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05.0 Project Scope Management


Key Concepts

1.       The primary aim of scope management to define the exact scope of work and to prevent scope creep (additional requirements added without any proper control) or gold-plating (added by the project team with a view to impressing stakeholders).
2.       Product Scope:
a.        Features & functions that characterize a product, service or result
b.       Assessed against the product requirements and WBS
3.       Project Scope
a.        Work to be completed or Work performed to deliver product, service or result with specified features & functions
4.       Scope Baseline: scope statement + WBS + WBS dictionary
5.       WBS includes only the deliverables/outcomes/results (not actions)
6.       Project Scope – activities and processes needed to be performed to deliver the product scope, assessed against the scope baseline (scope statement, WBS and WBS dictionary), e.g. including testing & quality assurance, assessed against the Project Management Plan
7.       In Predictive Life Cycle – Project deliverables are defined at the beginning of project & any changes to scope are progressively managed (Change resistant)
8.       In Adaptive or agile approach, deliverables are developed over multiple iterations where a detailed scope is define & approved for each iteration when it begins (Expect Changes)
9.       The project manager would need to ensure the inclusion of all and only the work required to complete the project successfully (to achieve project objectives to deliver business values).
10.    Completion of project scope is measured against Project Management plan.
11.    Completion of product scope is measured against product requirements.

Tailoring Considerations

1.       Knowledge & Requirement Management: Formal / Informal, Guidelines to establish to be reused in future
2.       Validation & Control: Formal / Informal Validation & control related org. policies, procedures & guidelines
3.       Use of agile approach: Development approach Iterative or incremental or predictive, hybrid
4.       Governance: Formal or informal Audit & governance policies, procedures & guidelines

5.1 Plan Scope Management


1.       It is the Process of creating Scope Management Plan that documents how the project & product scope will be defined, validated & controlled. Process is performed once or predefined points in project. It includes:
a.        how to prevent scope creep,
b.       how to handle change requests,
c.        escalation path for disagreement on scope elements between stakeholders,
d.       processes for creating scope statement, WBS, processing CR,
e.       how the deliverables will be accepted
2.       Key benefit is that it provides guidance & direction on how scope will be managed throughout the project.
3.       Requirements Management Plan: how the requirements will be managed, documented and analyzed. It includes:
a.        how to process requirements,
b.       address missed requirements,
c.        configuration management, prioritize requirements,
d.       metrics (and rationale) for defining the product,
e.       define the traceability structure (in RTM),
f.         authorization level for approving new requirements
4.       [important] the requirement management plan is the primary means to understand and manage stakeholder expectations.

5.2 Collect Requirements

1.       It is the process of determining, documenting & managing stakeholder needs & requirements to meet objectives.
2.       Key benefit – it provides the basis for defining the product scope & project scope.
3.       Process is performed once or predefined points in project.
4.       Requirement: a condition/capability that must be met /possessed by a deliverable to satisfy a contract/standard/etc., including quantified/documented needs, wants, expectation of the sponsor/stakeholder/customer. Categories of Requirements:
a.        Business requirements – support business objectives of the company
b.       Stakeholder requirements
c.        Solution requirements – functional (product behavior) and nonfunctional requirements (reliability, security, performance, safety, etc.)
d.       Transitional requirements : temporary capability including data conversion/tracking/training
e.       Project requirements : actions/processes/conditions the project needs to met
f.         Quality requirements : quality criteria defined by stakeholders
5.       Requirements Collection Tools
a.        Data Gathering
                                                   i.      Brainstorming: Generate & collect multiple ideas related to project / product requirements
                                                  ii.      Interviews: Interviewing Stakeholders – one to one, one to many, many to many
                                                iii.      Focus groups: Moderated event, 6-12 people group, and Neutral moderator, participant composition is important.
                                                iv.      Questionnaires and surveys: Large group, paper-based/ web-based, geographically dispersed
                                                  v.      Benchmarking: comparing 2 or more system, businesses, approaches. Set an external basis for performance. Comparing organizations for requirements.
b.       Data Analysis
                                                   i.      Document analysis: Project plans, brochures, blueprints, specifications etc.
c.        Data Representation
                                                   i.      Affinity Diagram: for identifying a large number of ideas by grouping similar ideas together. Decomposition & organization of ideas & requirements.
                                                  ii.      Mind Mapping: to generate ideas with the process of backtracking, brainstorming, consolidate. Helps to generate new ideas
d.       Decision Making
                                                   i.      Voting: Unanimity/ Majority/ Plurality
                                                  ii.      Autocratic decision making
                                                iii.      Multicriteria decision making: Systematic approach of determining, ranking & eliminating criterion – Performance metrics, Risks, Requirements. E.g. Decision Matrix Table
e.       Interpersonal & Team Skills:
                                                   i.      Nominal Group Technique: Generates ideas & ranking, consensus on high scoring ideas
                                                  ii.      Observation/conversation
                                                iii.      Facilitation: Joint Application Design (JAD), SME & dev team meet to gather rqmnt, Quality Function Rqmnt- voice of customer. Workshop to identify prioritized characteristics for new product development.
f.         Context Diagram – Scope model, Business system working components (e.g. Servers, Workstations, Databases, Workflow, People)
g.        Prototypes – Throwaway, Functional, Storyboarding
6.       Requirements Traceability Matrix tracks requirements from origins to deliverables, including source of requirements and completion status, effective to prevent gold plating (also work with work authorization system). RTMs track:
a.        Name
b.       Link to business & project objectives
c.        Project Scope & WBS entry
d.       Relevant data, coding, cost or schedule
e.       Status as active/cancelled/deferred/added/approved/assigned/completed
f.         Testing activities
g.        Comments/notes
7.       Requirement documentation needs to be unambiguous, traceable, compete, consistent and acceptable to key stakeholders and is approved by the customer and other stakeholders


5.3 Define Project Scope

1.       It is the process of developing a detailed description of the project & product. Key benefit: it describes the product, service or result boundaries & acceptance criteria. Process is performed once or predefined points in project. The needs of project determine which components of PMP and which project documents are necessary.
2.       To define both the project & product scope in details, outlines what WILL and what WILL NOT be included in the deliverables, including details of constraints and assumptions vs project charter which includes only high-level descriptions
3.       May provide alternatives if the budget and schedule could not meet management’s expectations
4.       Product analysis includes techniques such as:
a.        Product breakdown
b.       Systems analysis
c.        Requirements analysis
d.       Systems engineering
e.       Value engineering – a part of product analysis technique (value engineering (value analysis, value management, value methodology) with a view to finding alternatives to constraints to improve product/reduce cost without sacrificing the scope)
f.         Value analysis
5.       Project Scope Statement includes objectives, (project and product) scope, requirements, boundaries, deliverables, acceptance criteria, constraints, assumptions, milestones, cost estimation, specifications, configuration management requirements, approval requirements, etc.
a.        The scope statement is usually progressively elaborated throughout the project

5.4 Create WBS

1.       Deliverable oriented hierarchy that breaks down (decomposition) the work to be done, created by the organization/stakeholders, can be in an organization chart or table form, based on the project deliverables (not tasks needed).
2.       WBS is broken down from the top. The lowest level in the WBS is a work package (this is broken down further into schedule activities during activity definition – Activity List)
3.       WBS is deliverables oriented, not activities list.
4.       WBS must be created for every project (if you take on a running project without WBS, you must stop the project immediately and prepare the WBS first)
a.        WBS is a decomposition tool to break down work into lowest level manageable (time and cost can be estimated, work package can be assigned to a team member) work packages, e.g. by phase or major deliverables
b.       Work packages are charges to control accounts for cost management; are broken down enough to delegate to a staff, usually 8 – 80 hours work and different work packages can be at different levels of decompositions
c.        WBS does not show dependencies between work packages, but a WBS dictionary does (WBS dictionary clarifies WBS by adding additional information)
d.       WBS includes 100% of scope (100% rule)
e.       can be a template in OPA
5.       A higher level above a work package is ‘control account‘ (control point where scope, cost and schedule are compared to earn value for performance measurement)
a.        A work package can have only ONE control account
6.       Code of accounts: a numbering system to identify WBS components
7.       Chart of accounts: a list of all account names and numbers
a.        1.1 for the 2nd level, 1.1.1 for the 3rd level
8.       The major deliverables should always be defined in terms of how the project will actually be organized, for a project with phases, the decomposition should begin with the phase first
9.       Scope Baseline, an output from Create WBS, includes:
a.        WBS (Work Breakdown Structure)
b.       WBS Dictionary: Includes:
                                                   i.      Code of Account identifier
                                                  ii.      Description of work
                                                iii.      Assumptions / constraints
                                                iv.      Responsible organization
                                                  v.      List of Schedule activities
                                                vi.      Resources required
                                               vii.      Cost estimates
                                             viii.      Quality requirements
                                                ix.      Acceptance criteria
                                                  x.      Technical references
                                                xi.      Contract informations
c.        Scope Statement
d.       Scope Management Plan
10.    Scope Baseline is to be created by the project team

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