PMBOK – Scope Management

Project Scope Management – processes required to define what work is required and ensure that the project includes only that work required to complete the project. Involves managing both product scope and project scope. Processes outlined are used to manager the project scope only.

Project Scope Management Plan – Provides guidance on how project scope will be defined, documented, verified, managed and controlled by project management team. It includes

1. Scope definition: A process to prepare detailed project scope statement based on preliminary project scope statement
2. Create WBS: A process that enables creation of WBS also establishes how WBS will be maintained and approved
3. Scope Verification: How formal verification and acceptance of the completed project deliverables will be obtained
4. Scope Control: A process to control changes to project scope, it is directly linked to integrated change control

Project Scope – the work that must be done in order to deliver a product, services or result of the project; completion is measured against the project plan. It includes meetings, reports, analysis and all the other parts of PM.

Product Scope – features and functions that are to be included in a product; completion is measured against the Product requirements. It can be supplied as a result of a previous project to determine the requirements.

Design Scope – contain the detailed project requirements (used for FP contract).

Gold plating is not an approved PMI practice.

Scope Baseline – Approved detailed 1.project Scope statement, 2.WBS and 3.WBS dictionary.

Scope Definition – subdividing major project deliverables. Primarily concerns with what is and is not included in the project. It involves using prelim scope statement and fleshing it to include all needs of the stakeholders, Scope constraints and assumptions.

All the processes of scope management results in change requests.

TOOLS

Stakeholder Analysis: Stakeholder influences and interests and document their needs, wants and expectations for  requirements.

Product Analysis: methods for translating project objective into tangible deliverables and req. Product breakdown, system analysis, system engineering, value engineering and functional analysis.

Alternative Analysis: tech used to generate different approaches to execute and perform the work of the project

Project Scope statement: describe in detail the project’s deliverable and the work required to create those deliverables. Provides common understanding of the project scope among all stakeholders and describe project’s major objective. It also provides the scope baseline.

Scope Statement Contains – 1.Project Objectives 2.Product Scope Description 3.Project Requirement 4.Project Boundaries 5.Project Deliverables 6.Product Acceptance Criteria 7. Constraints 8.Assumptions 9.Initial Project Organization 10.Initial identified risks 11.Schedule Milestones 12.Fund Limitation 13.Cost Estimate 14.Project Configuration Management Requirements 15.Specifications 16.Approval Requirements

.Break Down Structures

1. Work Break Down Structure (WBS)
2. Organizational Breakdown Structure (OBS)
3. Resource Breakdown Structure (RBS)
4. Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS)
5. Bill of Materials (BOM) – Hierarchical tabulation of physical assemblies, subassemblies & components needed to fabricate a manufactured product.

CREATE Work Break Down Structure (WBS)

WBS – subdividing project deliverables into smaller, more manageable components. It is a deliverable-oriented grouping of project elements that organizes and defines the total scope of the project. It is a communication tool and it describes what needs to be done and what skills are required. Anything missing in the WBS should be added. The WBS is created by the team (helps to get buy-in) and it is used to make certain that all the work is covered. It provides a basis for estimating the project and helps to organize the work. Its purpose is to include the total project scope of all the work that must be done to complete the project.

The 1^st level should be the project life-cycle (not product). Defines the project’s scope baseline. Include only work needed to create deliverables. Divided further to get work packages.

WBS is foundation of the project as everything that occurs in the planning process group after the creation of the WBS is directly related to the WBS. Ex risks, assignment, estimation, activity list, schedule, budget, network control.

The 3 most common types of WBS are

1. system/sub systems,
2. life-cycle phasing and
3. organizational.

Benefits of WBS

1. Prevent work slipping thru the crack.
2. Provides the team with an understanding of where their pieces fit into the overall Project Management Process.
3. and gives them an indication of the impact of their work on the project as a whole
4. facilitates communication among team member and other stakeholders
5. provides basis and proof for all kind of estimates
6. help in team building

WBS in short is

1. is a graphical picture of hierarchy of the project components
2. if it not in WBS then it is not part of the project
3. should exist for all project
4. does not show dependencies

Decomposition –  (1st level – Project lifecycle (for IT design, code, test, install), 2^nd level – Deliverables (Break down till cost estimates can be done, verify decomposition correctness) ) lowest level of the WBS may be referred to as work packages.

Work not in the WBS is outside the scope of the project. WBS is a tool to do decomposition. Subdividing project work packages into smaller, more manageable components (activities/action steps). The heuristic (rule of thumb) used in project decomposition is 80 hours (work packages).

Work Package – deliverable at the lowest level of WBS. They are control points in the work packages and are used for task assignments, cost and schedule estimates, risk identifications etc. They are further divided into schedule activities.

Control account – one level above the Work Package, in large projects costs are estimated at this level.

WBS Dictionary – Defines each item in the WBS, includes info such as a number identifier, control account for cost budgets, Statement of work (SOW) to be done, person responsible/staff assignments and schedule milestone. It helps to reduce Scope Creep, increases understanding and control and inspect the on going work.

WBS dictionary can be used as a part of Work Authorization system to inform team members of when their work package is going to start, schedule milestones and other info.

Scope Verification – to verify that the work done satisfies the scope of the project. It must be done at the end of each phase of project lifecycle to verify phase deliverables and in M&C. A similar activity during closure process is Product Verification (is for complete product) but scope verification (for deliverables/components) happens in M&C. The review at the end of the project phase is called phase exit, stage gate, or kill point.

SV Checks the work against the PMP and project scope mgmt plan, WBS and WBS dictionary and then meeting the customer to gain formal acceptance of deliverables.

Scope Verification is normally done after quality control which checks for correctness of work based on quality requirements and scope verification focuses on customer acceptance but these two processes can be performed in parallel.

Alternative way to describe SV, Inspection, Reviews, Product Reviews, Audits and Walkthroughs, sign off etc

SCOPE CONTROL: focuses on changes due to scope control and changes on scope due to other changes. All requested changes passes thru ICC

1. have clear definition of scope
2. measure scope performance against scope baseline
3. determine if any update to PMP or scope management plan needed.

Scope Creep – Uncontrolled changes are often referred as project scope creep.

Variance Analysis – Project performance is measurements are used to assess the magnitude of variation. It includes finding the cause of variation relative to the scope baseline.

Rolling Wave Planning – The Project Management team usually waits until the deliverable or subproject is clarified so the details of the WBS can be developed. This is referred as rolling wave planning. So Work to be performed in the near future is planned to the low level of the WBS, where as work to be performed far into the future can be planned at the relatively high level of the WBS

Management by Objective (MBO) – determining company’s objective and how the project fits into them. MBO focuses on the goals of an activity rather than the activity itself (manager is responsible for results rather than performing certain activities)

Stakeholder Management – the project manager must identify the stakeholders, determine their needs and expectations, then manage and influence expectations to ensure project success. Project success depends primarily on customer satisfaction.

1. Identify all of them
2. Determine all of their requirements
3. Determine their expectations
4. Communicate with them
5. Manage their influence

The principal sources of project failure are organizational factors, poorly identified customer needs, inadequate specified project requirements, and poor planning and control.

Most Change Requests are the result of

1. An external event
2. An error or omission in defining the scope of the product
3.  An error or omission in defining the scope of the project
4. A value-adding change

A Change Request is the most effective way of handling the disconnect between what users actually want and what management thinks they want. The project manager’s role related to project change is to influence the factors that affect change. He should ask for a change order and look for impacts to the triple constraint. Scope Changes on project can be minimized by spending more time developing the scope baseline.

If there is enough reserve to accommodate a change then it should be handled as a risk management process, the Project Manager can approve the change (we are paid to manage the scope completion within our budget and reserves)

End of phase reviews happens at the end of the phase and is same as administrative closure at the end of the project

Related posts:

1. PMBOK – Project Management Processes for a project
2. PMBOK – Integration Management
3. Project Planning and Control Cycle overview
4. Scope Management Log
5. Are you an amateur vs professional project managers ? – some warning signs