Writing a Project Initiation Document - Background 3/12
3.0 Project Background
This section merely requires you to write down how and why the project came into being. So with Project Example you would write down something along the lines of:
With the advent of Web 2.0 and the success of You Tube it was decided at the Portfolio Programme Board on 25 Dec 2008 that a project would be set up to consider how best to monetise the large video back library the company has. Since the Business Case and Project Justification Documents have both been approved and the necessary research successfully completed it has been decided to set up Project Example to deliver the solution proposed.
Phase 1 of the project will deliver the online functionality required together with the changes to the necessary Business Systems impacted, whilst Phase 2 will deliver the Digital Rights Management and real-time advert insertion.
Writing a Project Initiation Document Background Tip
If a senior person within the Business has been a key advocate for the project, make sure you mention their name in this section. The rationale behind this is that if at a later stage someone reads the PID, they hopefully will realise that someone important within the company wants to see it delivered and therefore they should make your project a priority over the others. The result should be that the resources and equipment are made available to you to ensure your project happens.
You would be surprised how many times on a project, small things like name dropping the name of an extremely Senior Stakeholder can mean the difference between project success and failure.
