Goal
Decide whether to pursue the project against written criteria — need, budget, authority, timeline, capability, risk — and say "no" early when it is not a fit.
Inputs → outputs
Inputs
- Intake ticket and call notes
- Running project portfolio and capacity calendar
Deliverables
- Qualification scorecard
- Go/no-go decision record with reasons and conditions
- Initial risk log
- Written reply to the client
Teams & roles
- Sales & Presalesleads scoring and replies to the client
- Solution Architectureassesses technical feasibility
- Project Management / Scrum Masterassesses schedule and capacity
- Legal & Financereviews legal and data risk
- Project Management Office (PMO)makes the go/no-go call within the portfolio
- Client (Product Owner / sponsor)provides qualification information
RACI matrix
R — does the work · A — accountable, final sign-off (exactly one A per activity) · C — consulted before · I — informed after.
| Activity | Sales | BA | Arch | PM | Dev | Sec | Legal | PMO | Client |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gather qualification information (BANT) | A | C | · | · | · | · | · | · | C |
| Technical feasibility assessment | · | · | A | · | C | C | · | · | · |
| Capability and capacity assessment | · | · | · | R | · | · | · | A | · |
| Legal & data risk review | · | · | · | · | · | C | A | · | · |
| Go/no-go decision | R | · | C | C | · | · | C | A | · |
| Written reply to the client | A | · | · | · | · | · | · | · | I |
Sales = Sales & Presales; BA = Business Analysis (BA); Arch = Solution Architecture; PM = Project Management / Scrum Master; Dev = Engineering (FE · BE · Mobile); Sec = Application Security (AppSec); Legal = Legal & Finance; PMO = Project Management Office (PMO); Client = Client (Product Owner / sponsor)
Quality gate
Go/no-go decision recorded and approved; if "go", the client agrees to a discovery step with clear scope and duration.
Entry criteria
- Ticket is "Received" with call notes attached
- The client-side decision-maker is known
Exit criteria
- Scorecard completed for every criterion
- Go/no-go decision approved with written reasons
- Major risks logged with an owner
- Client has received a written reply
Activities
- 1.Score the criteria: need, budget, authority, timeline (BANT), technical fit, legal/data risk
- 2.Assess capability and capacity: required skills, who is available, clashes with running projects
- 3.Check conflicts of interest and special compliance needs (personal data, regulated sectors, data residency)
- 4.Internal go/no-go: pursue, pursue with conditions, or decline — with reasons
- 5.Reply to the client in writing; if declining, suggest alternatives
Checklist
Tick to self-review — 0/6. Ticks stay in this browser only and are not sent anywhere.
Document templates
Markdown (.md) files: open in any editor, or paste into Word / Google Docs. Each states its purpose, who fills it in and when.
Client involvement
- Answer questions on budget, decision-maker and timeline
- State the organisation’s legal and compliance constraints
Tools
- CT Work
- Google Sheets (bảng chấm điểm)
Reference standards
- PRINCE2® 7th ed. (2023)
- "Continued business justification" principle and the Business case practice
- ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207:2017
- Supply process: the supplier evaluates the acquirer’s request and decides whether to respond
- BANT (IBM)
- Opportunity qualification: Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline
Common pitfalls
- Taking every project for fear of losing the client → overload and delays
- Gut-feel decisions with no written reasons → nothing to learn from
- Skipping "who pays, who decides"
- Promising dates before checking capacity
Real example
Applied to LabFlow AI (a capstone run as if it were a client project): the scorecard is filled on the role-play request ticket. Scope spans lab booking, equipment loans, IoT and an AI assistant — "timeline feasible with capacity" is the criterion that needs most thought, and a sensible "go" condition is to split the MVP into increments.
Where to learn
Subjects and courses on cuongthai.com that teach this stage’s work.