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Initiation & Planning#

Overview#

The initiation and planning delivery element encompasses:

  • Defining the project to describe – at a high-level – the project purpose, goals, requirements, and risks.
  • Preparing plans for the general management of the project and the various underlying processes.
  • Preparing the baseline for the ongoing monitoring and performance management of the project.
  • Conducting project level (non-technical) kick-offs internally and with the client.

Broadly, this upfront work involves the refinement of objectives, and definition of the detailed course of action required to meet the objectives. Key stakeholders, including the technical team, should be consulted to complete the detailed planning to an executable resolution.

Whilst the intent, and often the requirement, is to quicky commence technical execution of projects, the initial work in planning is critical to the success of the project and should be significantly completed in advance of the commencing technical delivery of the project, ie before commencement of the Execution. Discipline is essential to ensure pressures to commence on the technical aspects of a project are resisted until sufficient planning has been conducted, at least to appropriately establish a baseline for project measurement.

Notwithstanding the above, a lot of the work involved in initiating and planning for the project will have been completed at some level of detail in the process of preparing the proposal to the original client RFT/P, or in a preceding lifecycle phase of the project where GTE had been involved.

Definition#

From a practical perspective, the definition work will generally be largely complete to a near sufficient level and need only be aggregated and finessed or prepared for the consumption of the project team, for example as a redacted copy of the tender document.

Project Management Plan#

The Project Management Plan covers all aspects of the project including scope, cost and schedule management as well as quality, risk, resourcing and communications. For some projects, it may be necessary to develop a PMP to meet project or client specific needs however, in most instances the GTE Standard Project Management Plan will be appropriate to govern the general management of the project and underlying processes.

Baseline Establishment#

The majority of work is then generally in preparing the project baseline. The project schedule, granularly 'time-phased' and budget and resource 'loaded', is developed in this process to become the single source of truth for the project baseline.

Time-Phased

'Time phased' refers to the distribution over time of the work and budget. By defining and scheduling work at a sufficiently granular level and distributing the budget to similar activity level resolution ('budgeting loading'), the project planned, earned and actual value can be assessed much more accurately over time rather than simply as point, or coarsely linearised, data. This is fundamental to GTE EVM.

Resource Loading

'Resource loading' budgeted activities – referring to assigning resources to these activities – allows detailed resource management to ensure loading is smoothed to achievable levels and appropriate resources are assigned both to the project and across the company.

Generally, the tender schedule – if this was prepared as a tender requirement – will lack the resolution and detail for execution and some upfront development is required for it to be "execution ready", including increasing activity resolution and sequencing, and re-distributing or refining budgets against activities where the contract arrangement allows this.

From a practical perspective, the planning process also occurs continually throughout the project due to inevitable change and evolving understanding of requirements, for example, however the delivery element is considered complete for GTE projects once the initial planning exercise has concluded. This obviously does not prevent the PMP and other outputs of this initial work from being revised as necessary throughout the project.

Commencement Checks#

The following must be completed before commencing Initiation & Planning for a project: 1. Contract (or purchase order) received 2. Project manager assigned 3. All inputs confirmed available: - GTE tender documentation (where not superseded by the contract) - Contract (or purchase order) documentation, including Scope of Work and applicable standards, etc

Activities & Outputs#

The Initiation & Planning delivery element will deliver the following activities and outputs, to the extent as determined by the Output Applicability Grid:

  1. [Project initiation/proposal handover meeting]
  2. Business system setup
  3. Project Charter
  4. Kick-off meeting (internal - project/resourcing)
  5. Kick-off meeting (client - project)
  6. Project Management Plan
  7. Project Schedule (Baseline)
  8. Project Risk Register (preliminary)

Project Initiation/Proposal Handover Meeting#

In some instances, it may be necessary to provide a PM-level initiation meeting, such as where the nominated Project Manager is unfamiliar with the project from the proposal phase. This initiation/proposal handover meeting is optional, on an as-required basis. Where the meeting is held, it should be minuted using the appropriate template.

The meeting should be arranged and run by the Proposal Manager, or person most familiar with the project; and may involve only this person and the assigned Project Manager.

Business System Setup#

Coming... see the Smartsheet Project Process Management for now.

Project Charter#

The project charter is a key document that formally authorizes the existence of a project and provides the PM with the authority to use GTE resources to execute project activities. A subset of the information in the Charter is also the basis for quickly familiarising new personnel to the project. The intent of the Project Charter is to outline, at a very high level:

  • Client's reason(s) for the project (statement of work),
  • High-level scope matrix (in, out, others),
  • Detailed scope governance documents (and locations),
  • GTE's objectives and benefits, including key desired outcomes (project success criteria),
  • Sponsor and main stakeholder(s),
  • Risks,
  • Constraints and assumptions,
  • Budget, and
  • Target dates for delivery (milestones and/or tender schedule)

Given the nature of most projects undertaken by GTE being generally a services contract for provision of a component of a client's project, the Project Charter should be a relatively simple, high level document only. In most cases it should essentially aggregate, and occasionally expand, data developed during the preparation of the proposal for the client's project.

This document should be generated in Smartsheet (template not yet available...).

The Project Charter must be approved by the Project Sponsor.

Kick-Off Meeting (Internal – Project/Resourcing)#

Kick-off meetings with the internal resource leads – as relevant for the teams and disciplines involved with the project – are mandatory for all GTE projects.

Meetings must be minuted using the appropriate template - see Tools & Templates - which also serves as an agenda. The project manager must arrange the meeting.

The intent of the project/resourcing kick-off meeting is primarily to advise resource leads that the project has been awarded to GTE and to provide resource requirement timelines to allow appropriate resource planning or inform the project schedule development of resourcing constraints. Accordingly, this meeting should be held as soon as possible following award – ideally within several days – once sufficient scheduling information has been prepared. In the interest of providing as much notice as possible to the resourcing leads, it is often sufficient to use the tender schedule for the meeting and use the discussion to drive the development of the detailed project schedule.

The meeting will necessarily include a discussion of scope; however, this should remain brief for context only. The project charter is a useful concise resource for this purpose. The meeting should also include project team resources such as cost and document control representatives and will provide the forum for the team to present any queries for the project manager to raise with the client representative at the client kick-off (project) meeting. In some instances, it may be necessary or appropriate to combine this meeting with the client kick-off meeting.

Kick-Off Meeting (Client - Project)#

Kick-off meetings with the client are mandatory for all GTE projects. Meetings must be minuted.

The client project manager will generally arrange the meeting, however, should that not be the case the GTE Project Manager is accountable to GTE for doing so.

Note

In rare instances, it may be necessary or appropriate to combine this meeting with the internal project/resourcing kick-off meeting.

Shutdown Planning

For shutdown planning ensure our mobilisation team (mobilisations@gtegroup.com.au) is invited to meetings with our clients so that they are involved with the planning discussions. This will allow the mobilisation team to answer any questions directly and provide clarity for everyone in the room - that is often unclear for all (GTE and clients).

Client kick-off meetings may be conducted by phone in some instances, but this does not negate the need for formal minutes. For higher classification projects, there may be more significant numbers of attendees including GTE and client technical leads, and client stakeholder representatives.

The meeting is intended to be broad ranging, covering both commercial, and high-level technical topics.

The meeting minutes template should be used as an agenda - see Tools & Templates.

Agenda items include:

  1. Introductions
  2. Scope and Technical
    • Scope summary/overview for the purpose of clarification and confirmation, including to establish the relevant scope documentation such as SOW, Stakeholder Requirements, FUSP
    • Review of major deliverables
    • RFI/TQ process (GTE's preference is Smartsheet)
  3. Safety – project-specific considerations
  4. Schedule
    • Major Milestones
    • Timing for the preparation of the proposed Baseline Schedule
    • GTE's preference to use Smartsheet
  5. Communication
    • Points of contact for GTE and the client – whether singular or permitting technical leads to discuss directly and formalise retrospectively where necessary
    • Preferred timing for formal meetings (weekly/monthly/other)
    • Carbon copy list for TQs/RFIs
  6. Document Control
    • Transmittal method (GTE's preference is Smartsheet)
    • Client project codes for references (PO number or project numbers)
    • Project specific client document control requirements
  7. Commercial
    • Reporting
    • Timesheet approvals
    • Invoicing
  8. Other
    • Access requirements (eg for PCN Access, Smartsheet Access, SharePoint, MS Teams Group)
    • Discuss any pressing matters such as imminent site trips for data collection

Project Management PLan#

Coming...

Project Schedule (Baseline)#

The project schedule must be developed by the project manager in accordance with the awarded budget and the contracted milestone dates; and resourced in consultation with the resource leads.

This must be done using the appropriate template - see Tools & Templates - to ensure compliance with the standard WBS and metrics.