Managing Initiatives

In the Advanced Model, an initiative is a project, program, or other piece of work in your organization's hierarchy. Each initiative has its own owner, dates, and fields, and carries its own benefits, costs, RAID items, and schedule. Initiatives are created under the initiative above them, and managed from that level's Initiative Register and each initiative's Properties page.

This article covers the Advanced Model. For the Simple Model, see Managing Projects. Initiatives can only be created where the level above allows their classification — see Configuring Initiative Classifications (Advanced Model).

Creating an initiative

To create an initiative:

1. Navigate to the initiative to create the new one under.
2. Open the Create menu.
3. Select Initiative.

   

4. Enter a Name.
5. Enter a Description.
6. Select a Classification. Only the classifications allowed at this level are offered, and the default classification is preselected where it's allowed.

   

7. Select a Start Date.
8. Select an End Date.
9. Select an Owner, the person responsible for managing the initiative.
10. Fill in any other fields.
11. To create another initiative straight after, check Create another.
12. Click Create.

    

Which fields appear on the form, and which are required, is set on the classification's Properties tab. See Custom Fields (Advanced Model).

Finding initiatives

The Initiative Register of the level above lists its initiatives, including those further down the hierarchy. Use it to view, filter, and update initiatives in one place. See Register Views.

The initiative's Properties page

Each initiative's Properties page, on its side menu, shows all of its fields. Edit them there, as your role allows. The page's menu also has:

• Update [type] Baseline — updates the baseline with the initiative's current values, and is named after the initiative's type, such as Update Program Baseline. Available where baselines are enabled on the initiative's classification. See Baselines.
• Launch Initiative Workflow — starts a workflow on the initiative manually. See Launching a workflow.
• Move — moves the initiative to a different place in the hierarchy.
• Archive — see Archiving, restoring, and deleting an initiative.

Launching a workflow

Where your organization's general initiative workflow is enabled, you can send an initiative for approval whenever it needs signing off. The workflow is named Initiative Workflow unless your organization has renamed it. Its approvers come from the workflow's first step.

To launch the workflow:

1. Open the initiative's Properties page.
2. Open the page's menu.
3. Select Launch [workflow name]..., such as Launch Initiative Workflow.... A dialog named after the workflow opens.
4. Enter your Approval Commentary for the approvers.
5. Review the approvers for the workflow's first step. Where the workflow allows approvers to be modified, add or remove approvers.
6. Click Submit.

The dialog also shows the approvers for the workflow's later steps, but only the first step's approvers can be changed. Where the workflow's only step is a self-approval step, the dialog shows "This workflow does not require 3rd party approval." instead of approvers, and the field is named Commentary.

Each launch starts a new approval, due seven days after it's launched. For setting up the workflow, see Approval Workflow Types.

Tracking changes

Every change to an initiative — its fields, approvals, stage gates, moves, and more — is recorded on its Timeline, along with comments from the team and messages from Chat. Select Timeline on the initiative's side menu. See Activity Timelines.

Archiving, restoring, and deleting an initiative

Archive an initiative that's no longer active from Archive, in its Properties page menu. Archiving an initiative also archives everything beneath it.

An archived initiative shows a banner at the top of its pages, with options to:

• Restore — return the initiative, and everything beneath it, to active use. An initiative can't be restored while the initiative above it is archived — restore that one first.
• Delete — permanently delete the initiative, everything beneath it, and its data.

An initiative must be archived before it can be deleted. Archiving, restoring, and deleting each need their own permission in your team role.

Archived initiatives stay in the Initiative Register. Show the Active column to tell them apart: archived initiatives show as not active.

For building the hierarchy these initiatives sit in, see Creating a Hierarchy.