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Project Proposal
Project Interdependences
Project Prioritisation
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Accounting
Risk Management
Change Management
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Post-Completion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Project Management

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Project Proposal Principle
All projects should move the organisation significantly towards its long-term business goals.  

The first stage in setting up a project is to draw up a project proposal.  This stage should start the thinking processes as to how the project might be executed.  In larger projects, this first stage might well take the form of a feasibility study.

Objectives

It should be possible to test a need for a change or improvement to the business and/or IT to determine whether it should be done at all, whether it should be carried forward as a project, and what the scope and scale of a project would be

It should be possible to make an initial approximation of the margin of benefit over cost of doing the change or improvement

It should be possible to take an initial view of the feasibility of the proposals in terms of investment and whether the work should be done in-house or performed by a supplier.

 It should be possible to turn the need into a proposal that can be evaluated for prioritisation
The assessment of feasibility in terms of impact of the total of all projects cross-company on key people is handled in the Project Prioritisation process – see guideline

Our Approach
The identification investigation may itself require staff time, specific skills and a budget beyond the resources of the sponsoring budget holder to fund the investigation.  

In such cases, a one-page summary should be prepared following the lines of the proposal template but without investigations to substantiate the business justification.  It is up to the Board or Executive Management Team to commission the necessary investigation.  The proposal should stress the prima facie business case for the investigation.
Use the template proposal as a checklist, make investigations under each of the headings.
The template requires that the scope of any project is defined, that key people impacted are identified and an approximate estimate is made of the impact on their time at different stages of the project and that the likelihood of budget is stated.
The availability of a supplier and product, if appropriate, should be established
The outcomes of any investigations for any key show-stoppers should be recorded

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