Project Scope Management

What is Project Scope Management?

• Scope refers to all the work involved in creating
the products of the project and the processes
used to create them. It defines what is or is not
to be done
• Deliverables are products produced as part of a
project, such as hardware or software, planning
documents, or meeting minutes
• The project team and stakeholders must have
the same understanding of what products will
be produced as a result of a project and how
they’ll be produced
 Project Scope Management Processes
• Initiation: beginning a project or continuing to the
next phase
• Scope planning: developing documents to provide
the basis for future project decisions
• Scope definition: subdividing the major project
deliverables into smaller, more manageable
components
• Scope verification: formalizing acceptance of the
project scope
• Scope change control: controlling changes to
project scope
 Project Initiation: Strategic Planning
and Project Selection
• The first step in initiating projects is to look at
the big picture or strategic plan of an
organization
• Strategic planning involves determining long-
term business objectives
• IT projects should support strategic and
financial business objectives
 Identifying Potential Projects
• Many organizations follow a planning process
for selecting IT projects:-
1. First develop an IT strategic plan based on the
organization’s overall strategic plan
2. Then perform a business area analysis
3.Then define potential projects
4. Then select IT projects and assign resources
 Figure 5-1. Information
Technology Planning Process
 Methods for Selecting Projects
• There are usually more projects than available
time and resources to implement them
• It is important to follow a logical process for
selecting IT projects to work on
• Methods include:
– focusing on broad needs
– categorizing projects
– performing financial analyses
– using a weighted scoring model
– implementing a balanced scorecard
 Focusing on Broad
Organizational Needs
• It is often difficult to provide strong justification
for many IT projects, but everyone agrees they
have a high value
• “It is better to measure gold roughly than to
count pennies precisely”
• Three important criteria for projects:
– There is a need for the project
– There are funds available
– There’s a strong will to make the project succeed
 Categorizing IT Projects
• One categorization is whether the project
addresses
– a problem
– an opportunity
– a directive
• Another categorization is how long it will take
to do and when it is needed
• Another is the overall priority of the project
 Project Charters
• After deciding what project to work on, it is
important to formalize projects
• A project charter is a document that formally
recognizes the existence of a project and
provides direction on the project’s objectives
and management
• Key project stakeholders should sign a project
charter to acknowledge agreement on the need
and intent of the project
 Scope Planning and the
Scope Statement
• A scope statement is a document used to
develop and confirm a common understanding
of the project scope. It should include
– a project justification
– a brief description of the project’s products
– a summary of all project deliverables
– a statement of what determines project success
 Scope Planning and the Work
Breakdown Structure
• After completing scope planning, the next step
is to further define the work by breaking it into
manageable pieces
• Good scope definition
– helps improve the accuracy of time, cost, and
resource estimates
– defines a baseline for performance measurement and
project control
– aids in communicating clear work responsibilities
 The Work Breakdown
Structure (WBS)
• WBS is a deliverable-oriented grouping of the
work involved in a project that defines the total
scope of the project
• It is a foundation document in project
management because it provides the basis for
planning and managing project schedules, costs,
and changes
Figure 5-8. Intranet WBS and Gantt
Chart in Project 2000
 Figure 5-9. Intranet WBS and Gantt Chart
Organized by Project Management Process Groups
 Approaches to Developing WBSs
• Using guidelines: Some organizations, like the DoD,
provide guidelines for preparing WBSs
• The analogy approach: Review WBSs of similar
projects and tailor to your project
• The top-down approach: Start with the largest items
of the project and break them down
• The bottom-up approach: Start with the detailed tasks
and roll them up
• Mind-mapping approach: Write down tasks in a non-
linear format and then create the WBS structure
Sample Mind-Mapping Approach
 Basic Principles for Creating WBSs*
1. A unit of work should appear at only one place in the WBS.
2. The work content of a WBS item is the sum of the WBS items below it.
3. A WBS item is the responsibility of only one individual, even though many people
may be working on it.
4. The WBS must be consistent with the way in which work is actually going to be
performed; it should serve the project team first and other purposes only if
practical.
5. Project team members should be involved in developing the WBS to ensure
consistency and buy-in.
6. Each WBS item must be documented to ensure accurate understanding of the
scope of work included and not included in that item.
7. The WBS must be a flexible tool to accommodate inevitable changes while
properly maintaining control of the work content in the project according to the
scope statement.
*Cleland, David I. Project Management: Strategic Design and Implementation, 1994
 Scope Verification and Scope
Change Control
• It is very difficult to create a good scope statement and
WBS for a project
• It is even more difficult to verify project scope and
minimize scope changes
• Many IT projects suffer from scope creep and poor scope
verification
– FoxMeyer Drug filed for bankruptcy after scope creep on a
robotic warehouse
– Engineers at Grumman called a system “Naziware” and refused
to use it
– 21st Century Insurance Group wasted a lot of time and money on
a project that could have used off-the-shelf components
Factors Causing IT Project
Problems
 Suggestions for Improving User
Input
• Develop a good project selection process and
insist that sponsors are from the user
organization
• Have users on the project team in important
roles
• Have regular meetings
• Deliver something to users and sponsors on a
regular basis
• Co-locate users with developers
 Suggestions for Reducing Incomplete
and Changing Requirements
• Develop and follow a requirements management process
• Use techniques like prototyping, use case modeling, and
JAD to get more user involvement
• Put requirements in writing and keep them current
• Provide adequate testing and conduct testing throughout
the project life cycle
• Review changes from a systems perspective
• Emphasize completion dates to help focus on what’s most
important
• Allocate resources specifically for handling change
requests/enhancements like NWA did with ResNet