The beginning of a project is critical to the program as it is when objectives, scope, purpose, and deliverables to be produced are defined. Early in the program there can be a lot of unknowns especially if the project involves developing novel medical devices. It takes time and expertise from subject matter experts from multiple areas to define all the details that are required for a comprehensive project plan. In addition, it is critical from the aspect how the project manager brings the team together to collaborate effectively. In my experience, some project managers do a great job being “enablers” and motivating a team and that makes a lot of difference how the project moves forward in terms coming up with solutions for problems that arise along the way. So, collaboration and how the team interacts is critical for success of the project and the project manager is key for orchestrating this collaboration.

Business and market research play an important role when initiating a project idea because you want to make sure you are meeting the needs of your market as well as you want to know there is a market for the product in mind. Without demand it would be difficult to sell the product being created and it wouldn't be profitable. In the company I intern at, a lot of times the marketing team communicates with physicians and surgeons who express their desire for a certain product. It's my impression this is the way new project ideas are created.

An idea is just an idea without the proper research so when a new project idea is proposed, significant research has to go into the market, the safety, feasibility, and resources that would be needed to make it happen. This requires collaboration from all the different departments.

I'm not sure how it works if someone within the company has an idea for a project, but I would want there to be a designated person employees can go to to discuss new projects. Maybe it's their manager, R&D director or marketing.

I agree with Patricia. A project idea is tge gist of the whole project plus whole project relies on that in one way or other. I believe that to convince someone for any project with only an idea is not easy. Initiating a project idea is the point where whole project starts from. The design, overview, risks, liability etc. Thus it is an important part before any project is executed.

When you go to write an essay, the introduction is the hardest part. But the introduction is literally the most important part because it will present a layout for the rest of the essay. Initiating a project idea is like writing an introduction to that essay. To do it you have to have a clear understanding of what a project is. From the notes we learned that projects have limited life spans, performance requirements and clear objectives. Test your idea against those characteristics and see if it fits. Layout more than one idea and pick the most feasible one in terms of these characteristics. When I write a new matlab program at work (project) I make sure that I understand the purpose of it (the problem it's trying to address). I think of different ways to approach it and choose the most efficient way (least lines of code that will give me accurate results). I then try to implement this within a certain time frame and with a limited amount of money from my company.

As we learned in lecture, all projects have a life cycle that dictates how smoothly the design process is going to flow, which in turn determines the overall success of the product upon entering the market. The initiation phase can be considered as one of the most difficult phases of the cycle because it requires a substantial amount of convincing in the sense that your project is going to turn a profit. This phase is essentially where investments, commitments, and agreements need to be made. Initiation can mainly occur by presenting lucrative ideas and demonstrating how far ahead one can plan to ensure these ideas come to fruition so that the company can prosper. The initiation phase itself can be though of as overcoming inertia to get an object moving: the greater the mass (the bigger the project), the more effort there must be initially to get the object moving (get the project going). Once the project has passed the initiation phase, it should ideally run a lot smoother for the remainder of its life cycle.

An online look at project management methodology states that there are six key steps that need to be taken to initiate a project (Method 123 website: Initiation Phase Review):

1) The Business Case - Presents the costs and benefits of each approach to a proposed project and hopes to predict the long-term revenue.

2) The Feasibility Study - Addresses potential conflicts throughout the design cycle along with corresponding solutions.

3) The Project Charter - Defines the purpose, objective, and how the project will overall be structured throughout its life cycle.

4) Appoint the Project Team - This step states the requirements, responsibilities, and qualifications that an individual must have to acquire a role on the project team.

5) Project Office Checklist - This applies to the physical premises that the project is taking place and ensures resources, such as office supplies, technical equipment, and proper staff is accounted for.

6) Project Review - Determines whether or not the team has met the requirements to go about its proposed project and if any last-minute changes need to be addressed.

What other strategies are there for overcoming the initiation phase of a project? What could happen to the project team if the last-minute changes made at the sixth step take too long? If a project is aimed at treating a condition that only a small number of people have, is it likely to pass the initiation phase?

Initiating a project idea is certainly a very challenging tasks. One must develop a well-defined scope that clearly defines the objectives of the project. In addition, determining the customer need and coming up with a realistic cost/profit margin to justify the execution of the project is both difficult and necessary when pitching the idea. All, of course, must satisfy the needs of the stakeholders who will want certain timelines and outcomes that may not align with the project's. These, I would have to say, are some of the biggest challenges in initiating a project idea.

Initiating a project is definitely a crucial task as it in general clarifies the objectives of the project and what is needed to achieve those object and does not necessarily involve starting work on creating any of the products of the project. You may not exactly know what the project is going to do but one should have sufficiently enough idea of what it will do for for a providing a topic of discussion for business case which illustrates the cost-benefit relationship and the necessary investment needed for the project.

Initiating an idea is the hardest part of Design control as you need to have the market knowledge and if there exist any device similar to the idea that we have in mind. Market research is important as without that one would not know if the project is needed in the market and if it's not needed as there are cheaper alternatives to it then it will be a loss to the company as the product won't survive in the market.
One way to convince the company to fund your idea is to show data of all the market research that is done and how your idea is going to bring out the change, a good project with great market research and presentation is essential for presenting to the company for approval.

Design controls make initiating a project to be the most difficult part of medical device development. It is important though because it helps weed out the projects that would not be able to be supported by the device company. They prevent the company from taking on a project beyond the scope of the company by setting parameters for classifying medical devices. This is also an important time for the project manager to plan the steps necessary for the fruition of the project. While initiating a project is the hardest part, it can save you big down the line.

The project initiation phase is the 1st phase in the project life cycle. It is at this point where the opportunity or reason for the project is identified and a project is developed to take advantage of that opportunity. as it involves starting up a new project. The initiation processes are supposed to start the project. There are some ideas to be set within the project initiation phase: Requirement, what are the requirements for the project.  - Scope and Deliverables. - Budgets and timing.  An analysis of the business benefits, costs, risks, and issues.

I think initiating a new project idea is the hardest part in the project development. As Project initiation is the first phase of a project’s life cycle. It is the point where the reason of the project is identified and developed based on the opportunity. A project cannot be initiated without a team to do various tasks. Hence to initiate a project, one needs to have better background idea about what the project impacts in the future and everyone in the team should be accepting the idea. Also, companies and sponsors will not be accepting new ideas unless they trust in your old product.

The hardest part of the project development is initiating an idea because many devices and projects already exist. There are different testing that each project requires and if it does not make a revenue for the company, many of the projects will not be approved. A company is run on the business and market of the different products that are being sold, so if there is no market for the product, all the time, research, clinical trials, and efforts spent on the project will not come back to the company and the company can lose a lot of income when there aren’t customers ready to buy the product. Many doctors have ideas to change a device or create something brand new but the difficulty that goes into manufacturing the device and designing it can take time, and it could potentially not work from a manufacturing perspective. To convince a company or for someone to sponsor the project would be to have the research and a proper plan to create this revenue as well as make the money back for everything that goes into it. A detailed plan (as much as possible) for the project idea is the best way to have someone/company look at the big picture and potentially develop the project.

Creating projects cannot be achieved randomly, but it requires an organized method and study to achieve real success.

collecting enough information to make a successful project by studying of all the following:

Technical And financial study of the project Research and study to understand the nature of the market, the size of demand, the level of competition, the average prices, and the level of quality

collect as much information and data as possible about the nature of the people that your project will target.

Study your competitors that provide the same type of product that you intend to provide in your project.

Initiating a product idea into developement is sometimes the hardest part of a project because with every project comes risks, and the time where it is easiest to nip these risks in the butt is during the initiation phase. The risks come from the fundamentals of the project: What is the product, who is going to buy it, does it help them? Equally as important,  is the product harmful, how can we be not liable for any ill use of the product? How much and how many resources is it going to take to kick this off? Because if it's going to take too much money then the people you are pitching the project to are better off not doing it. The new projects that are best are the ones that take minimal resources  and risk and have the largest profit potential.