The project’s scope statement is also called its scope document or statement of work. The project scope statement
- details all the boundaries of the project while also establishing the responsibilities of the team,
- defines all the procedures that need to be followed for verifying and approving the finished work, and,
- gives team members a definitive guideline for making project-related decisions.
When documenting the scope of a project, team members and stakeholders have to be as specific as possible to avoid scope creep, a situation where some parts of the project end up taking more time and effort than initially discussed due to miscommunication or poor planning.
With effective project management, teams are able to ensure that the project is finished on deadline, a proper project communication plan is done, and the final product aligns with the initial requirements.
Project scope management process
Let’s discuss the six processes involved in accurately identifying the project scope management:
1. Planning scope management
In the first process in project scope management, you create a scope plan document that you can refer to in the later stages. The document mainly helps in defining, managing, validating, and controlling the project’s scope.
It includes:
The document doesn’t have to be very detailed, it just has to fit the purpose. You can also use a previous project’s scope management plan as a reference for this.
2. Collecting requirements
The next step is to work out stakeholder requirements and expectations. You will be required to document all the project requirements, expectations, budgets, and deliverables through interviews, surveys, and focus groups.
This is a rather important step because more often than not, stakeholders can have unrealistic requirements or expectations and the project managers would be required to step in to find a solution that is acceptable by everyone from avoiding project delays.
At the end of the collection requirements stage, you should have the following:
- Functional as well as non-functional requirements
- Stakeholder requirements
- Business requirements
- Support and training requirements
- Project requirements
3. Defining the scope
At this step, you need to turn your requirements into a well-detailed description of the service or product that you are trying to deliver through the project. You will then have a project scope statement that you can then refer to throughout your project.
While it is important to list what is in the scope of the project, it is just as important to note down what is out of the project scope. Any kind of inclusions to the scope would then have to go through the entire change control process to ensure the team is only working on things that they are supposed to work on.
With a defined scope, you get a reference point for your project team and anyone else involved. In case there is something that is not involved in the scope, it doesn’t need to be completed by the team.
4. Making a project breakdown structure
A project breakdown structure is a document that breaks down all the work which needs to be done in the project and then assigns all the tasks to the team members. It lists the deliverables that need to be completed and their respective deadlines as well.
You can use project management software for this step of the process to assign and prioritize project tasks which will make it easier to track the entire progress of the project and avoid any unnecessary bottlenecks.
5. Validating scope
In this step, the scope and deliverables that you have recorded need to be sent to project executives and stakeholders to get the necessary approvals. Scope validation needs to be done before starting the project to ensure that if something goes wrong then it is easy to find where it went wrong.
6. Controlling scope
Project managers need to ensure that as the project begins, it always stays within the defined scope. In case there are some things that need to change, then the proper change control process should be followed.
A work breakdown structure (WBS) is a tool that can be used for projects, programs, and even initiatives to understand the work that has to be done to successfully produce a deliverable(s). The benefits of creating a WBS include:
- it defines and organizes the work required
- it facilitates the quick development of a schedule by allocating effort estimates to specific sections of the WBS
- it can be used to identify potential scope risks if it has a branch that is not well defined
- it provides a visual of entire scope
- it can be used to identify communication points
- it provides a visual of impacts when deliverables are falling behind
- it can be used to show and assign accountabilities and responsibilities
- it can show control points and milestones
- it provides a way to estimates project costs
- it ensures no important deliverables are forgotten
- it can assist with resource allocation
- it provides a proven and repeatable approach to planning projects
- it provides a tool for team brainstorming and collaboration
- it provides an opportunity to engage the team and make them feel invested in the planning
July 11, 2022 in Project Initiation A full, complete and accurate Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) is a required element of every project. It is the fundamental building block of a well-run project—but the WBS isn’t created until early in the Planning phase of the project. Here in the Initiation phase, we lay the groundwork for the WBS by writing a Scope Statement. A Project Scope Statement will vary in length and complexity depending on the project. In general, however, the Scope Statement is nothing more than a listing and description of the project’s high-level major deliverables. The document also will include a description of key exclusions (i.e., things not to be included in the deliverables) if there is any chance of ambiguity or misunderstanding. And the Scope Statement also includes high-level descriptions and discussions of key acceptance criteria and quality requirements placed on the high-level deliverables. The Scope Statement is required to ensure you, your team, and the key stakeholders have a clear and unambiguous understanding of what the project will create, test, and deliver. Without this document, people are left to assume and guess; with the document, there should be a very clear description and understanding that leaves nothing important to the imagination. The document itself is high-level in nature. Lower-level details, sub-deliverables, and other non-high-level information is typically omitted. A well-written and clear Scope Statement will enable you and your team to perform detailed planning (e.g., create the WBS, requirements documents, etc.). The Scope Statement will also provide a basis for judging requests for changes, additions to the work, and other pressures to modify the plan. And, as a foundational document, the Scope Statement will be a reference you can return to when faced with important and challenging decisions, questions, and issues that arise later during execution.The What & Why:
A Project Scope Statement is a very important document. But you also shouldn’t over-think it. In fact, the best Scope Statements are often the simplest. Some might even say these are boring (but also effective). To best understand this idea, let’s walk through the basic steps in creating a Scope Statement:
List & Prioritize the Scope. List out all high-level deliverables of the project. We shouldn’t capture all levels of detail now, but instead should focus on the high-level understanding of what products, services and/or results are expected at the end of the project. The key here is to start with the Stakeholder interviews and tease out all the key product and project scope elements. I like using mind-mapping software for this, as it allows you to simply capture elements and then sort them into logical and prioritized categories. The primary focus of this exercise should be “product” scope, i.e., specific and tangible deliverables that will literally be handed over to the stakeholders at the end of the project. But you should also consider key “project” scope, such as services or results that you will also provide, such as systems engineering, safety considerations, test results, and documentation. And you should also create a category for deliverable exclusions that need to be highlighted. When doing this, think about what items could cause genuine confusion or ambiguity with your stakeholders. Ask yourself where are the boundaries and interfaces between what you will and won’t deliver as part of the scope.
Quality & Acceptance Criteria. Once you have a relatively stable list of high-level scope, the next step is to establish high-level quality requirements and/or acceptance criteria for each of the scope elements. For STEM-based product scope, these typically include form, fit, function, and performance requirements, as well as elements like specific required standards, environmental, safety & health (ES&H) requirements, reliability & life, key interfaces, and any operational and usage requirements. For project scope, you should also list key requirements; for example, you might includes specific Safety, Systems, or other standards that must be adhered to.
Draft the Scope Statement. Progressively elaborate this document. Create a high-level first draft. Keep it in bullet format at first—heck, you can probably keep it in bullet format permanently. One issue that some PMs have is they think their documents have to be perfect, entertaining prose. The reality is that simpler is better. Bulleted lists, tables, and such are generally much preferred to long-winded paragraphs. This is true of pretty much all documents you create on the project. Your goal isn’t to be the next John Grisham or Stephen King and “entertain and delight” your readers; instead it’s to provide clear, concise, unambiguous, and to-the-point information communicated and documented, period. For Scope Statements, I prefer a basic table that includes corresponding columns for key quality requirements that are tied to specific scope elements. Focus on conveying the high-level, key “deliverable”-related information to the team and stakeholders. This kind of table clearly defines what you’re tasked with delivering (at a high-level) and how good those things must be when delivered. Anything else is just icing on the cake, and not actually needed. Keep it simple, silly. Oh, and don’t forget to include specific identified exclusions from the scope in the table, too.
Circulate, Iterate, Approve, and Publish the Scope Statement. Finally, circulate the draft document back to the key stakeholders to solicit their review and edits. Like the Mission Statement, you should update, rewrite and edit based on this feedback. Take the stakeholders’ input seriously and try to accommodate everyone’s wants and desires as much as reasonable, whilst also balancing it with the prioritized list of stakeholders themselves, along with what you believe the project can realistically create. Iterate as much as needed to converge on an acceptable and agreeable list— and then formally “freeze” the document by having stakeholders sign off on it, and then placing it under configuration control. Finally, like we did with the Mission Statement, you should publish the Scope Statement in a manner that you, your team, and the key stakeholders can all see. There should be no reason to hide this document; it is, after all, a list of what you’re going to create—as well as what you won’t. Keeping it visible to all will facilitate change control, improve team focus, help with decision making, and manage everyone’s expectations from the start of the project onward.
The project scope statement is nothing more than a list of the key, high-level deliverables, exclusions, and acceptance criteria. This is a fundamental building-block document that must be created and agreed upon with your stakeholders before starting any further significant planning work.
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