Project brief
The project brief is what the project sponsor should hand over to the project manager outlining what they had in mind for the project and how it fits in with the education organisation's strategies and plans.
If the project involves building a new gymnasium then you can expect a clear project brief as this is a traditional and well understood requirement.
If the project involves reviewing current records management policies, procedures and systems and defining the requirements for and procuring an EDRM system then as this is a new area for most education organisations you probably cannot expect as clear a brief and one of the key tasks for the team early on is to define the scope and coverage of the project as clearly as possible. This would normally be done in the PID and may result in the project brief being altered at the time when the PID is agreed and signed off.
Business case
The business case should investigate the feasibility of the project including the likely timescales and costs and whether it will deliver sufficient benefits to justify the expected costs.
If you have completed stage one then you should be clear on the type of solution you require although this will clearly be subject to confirmation after you have completed stages two to four.
At stage two you need to decide the full scope of the project and in particular the detailed scope of the first stages of the project. This should be defined in the Project Initiation Document. You should then be able to provide outline costs and benefits for the project as a whole and a more detailed set of costs and benefits for the early stages of the project.
We would recommend that the business case is produced and delivered with the PID rather than prior to the PID. We also recommend that the PID should clearly state when in the project the team expect to be able to provide a more detailed business case.
In this EDRM toolkit we assume that a detailed business case can only be produced at stage five once the information gathering and analysis and the feasibility stages have been completed and a preferred approach has been agreed. Only then can a detailed business case be produced for the preferred approach and the preferred system.
