Translations:Inception/2/en

The purpose of an inception is for everyone involved in the project to share the vision of the objectives, and for the scope and risks to be sized, and thereby its feasibility determined, before committing resources. It prevents the most common causes of death marches: projects that start without the team and the stakeholders having a common understanding of what is going to be built and why.

When and how

The format and practices used should be proportional to the novelty and complexity of the project:

• Known project, new functionality: a kickoff meeting of a few hours may be enough. The team already knows the context, the client, and the technology; it only needs to align expectations about the specific scope of the new functionality.
• Project new to part of the team: a half-day or full-day session, supported by a gamification practice or an alignment exercise.
• Radically new product or newly formed team: a workshop of one or several days, such as Lean inception, Agile inception deck, or Design sprint, where the vision, scope, risks, team, and feasibility are worked through in depth.