Chapter 17 - Project Start-up¶

Part 1¶

Story¶

This time Dr. Rogers visits John in his office, which he shares with other interns and working students. John's internship comes to an end and Carl wants to discuss with him the next steps the project would have to complete.

Dr. Rogers knocks on the door and enters the office. John looks up from his report in surprise: "Oh, hello Mr. Rogers! What brings you here?" "I wanted to talk to you about the project. You've learned so much about it in the last few weeks and you've been so close to the project that I'd like to finish by telling you how we proceed further." John is very happy about this, as he already feared that he would finish his internship without knowing how the project will continue. Carl and John seek two chairs in the company's cafeteria and Dr. Rogers takes out his notebook and opens it: "We've worked through many stages now, we know what our WBS looks like, we have work package owners for each work package and even the sub-tasks are well kept by sub-project managers. We have calculated where our critical path lies and identified high-risk work packages. Now we can basically start."

"Basically?" "Yes, we can start, but of course we can't start right away and let every project team member do whatever he or she wants." "Yes, I understand that. But how do you start properly?"

"You need to start with a project start-up meeting. And I'll tell you now, how this looks like."