The primary goals of the Opportunity Assessment phase are to achieve stakeholder consensus regarding the objectives for the project and to obtain approval to proceed to a more detailed investigation. The main output of the phase is the Project Brief which details the objectives and the effort required to get to a Business Case.

A certain amount of interaction may happen before an opportunity assessment is undertaken. This initial interaction will assess the impact of the request and determine its scope and size. This impact assessment will supply estimates to do the opportunity assessment work.

The phase is triggered when a request is received to assist in the development of a solution

• to agree costs and timescale to produce the Solution plan
• to elicit initial requirements
• to look briefly at possible solution options
• to gain stakeholder agreement on high level scope and boundaries
• to validate the appropriateness of the project

The main deliverable of the phase is the Project Brief

The work products that may be used during the phase include:

• Use Case List (scope)
• Business Process Model
• Project Management Documents

The phase is complete when the project brief is finished. This is then passed for approval and into the programme plan.

The following quality management activities need to be performed:

• Peer inspection of the project brief (E.g. Fagan inspection method )
• Phase end checklist