Project Initiation and Planning
This domain tests how a project is authorized and how the performance measurement baseline is built: charter, scope, work breakdown, schedule, cost, and the integrated plan.
Initiation
- The business case justifies the investment; the charter authorizes the project and names the sponsor and project manager, plus high-level scope, budget, milestones, and success criteria. Without a charter you have no authority to commit resources.
- Identify stakeholders at initiation, not after design starts.
Planning
- Scope statement captures inclusions, explicit exclusions, and acceptance criteria.
- Work breakdown structure: deliverable-oriented, obeying the 100 percent rule (all the work, and nothing but the work), decomposed into work packages sized for reliable estimating, each with an owner.
- Schedule: sequence activities, define dependencies (finish-to-start is the default), apply leads and lags sparingly, then run the critical path.
- Cost: estimate per work package, add contingency for identified risks, aggregate to the cost baseline.
- Baseline approval is the gate into execution.
Worked example
Three paths: A-B-D = 5+7+4 = 16 days; A-C-E = 5+3+6 = 14 days; A-C-D = 5+3+4 = 12 days. The critical path is A-B-D at 16 days. Total float on C and E is 16 minus 14, so 2 days each. Reasoning: float is late finish minus early finish along the longest path; shortening the project means shortening the critical path, not squeezing non-critical work.
Traps
- A work breakdown that mirrors the org chart instead of deliverables.
- Baselining before scope is signed off.
- Estimating with no contingency and discovering the gap later.
- Treating the plan as a finished document rather than an iterative activity.