Other Topics Covered in the Report[16] Many other important topics that go into much more detail are also examined in The Report. Their headings are listed here for ease of reference.
| • | Stakeholder management |
| • | Benefits/needs analysis |
| • | Concept analysis and alternatives analysis |
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| Uncertainty analysis |
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| Complexity |
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| The project appraisal/evaluation process |
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| Project concept |
| • | Assessment |
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| Defining and estimating the project |
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| Risk analysis |
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| Technology assessment |
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| Environmental assessment and sustainability |
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| Project delivery system |
| • | Setting up for successful project execution |
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| Project finance |
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| Project governance |
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| Contract/procurement |
One last observation in The Report caught my attention. Under the heading Limitations of the study,[17] the first sentence starts: "While this paper covers all projects, ..." For me, this observation is not strictly true and to many can appear confusing. The Report focuses on significant projects but as I said in my Introduction, the research is essentially based on papers by authors discussing medium to large projects in the infrastructure construction sector. While this is a very large, costly and important project sector, there are many other areas of project management application that may have a quite different perspective on The front-end of (their) projects. As I indicated before in my last paper, it is my hope that with all this knowledge being brought to front and center in our practice of serious project management, "official" standards will be updated and the rate of project successes will thereby be significantly improved. R. Max Wideman
Fellow, PMI I would like to express my appreciation to the authors for allowing me to paraphrase the observations in their paper.
16. Ibid, sections 4.2.3 through 5 on pages 8-18
17. Ibid, section 5, p18
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Project Selection and Go/No-Go Decisions