Optimizing Project Selection: Intro, Project Screening

A project shouldn't be pursued unless it can be shown to have a business basis and is approved by senior management as confirmation that it’s aligned with the strategic business direction of the organization. Once approved, a project manager needs to be assigned sufficient authority and organizational backing to fulfill the business aspects of the project. Once approved, the project also needs to receive the ongoing attention and support of senior management, which participates in the project's progress at the portfolio management level.

A project does not have to be a revenue-producing effort, but it does require alignment with the business direction.

Conversely, a project should not be a whim or a mandate that does not serve any direct or indirect business purpose. To that end, project selection is presented to specify or "select" the projects that will be pursued within the organization.

The components of this practice area prescribe activities that inherently include senior managers as key participants over time. Each organization and each senior manager should examine the ways in which this participation can be optimized to avoid unnecessary involvement but ensure sufficient involvement by senior managers or an executive board that has ultimate responsibility for successful business outcomes.

There are four practices associated with Project Selection:

• Project Screening



• Business Case Development



• Resource Allocation



• Final Project Selection

Each of these practices has direct influence on project management and direct alignment with executives and senior managers involved in the portfolio management process.

Project Selection will take initial information that describes the opportunity identified earlier in the life cycle process and translate it into a project that becomes a business investment for the organization. Project Selection activities will provide the means for initial project selection, and they will provide the means to validate the project for continuation through completion.

PROJECT SCREENING

Once the project opportunity has been adequately identified, it can undergo project screening, which is a quick, first look at available information to determine if the opportunity is a viable business investment.

Conceptually ...

This practice provides the project manager, the executives and senior management team, and the organization with preliminary indications about pursuing the project opportunity as a basis for continuing subsequent, more cumbersome project selection activities.

The purpose of this practice is to complete a preliminary examination of the project opportunity in order to provide an indication of whether or not the more time-consuming and costly effort of business case development should be under taken. Therefore, only fundamental indicators are examined as a matter of process efficiency.

Project Screening is always done during project initiation (in the Profile Phase). However, elements of project screening can also be applied, as needed, during later project stages as part of the project business validation process and ongoing Portfolio Management.

Conducting Project Screening

Project opportunities are screened to determine their fit and contribution to the organization's business objectives.

Screening is conducted using relatively simple criteria that can be applied by project managers and business managers alike to determine the next steps, if any.

The screening criteria should provide sufficient indication whether to accept or reject the project opportunity. If the opportunity is accepted, it will proceed to more detailed project selection activities, starting with business case development. If it’s rejected, it simply is reported to any oversight authority for acknowledgment and is then removed from the organization's "project opportunities list."

The application of the same project screening criteria to all project opportunities lets managers in the organization know what is important for a project to be considered for selection. It also ensures that consistent decision making is applied when all projects are measured by evaluators using the same criteria for each opportunity.

The default project screening criteria for this methodology includes an examination of several criteria.

First are the primary screening elements:

• Strategic Interest--Does this project opportunity make a positive contribution to the overall portfolio?



• Nature of Project Work--Does this project opportunity represent the application of a core competency?



• Resource Capacity--Is sufficiently skilled staff available for assignment to this project opportunity?



• Competitive Position--Is this project opportunity competitive, or perhaps aligned for competitor selection?



• Customer Readiness--Has the customer validated the need, made funding available, and established the project opportunity as a priority effort? Additionally, here are some secondary screening elements that can be considered:



• Break-Even Time--Does this project opportunity provide a business payback in reasonable time? Internal Impacts--Does this project opportunity contribute to business lines and organizational interests?



• Market Position and Market Share--Does this project opportunity contribute to market position and market share expansion?



• Business Risk--Does this project opportunity provide more business benefit than business threat impacts?



• Cost of Ownership--Are the costs of owning associated deliverables acceptable on this project opportunity?

Project screening can be as basic as determining "Yes-No" answers to simple criteria. However, more specific criteria can be developed by the PMO or other project management leadership group to indicate "Yes-No" thresholds or even graduated responses to criteria examination. Criteria should be reviewed and approved by executives and senior managers who can also identify how they are to be applied to the project screening process. Thereby, the organization determines what criteria evaluation results will allow the project opportunity to go forward.

Screening provides a preliminary examination of the project opportunity and enables the organization to deter mine if the opportunity warrants further consideration. The premise that a project must be aligned with business strategy is a focus of project screening. In particular, the criteria established to examine strategic fit is applied in this methodology. Opportunities that satisfy the criteria will go forward to final project selection and further detailed planning.

In the event that an organization may want only a single step and consider this activity to be their primary project selection step, it will need to conduct project screening as a more rigorous process. That rigor should emphasize the importance of business strategy alignment as the prominent criteria for project selection. As well, this approach also war rants a subsequent go/no-go decision gateway activity to con firm the initial selection decision.