Managing the Front-End of Projects; Is it Part of the Project?

There has been some good discussion as a result of my post on September 15th on the "impact of initiation and planning on the project budget." Managing these early phases well is truly a gap in the project management field and there doesn't seem to be industry consensus on whether these phases (known as Front-End-Loading or FEL) should be part of the project or not. Traditional thinking seems to place FEL outside the realm of project management, as a separate entity, with project management only getting involved once the resulting charter is established. Yet, this is odd, since Front-End-Loading plays such a significant role in project success.

The paper below, from the proceedings from the 2005 PMI Global Congress in Edinburgh (be sure to click on the link for the PDF version for best readibility), makes a good case for including FEL as part of the project. At the very least, we need a way to better integrate these strategy, conceptualization, governance, and early planning activities with the project itself.

Managing the Front-End: how project managers shape business strategy and manage project definition