As you move through a definition stages at the planning stage, this is where you start to compile what I call the book of the plan. This is your project master documentation. It is a composite of many documents on anything but the smallest project on a small project is one composite document. And the book of the plan, maybe also known as the project initiation, or the project master plan contains the answer to three fundamental questions about your project. And this is what the planning stage is all about. It's about getting clear answers to those three questions, documenting them precisely.

Checking them, reviewing them, stress testing them before you get back Final gateway at the end of the planning stage, the go no go decision about whether we should invest in the project. So let's take a look at those three questions. The first question is the what question, what is this project all about? And for this, we take the definition work that we've already done the scoping and the goals and the objectives in particular. And we put a level of refinement on it to create a detailed specification, a set of quality standards for our project. And the way that you document the answer to the question is the aspect of the project at this stage that will differ most from one project to another because it's unique to the project.

And indeed, different types of projects will use very different types of documentation. If we're talking about a construction project, then we're going to have architects drawings, we're going to have quantity surveyors bill bills of quantities, we're going to have engineers calculations all there in the specifications and the quality standards. We're going to have building regulations and tailored to the locality that set out the required standards to which we're building. On the other hand, if we're talking about a business project to create a business process, then it will specify the outputs in the process it will specify the equipment that needs to be prepared for that. And maybe if it's an IT project, we'll have functional specifications we'll have software specifications and testing routines. So that's the what the why question justifies the project and for that you need an investment appraisal, which sets out the costs and the financial benefits of doing the project.

And each organization will have its own standards for doing an investment appraisal. Many sufficient Cases organizations will be a lot more sophisticated and inside we put this much money in, we take this much money out, is it a go? They'll use sophisticated tools like discounted cash flows, and use measures of net present value or internal rates of return or return on investment calculations to justify the financial aspects of the project. But an investment appraisal isn't everything because money is rarely the only consideration. And so, a wider business case will of course take into account our non financially quantifiable factors. Things like customer satisfaction, things like morale of staff will feature in their levels of risk and threat.

So, a business case enables decision makers to make that final decision about whether we should invest in a good business case will not set out the project. Giving your decision makers the yes No choice. It will give a range of project options so that decision makers can choose the project option, which offers the best value to their organization. And finally, there's the how question and along with it, the when, and the where, and the who questions, and the how question is answered by two things, your plans and your project controls your plans set out how you will deliver your project, and your controls, set out how you will stick to your plans. What if you are unable to stick to your plans, how you will recover the project back to your plan. And there are a number of project controls that we could look at, for example, communications and reporting.

We could look at risk as project control about documentation and version control a whole range of things. In fact, we will look Reporting, we'll look at risk and we'll look at control of change in this video series. So, bulk of the plan that what the why and the how. A composite document which gives you everything you need to confidently step forward into the delivery phase.