? Name them and record their contact details. Clients – Everything begins and ends with the client, they purchase our products which consequently pays out wages. Government departments have customers.