Can your people support the project? why project start-up needs two steps

Many organisations begin projects by asking a familiar set of questions: How much will it cost? Is funding available? What is the return? Can the procurement be approved?

These questions matter, but they are not enough. A project can be affordable and still be undeliverable. A compelling financial case can be presented and still overwhelm the people expected to implement, adopt and sustain it. It can deliver its technical outputs on time while disrupting operations, eroding trust and delaying more important change.

The problem is not that organisations consider finance. The problem is that financial approval too often becomes a proxy for project readiness.

A stronger approach separates project start-up from project initiation and planning. The first step determines whether an idea is sufficiently worthwhile and viable to develop. The second establishes whether the organisation can responsibly deliver the initiative and absorb the resulting change. Between them sits a deliberate decision point: not merely, “Can we pay for this?” but, “Should we proceed, can we deliver it, and are our people and operating system ready for it?”

This two-step approach is consistent with PRINCE2 Project Management, the Five Case Model and PMLogic’s DELIVER lifecycle. More importantly, it places people at the centre of the investment decision rather than treating them as recipients of a solution designed elsewhere.

why project start-up needs two steps

When financial approval outruns organisational reality

Consider a relatively modest technology change affecting a critical workforce process. On a project cost dashboard, it may appear small. Yet if it changes how thousands of employees are paid, rostered or supported, its enterprise consequence can be substantial. Weak requirements, limited engagement, insufficient testing or inadequate operational preparation may damage trust, consume executive attention and delay a much larger transformation that depends on the same people and systems.

The original cost estimate says very little about this exposure.

In another organisation, a new platform may be delivered substantially as specified, but the operating teams expected to use it have not been given sufficient time to redesign their processes, prepare data, build capability or resolve role boundaries. The project reports completion while the organisation inherits workarounds, falling productivity and an extended period of stabilisation.

A third pattern occurs at portfolio level. Each initiative has its own approved business case, sponsor and delivery plan, but several projects converge on the same business unit during the same quarter. Individually, each plan looks achievable. In aggregate, the combined training, testing, data preparation, communications, process redesign and operational disruption exceed the workforce’s capacity to absorb change.

These are not primarily failures of budgeting. They are failures to see the organisation as a system.

team presentation

The first step: start up the right initiative

The purpose of project start-up is not to produce a detailed plan prematurely. It is to convert an idea, problem or opportunity into a sufficiently informed proposition for an initiation decision.

This is the point at which leaders should clarify:

• the problem or opportunity and why action is needed now

• the intended outcomes, benefits, potential negative outcomes and affected groups

• alignment with strategy, policy, service obligations and other initiatives

• plausible options, including doing less, sequencing differently or not proceeding

• the scale of operational, workforce, customer, technology and regulatory consequences

• who will own the change and the benefits after project closure

• the people, capability, data and delivery capacity needed to undertake proper initiation

• early dependencies, constraints, assumptions and threats to viability

• whether the initiative warrants priority within the portfolio.

The output should be proportionate. Depending on the context, it may include a project brief or project charter, strategic assessment, preliminary business case or Strategic Outline Case. Its purpose is to enable an informed choice about whether to invest in detailed initiation and planning, not to create the illusion that all uncertainty has already been resolved.

This protects the organisation from two opposite errors: committing too early to an attractive solution, and imposing a full planning burden on ideas that have not yet demonstrated sufficient value or feasibility.

The second step: prove that the change can be delivered and absorbed

Once authorised to proceed into initiation, the task becomes more demanding. The organisation must develop an integrated understanding of what it will take to create the required outputs, transition them into use and realise sustainable value.

PRINCE2 Project Management provides a helpful distinction between Starting up a Project and Initiating a Project. Start-up asks whether there is a viable and worthwhile project to initiate. Initiation establishes the firm foundations needed to manage and control it. PRINCE2 7 also makes the people element explicit, recognising that successful projects depend on those leading, delivering and affected by change, not only on processes and controls.

The Five Case Model strengthens this discipline by requiring decision-makers to consider five connected questions:

Case	Central question
Strategic	Is the initiative needed, and does it fit organisational priorities?
Economic	Which option offers the best overall public or organisational value?
Commercial	Can the required products and services be sourced and contracted effectively?
Financial	Is the preferred option affordable and fundable?
Management	Can it be delivered successfully, governed properly and translated into benefits?

The financial case is therefore one case, not the whole case. The management case is where many apparently sound investments are weakest. It must test whether the organisation has credible governance, resources, capability, controls, transition arrangements and benefit ownership. It should also demonstrate whether affected areas can take on the change without compromising essential operations.

Initiation and planning should consequently integrate delivery planning with change impact and operational readiness. This includes:

• stakeholder involvement in shaping requirements and selecting the preferred approach

• a realistic view of subject matter expert availability and business participation

• current-state and future-state process design

• workforce, role, capability and cultural impacts

• data, technology, security and integration readiness

• testing that includes end-to-end operational scenarios, not only technical performance

• transition, cutover, contingency, hypercare and handover arrangements

• operational acceptance criteria and named business owners

• measures for outputs, outcomes, benefits, disbenefits and unintended consequences

• the capacity of the portfolio and receiving business areas to absorb the change at the proposed time.

This is not a separate “change management stream” added after the technical plan is complete. It is part of the project’s core design and should be developed with the people who understand the work.

Give every significant change a portfolio runway slot

Airports do not allow every aircraft with an approved flight plan to use the runway at once. Portfolios should apply the same logic to organisational change.

A project may have funding, an approved business case and an available supplier (the delivery team), yet still lack a viable runway slot. Its proposed implementation window may conflict with peak operational demand, another system release, regulatory activity, workforce negotiations or several other initiatives affecting the same teams.

A portfolio runway slot is an explicit commitment of organisational capacity for the period in which the change must be tested, introduced, adopted and stabilised. It should be informed by the aggregate impact of all initiatives, not awarded solely according to which project secured funding first or presents the largest budget.

Portfolio-level assessment should consider:

• which workforce groups, customers, processes and systems are affected

• the intensity and duration of each impact

• competing demands on leaders, specialists and frontline teams

• dependencies between releases and initiatives

• operational blackout periods and non-negotiable service requirements

• the time required for adoption and stabilisation before further change arrives

• cumulative fatigue, trust and readiness, including the effects of recent delivery failures.

This allows leaders to sequence, combine, defer, reshape or stop initiatives before congestion turns into failure. It also changes portfolio governance from a collection of financial approvals into active stewardship of organisational capacity and value.

team meeting

Use fast thinking to identify opportunities, then slow thinking to test them

Daniel Kahneman’s distinction between fast and slow thinking is useful in project investment decisions. Fast thinking is intuitive, pattern-based and efficient. It helps experienced leaders recognise an urgent problem, an emerging opportunity or a promising solution. Organisations need this speed.

However, fast thinking can also encourage premature certainty. Leaders may anchor on the first solution proposed, underestimate complexity, overestimate benefits or substitute an easy question, such as “Is the budget available?”, for the harder question, “Will this change work within our organisation and produce sustainable value?”

The two-step process creates space for slower strategic thinking before major commitments are made. It encourages leaders to examine alternative explanations, seek contrary evidence, test assumptions, use reference-class information, involve those closest to the work and consider the initiative within the wider organisational system.

The aim is not to make every decision slow. It is to apply deliberate thinking where the consequences of intuitive error are greatest.

How PMLogic DELIVER connects the two steps to the full lifecycle

PMLogic’s proven and award winning DELIVER approach provides a lifecycle for moving from strategic need to sustained value:

Discover, Examine, Learn, Implement, Validate, Evaluate and Reinforce.

Start-up begins through Discover and Examine. The organisation identifies the need, understands the system, examines options and tests whether the proposed initiative is strategically worthwhile and sufficiently viable to initiate.

Initiation draws on Examine and Learn. Assumptions are challenged, evidence and lessons are brought into the design, affected people help shape the future state, and an integrated delivery and adoption plan is established.

Implementation does not end the people focus. Validate tests whether outputs work in the real operating environment and whether the organisation is ready to accept them. Evaluate assesses outcomes, benefits, negative outcomes and unintended effects. Reinforce embeds capability, accountability and continuous improvement so the value survives beyond project closure.

Across DELIVER, PMLogic applies the 5Ps as a systems lens:

• Purpose: the strategic need, intended outcomes and value

• People: leadership, governance, roles, capability, capacity and stakeholder alignment

• Practice: the methods, processes, controls and ways of working

• Platform: the technology, data, tools and enabling infrastructure

• Performance: delivery progress, risk, quality, outcomes, benefits and improvement.

The 5Ps prevent a common category error: treating a platform implementation as if it were only a technology project. A new platform changes practices, redistributes accountability, demands new capabilities and is justified only through improved performance against a clear purpose. These elements form a connected system and must be planned together.

team meeting

A better approval question

Good governance does not place people at the centre by weakening financial discipline. It strengthens financial discipline by exposing the conditions required for the investment to succeed.

Before authorising start-up, leaders should ask:

Is this idea sufficiently aligned, valuable and viable to justify initiation?

Before authorising delivery, they should ask:

Do we have a credible, integrated plan to deliver the outputs, prepare our people and operations, manage the cumulative impact and realise sustainable value?

The second decision should include confirmation of a viable portfolio runway slot, clear business ownership and evidence that the receiving organisation has shaped and accepted the transition approach.

Projects do not create value merely because funding is approved, a contract is signed or a system goes live. Value emerges when people can use what has been delivered to work differently, serve customers better, manage risk more effectively or achieve improved outcomes.

That is why project approval should never be only a financial decision. It is a strategic commitment of organisational attention, capacity and trust. A two-step start-up and initiation process makes that commitment visible before the organisation is locked into a solution it cannot successfully absorb.

References

• HM Treasury and Welsh Government, Guide to Developing the Project Business Case, Five Case Model guidance: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/business-case-guidance-for-projects-and-programmes

• PeopleCert, PRINCE2 Project Management, Version 7: https://www.peoplecert.org/Frameworks-Professionals/PRINCE2-Project-Management-Framework

• PeopleCert, People at the core of PRINCE2 7: https://www.peoplecert.org/news-and-announcements/2023/prince2-7-people-at-the-core

• PMLogic, Our Approach: DELIVER and the 5Ps of Strategy Implementation: https://www.pmlogic.com.au/how-we-work

• Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.

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Can your People support the project?

Funding alone doesn't guarantee success. Before committing to a major initiative, organisations need to ensure their people, operations and systems are ready to deliver and absorb the change.

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