SIZING THE PROJECT

All projects, regardless of cost, size, complexity, and risk, progress through a standard project lifecycle that includes initial, intermediate, and final phases. The initial phase typically includes the business idea, the project charter, the project team, and the project scope statement. The intermediate phase typically includes the project plan, project baselines, project execution, and project progress tracking and reporting. The final phase includes project approval and closeout.

The first effort at sizing a project generally takes place early in the initial phase—when the project is simply an undeveloped business idea or concept. At this point, the organization may have only limited information about the project, and it may have to base its initial understanding of the project on assumptions or on historical data from analogous projects. Despite the limited amount of information, the organization should be able to make an initial estimation of the project's relative size, complexity, cost, risk, and organizational impact. Each of these factors will have an effect on project feasibility and, subsequently, the project team's approach.

The project sizing matrix is a good tool to use in assessing the relative size of a project (Figure 1.1). This tool incorporates major factors affecting project size, including project cost, complexity (the estimated number of tasks), anticipated risk level, and organizational impact.

Figure 1-1 The Project Sizing Matrix

Cost estimates in the initial phase of the project lifecycle will be only high-level estimates. As the project evolves through the project lifecycle and the project team refines project objectives, requirements, and resource estimates, cost estimates will become more exact, and the project's true size will become more clear.

Similarly, project complexity estimates in the initial phase will be based only on assumptions about how much work—and what kind of work—the project will entail.

The project manager's assessment of risk must be consistent with what the sponsoring organization constitutes a high, medium, or low risk. Some organizations, for example, define high-risk projects as those with at least a 40 percent probability of failure. For others, a ten percent probability of project failure is considered high-risk.

When a project has an impact across organizational boundaries, the associated challenges and considerations for the project sponsor, PM, and project team increase proportionally. Organizational cultures, management styles, strategies, goals, and objectives can differ markedly from one organization to another and from one department to another within a single organization. In these cases, the project sponsor and PM must spend a great deal of time working with stakeholders from each organization or department to ensure project deliverables meet the needs of all stakeholders. Political considerations in these cases will typically require a more conscientious, sophisticated project approach.

Few projects land exactly within the parameters identified by the project sizing matrix. Consider, for example, a project estimated to cost $100,000, to include one hundred tasks, and to have a relatively low level of risk. According to the project sizing matrix, that project would typically be considered small. But what if that project impacts two organizations, including the project sponsor's agency? Would the project still be considered small? In this case, because many of the indices are right on the border of being typical for medium-sized projects, and because there is a significant political aspect to the project impacting multiple organizations, the PM should probably approach this as a medium-sized project.