Why the PID Is a Waste of Time | Project Initiation
The other day I had a brief conversation with a project manager who explained that their current project was nearly completed. He talked about the project initiation document. Apparently, it hadn’t been signed-off. In a whisper he confessed that it wasn’t finished.
His comments had me thinking. Why do many project management practitioners and organisations place much importance on the PID? Why is the PID a prominent feature of project initiation?
The project initiation document has become an end in itself not a means to an end.
The PID Is a Means to An End
The project initiation document or PID is a term and product of PRINCE2. Yet the current edition of the PRINCE2 handbook does not describe the PID as a single document. What’s more, the second edition only mentions it in passing with 3 entries showing in the index. The first edition includes eleven references.
Nonetheless, each makes it very clear that assembling the PID is about bringing together documentation produced during project initiation.
Has the project initiation document become an end in itself not a means to an end? Should project managers and project sponsors stop thinking about the contents of the PID and focus on initiating the project?
How to Initiate a Project
The beginning of a project is an important time. It is the time to make a preliminary assessment of opportunity, the benefits, costs, and the likely impact on business. It’s a time when questions are asked and possible solutions identified. A time to challenge why the project is needed.
Project initiation is also about scope and planning. What must the project deliver? When must it deliver? And who needs to be involved?
Initiation is about finding answers to these questions. Questions that cannot be answered by one person. Indeed, it is the project manager’s job to find the answers. To ask the right questions… to ask the right people the right questions!
Only when the answers are known is project initiation complete. Only then can the project confidently move to the next stage.
Project documentation must hold the answers to these question. The initial business case and project plan do. They explain why the project is needed and how things will happen. They record risk, define scope, and document the project organisation.
If you want to assemble these document into a project initiation document that’s just fine. However, make certain you’ve asked all the right questions first!
Thanks for reading.
Image: J+B=Us.
Related articles
- Why Plan? | Project Planning, part 1 (martinwebster.eu)
- The Project Control Cycle (martinwebster.eu)
- How the Business Case Defines Your Project (martinwebster.eu)
