Scope management

ll projects start with a vague idea or scope. For example, ‘I need a new house’, and no one has any idea about the functionality of the house at this point. Should it be an apartment, or an independent house, or a house in a gated community, how many rooms, swimming pool, car park, security, air conditioning….., the scope gets elaborated as the project progresses. However, we need to freeze the major part of the scope which has major impact on the architecture, budget of the project need to be frozen before we commence the detailed planning. The purpose of ‘Project scope management’ is to ensure that the project includes all the work required, and exclude all the unwanted work during the beginning till the end of the project.

The steps involved in ‘Project scope management’ are;

• Plan scope management
• Collect requirements
• Define scope
• Create WBS (Work breakdown structure)
• Validate scope
• Control scope

1. Plan scope management – Comprises of creating a ‘project scope management plan’ which elaborates ‘How’ the project and the product scope will be defined, validated and controlled. The key concepts to be understood are;
   1. Project scope – The work performed to deliver the product, service or result.
   2. Product scope – The features and functions that characterize the product.
   3. Project life cycle – The series or phases that a project passes through from it’s inception to completion.
   4. Alternatives analysis – Performed for analyzing various ways of collecting requirements, scope elaboration of the project and the product, developing the product and validating and controlling the scope.
   5. Scope management plan – Comprises of;
      1. How and who will prepare the scope statement?
      2. How to decompose the scope into a work breakdown structure (WBS)?. Who will perform the decomposition?
      3. How and who will approve the scope baseline?. How the approved scope baseline will be maintained?
      4. How formal acceptance of the completed deliverables will be obtained?
   6. Requirements management plan – comprises of;
      1. How the requirements will be captured, analysed, ranked, documented and maintained?
      2. How the configuration management (version control) of the requirements will be performed?
      3. How requirements related metrics will be collected and analyzed?
      4. How to establish requirements traceability?
2. Collect requirements
   1. Business analysis 
   2. Brainstorming 
   3. Interviews
   4. Focus groups 
   5. Questionnaires and surveys 
   6. Benchmarking 
   7. Document analysis 
   8. Voting 
   9. Multi criteria decision analysis 
   10. Affinity diagrams 
   11. Mindmapping 
   12. Nominal group techniques 
   13. Observation / conversation 
   14. Context diagrams 
   15. Prototypes
   16. Requirements traceability matrix 
   17. Requirements documentation 
3. Define scope
   1. Assumptions log 
   2. Risk register 
   3. Inter-personnel and team skills 
   4. Product analysis 
      1. Product breakdown 
      2. Requirements analysis 
      3. Systems analysis 
      4. Systems engineering 
      5. Value analysis 
      6. Value engineering 
4. Create Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
   1. Decomposition
   2. Scope baseline
   3. Work packages
   4. Planning package
   5. WBS dictionary
5. Validate scope
   1. Inspection
   2. Decision making
6. Control scope
   1. Change management plan
   2. Configuration management plan
   3. Variance analysis
   4. Trend analysis