The Importance of Project Initiation

Because many project managers have never completed activities in this phase (never completed a project charter, never signed a contract, and so on), let's quickly review why PMI considers project initiation an important process.

Initiation is the first step in the project management process, and it is the first step in the scope-management process. It authorizes (formally) a project to begin and links a project to the work and to the strategic objectives of the organization.

Be sure to understand that the Initiation step can occur more than once in a project. The Initiation process is also performed at the end of each project phase to get authorization to continue the project. A common term for this point is a go/no-go decision.

Per PMI, projects should be aligned with the organization's strategic direction. The project-initiation process at the beginning of each project and at the beginning of each phase helps to ensure this alignment throughout the project lifecycle.

Based on our experience, many professionals associate project initiation with some type of "analysis" effort, such as assessment, feasibility study, or business case development. To PMI, the "analysis" effort is a separate project (with its own project charter) that provides information needed to make a decision about initiating a new project.