ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on helping to guide the overall improvement of project initiation decisions. It provides guidance on understanding the current practices, considering desired future capabilities, and supporting the shift to a new approach to making project initiation decisions. The chapter discusses three key drivers of decision making effectiveness are the effectiveness of processes, the effectiveness of the politics or implicit rule system of the organization, and the agency of project shapers and individual decision makers. Ultimately, the process of supporting and making project initiation decisions needs to be appropriate for the individual organization. If organizations are to improve the effectiveness of their project initiation decisions, the people who make the decisions and hold the balance of power within those organizations must be supportive of the change. Doing so requires a careful consideration of those influences of process, of politics, and above all of personal agency that have the greatest impact on making effective initiation decisions.
