A1 – Identify the high-level decision maker(s)

This is the first management activity in the Project Initiation activity group, which is a group for creating a foundation for the project and deciding whether you will execute it.

It must be made clear who will make the high-level decisions such as the go/no-go ones (A6 and C3). The choice depends on whether the organization is larger than the project team:

• If there’s no larger organization (it’s a micro-organization), then the whole team, or a subset of it, would be responsible for the high-level decisions. Remember that it must be clear to everyone who these people are.
• If there’s a larger organization, a single person who has high organizational power and is not one of the normal team members should be the project sponsor, responsible for making high-level decisions and providing resources for the project. When more than one person needs to be involved in high-level decisions, it is the responsibility of the sponsor to make the arrangements, and the team members will only work with the sponsor rather than all the decision makers.