Project intake process

What Is a Project Intake Process?

A company uses a project intake process to organize project requests and provide a structure for submitting and reviewing them.

The goal of a project intake process is to improve the strategic value of the entire organization. Imagine a company with no standardized method for submitting or reviewing project requests. Team members might submit requests over email, in company chat rooms, or verbally. In this scenario, company leaders will inevitably ignore or lose some requests. When they do review these project requests, they have no clear metrics for judging the project’s urgency, feasibility, or alignment with organization-wide strategy.

When you have a functional project intake process, everyone understands who submits requests, where to submit them, and what information to include. In addition, it is clear who reviews the proposals, when and how they review them, and who can give final approval.

How to Create a Project Intake Process

The three phases of a project intake process are discovery, assessment, and planning. Create a project intake process phase by phase. Think about who needs to approve projects. Also, consider what project-related information is relevant to your company.

Follow along with an existing project intake process, or map your process with a workflow diagram. When designing a project request process, identify each team or individual who needs to review a project.

Consider creating different processes for different types of requests. For example, an internal project request will look different from a client's external project request. Another option is to set up various processes for projects with different budgets or effort thresholds. Intake processes can require fewer approvals for quick or inexpensive projects, while expensive or long-term projects require additional approval steps.

Steps in the Project Intake Process

A project intake process begins with an idea and ends with a project plan. Most intake processes cover basic steps: developing the concept, obtaining approvals, and planning the project. Modify these steps to reflect your organization’s needs.

Though intake processes vary by organization, these are the basic steps to follow:

1. Project Idea

The project owner, also called the business owner or initiator, has an idea for a project and approaches the individual responsible for submitting requests.

2. Idea Development

The project owner works with the requester to develop the idea and make a business case. How will this project save time, add value, or mitigate risk? Gather feedback from multiple team members.

3. Intake Form

Once the team has conducted preliminary research, the requester should complete a standardized project intake form and submit it for review. If the request is urgent, the form should indicate the status and when a is response needed by.

4. First Review

The first review team, often the PMO, reviews the request for high-level feasibility. If information is missing or red flags exist, they might send the form back to the requester for revisions or reject the proposal outright. If they approve it, they will submit the project to a second team for review.

5. Second Review

Once the first team approves, a second team will review the project. This might be a resource manager or service owner who considers the project’s resource-related feasibility. They can either return the form to the business owner to make adjustments, reject the proposal, or approve and submit it to additional teams for review.

6. Additional Reviews

The number of teams that need to review the project will differ among organizations. Usually, the final review happens with a steering committee or a vice president, chief financial officer, or other high-level executive. This committee or individual reviews the proposal for its alignment with larger organizational goals. They can return the form to the business owner to make adjustments, reject the proposal, or provide final approval.

7. Priority Level Assignment

Once a project proposal receives all necessary approvals, it returns to the PMO. The PMO assigns the project a priority level, unique identification number, and project leader.

8. Project Plan

The project leader develops a project plan and submits it to the PMO for approval.

9. Project Execution

Once the project plan is approved, project execution begins.