Question

Differentiate between the various aims of appraising projects

Answer 1

Project Appraisal is a consistent process of reviewing a given project and evaluating its content to approve or reject this project, through analyzing the problem or need to be addressed by the project, generating solution options (alternatives) for solving the problem, selecting the most feasible option, conducting a feasibility analysis of that option, creating the solution statement, and identifying all people and organizations concerned with or affected by the project and its expected outcomes. It is an attempt to justify the project through analysis, which is a way to determine project feasibility and cost-effectiveness.

The various Aims of Project Appraisal is overviewed in a below steps as follows:

Step #1. Concept Analysis

The first step requires you (as a project appraiser or analyst) to conduct a range of analyses in order to determine the concept of the future project and provide the Decision Package for the senior management (project sponsors) for approval. It means you need to carry out the problem-solution analysis that determines the problem/need to be addressed and the solution to be used to handle the problem. The solution should analyzed by cost-effectiveness and feasibility (various project appraisal methods and techniques can be used). Also you will need to identify stakeholders (those people and organizations involved in or affected by the problem and/or solution) and analyze their needs (how they relate to the problem and/or solution). After all, you must develop a decision package that includes the problem statement, the solution proposal, the stakeholder list, and the funding request. This package will then be submitted to the sponsor for approval (or rejection). If the sponsor approves the project concept then you can proceed to the next step.

Step #2. Concept Brief

At this step you must develop a summary of the project concept to define the goals, objectives, broad scope, time duration and projected costs. All this data will be used to develop the Concept Brief. You need to develop a project statement document that specifies the project mission, goals, objectives and vision. Then you create a broad scope statement that specifies the boundaries, deliverables ad requirements of your endeavor. Finally you make a preliminary schedule template that determines an estimated duration of the project, and then develop a cost projection document based on cost estimates and calculations.

Step #3. Project Organization

You use the Concept Brief to determine an organizational structure of your project. This structure should be developed and explained in the Project Organizational Chart. The document covers such issues as governance structure (roles and responsibilities), team requirements and composition, implementation approach, performance measures, other info. The idea behind the Project Organizational Chart is to create a visual representation of the roles, responsibilities and their relationships and what people/organizations are assigned to what roles and duties within the project.

Step #4. Project Approval

The final stage requires you to review all the previous steps and gather them into a single document called the Project Appraisal. This document summarizes all the estimations and evaluations made, to justify the project concept and verify that the proposed solution addresses the identified problem. The financial, the cost-effectiveness and the feasibility analyses will serve as the methods of project appraisal to approve the project. The document is to be submitted to the snooper stakeholders (the customer, the sponsor) for review and approval. If the appraisal is approved, then the project steps to the next phase, the planning.