Project Stages

It is also a principle of sound project management/project planning that the project is broken into stages at which the business case is reviewed to ensure it is still valid. This may sound logical in theory but once a project is under way and gaining momentum, it is often difficult to stand back and look objectively at the business case.

To take the example of system selection, you should be aware at the outset that a possible outcome of the project is that you can't find anything that meets your requirements. This scenario may be unlikely and perhaps indicative of a flawed requirements specification but it could occur. Perhaps more likely is that none of the solutions is quite ideal and you need to choose between best fit for different purposes, consider increasing your budget or look at changing your business processes. It may be unpalatable to a team charged with selecting a new system to realise that the system will be far more costly than envisaged and cannot be justified in cost benefit terms but the project will have been a success in institutional terms if it reaches the right conclusion.

We will return to the subject of stage boundaries or key decision points as we progress through the model.