Project Management For Dummies, 6th Edition

Chapter 3

Beginning the Journey: The Genesis of a Project

IN THIS CHAPTER

Gathering information and preparing the business case

Working on the project charter and generating documents

Choosing which proposed projects will move to the second stage of their life cycle

Tailoring approach, governance, and processes for the environment and work at hand

Identifying the models, methods, and artifacts for your project

If you typically deal with relatively short, inexpensive, straightforward projects, you may feel that the life of a project begins the moment your manager assigns it to you. You may not think it’s necessary to spend a lot of time deciding whether to perform the project, when such analysis will probably take more time than the project will to complete. And you may feel that, even if the project isn’t successful, no more than a few dollars and a couple of days will have been spent on it, so what’s the big deal?

Organizations today use projects as a major vehicle to maintain, ...