The Project Review Authority (PRA) is an organizational entity responsible for overseeing the project. It is strongly recommended that an individual be nominated as the PRA, with assistance in project oversight coming from a defined group of senior technical and business management staff from the project organization, as well as executive-level customer staff. A typical group assisting the PRA for a medium sized contract software project might include the following:

• VP, Software Development
• VP, Marketing
• Quality Assurance Manager
• Software Engineering Process Authority representative
• Manager of the customer business unit ordering the software

A project manager with appropriate skills and experience is identified and approved by the project board.

The project planning team, is the initial group of project team members who will carry out the work of the Inception phase. The planning team is identified, approved and assigned by the project manager, in conjunction with the PRA. The project planning team might typically include the following:

• Project Manager
• Software Architect
• System Analysts
• Development Lead
• Test Lead
• Configuration Management Manager
• Customer representative

The final step in Initiate Project is to define some objective criteria that will be used by the customer to determine when the project deliverables are acceptable. These criteria should be developed jointly by the customer organization and the project team, and may include the following:

• Delivery of all work products identified as deliverable to the customer
• List of required participants for acceptance testing
• Required test location(s)
• Successful completion of the work product evaluations identified in the Product Acceptance Plan
• Successful completion of customer training
• Successful completion of on-site installation
• Measures that will identify to what extent original project specifications have been met
• Measures that will identify to what extent the objectives of the business case have been met