CH5 - Project Scope Management

Scope

refers to all the work involved in creating the products of the project and the processes used to create them

Deliverable

a product produced as part of a project, such as hardware or software, planning documents, or meeting minutes

Project Scope Management

• includes the processes involved in defining and controlling what is or is not included in the project

  • ensures that the project team and stakeholders have the same understanding of what products the project will produce and what processes the project team will use to produce them

• Planning Scope Management

• Collecting Requirements

• Defining Scope

• Creating the WBS

• Validating Scope

• Controlling Scope

Main Processes

Planning Scope Management

determining how the project’s scope and requirements will be managed

Collecting Requirements

defining and documenting the features and functions of the products produced during the project as well as the processes used for creating them

Defining Scope

reviewing the project charter, requirements documents, and organizational process assets to create a scope statement

Creating the WBS

subdividing the major project deliverables into smaller, more manageable components

Validating Scope

formalizing acceptance of the project deliverables

Controlling Scope

controlling changes to project scope throughout the life of the project

• Scope Management Plan

• Requirements Management Plan

The project team uses expert judgment, data analysis, and meetings to develop two important outputs

• Prepare a detailed project scope statement

• Create a WBS

• Maintain and approve the WBS

• Obtain formal acceptance of the completed project deliverables

• Control requests for changes to the project scope

Scope Management Plan Contents

Requirement

a condition or capability that is necessary to be present in a product, service, or result to satisfy a business need - PMBOK

The requirements management plan documents how project requirements will be analyzed, documented, and managed

• How to plan, track, and report requirements activities

• How to perform configuration management activities

• How to prioritize requirements

• How to use product metrics

• How to trace and capture attributes of requirements

NOTES

• Interviewing stakeholders

• Holding focus groups and facilitated workshops

• Using group creativity and decision-making techniques

• Utilizing questionnaires and surveys

• Conducting observation studies

• Generating ideas by comparing specific project practices or product characteristics (i.e., benchmarking)

Several ways to collect requirements

Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM)

a table that lists requirements, various attributes of each requirement, and the status of the requirement to ensure that all requirements are addressed

• Do not rely on testers to ensure quality

• Do not believe in fads or buzzwords including Agile

Best Practice

Book called How Google Tests Software describes how Google changed their culture as quality rests on the shoulders of those writing the code

• Product Scope Description

• Product User Acceptance Criteria

• Detailed Information on All Project Deliverables

Important Elements of a Project Scope Statement

• Product boundaries, constraints and assumptions

Supporting document references (e.g., product specifications)

Other Scope-Related Information

True

As time progresses, the scope of a project should become more clear and specific

True

Inaccurate requirements gathering continues to be one of the main causes of project failure

• For every dollar spent on projects and programs, 5.1 percent is wasted due to poor requirements management

True

Organizations need to develop people, processes, and culture to improve requirements management

Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

• a deliverable-oriented grouping of the work involved in a project that defines the total scope of the project

• foundation document that provides the basis for planning and managing project schedules, costs, resources, and changes

Decomposition

main tool or technique for creating a WBS

• subdividing project deliverables into smaller pieces

Work Package

a task at the lowest level of the WBS

True

Outputs of creating the WBS are the scope baseline and project documents updates

Scope Baseline

includes the approved project scope statement and its associated WBS and WBS dictionary

• Using guidelines

• Analogy approach

• Top-down approach

• Bottom-up approach

• Mind mapping

Approaches to developing work breakdown structures

Using guidelines

some organizations, like the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), provide guidelines for preparing WBSsA

Analogy Approach

review WBSs of similar projects and tailor to your project

Top-Down Approach

start with the largest items of the project and break them down

Bottom-Up Approach

start with the specific tasks

Mind Mapping

uses branches radiating out from a core idea to structure thoughts and ideas

• Attend meetings in your organization where teams work together

• Ask to see WBSs for projects that have been completed or are in process

It is very difficult to create a good WBS

True

Many WBS tasks are vague

WBS Dictionary

a document that describes a detailed information about each WBS item

• format can vary based on project needs

• Unit of work should appear at only one place in the WBS

• Work content of a WBS item is the sum of the WBS items below it

• WBS items is the responsibility of only one individual, even though many people may be working on it

• 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

• Project team members should be involved in developing the WBS to ensure consistency and buy-in

• Each WBS item must be documented in a WBS dictionary to ensure accurate understanding of the scope of work included and not included

• 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

Advice for creating a WBS and WBS dictionary

Validating Scope

• It is difficult to create a good project scope statement and WBS for a project

  • Even more difficult, especially on IT projects, to verify the project scope and minimize scope changes

• Even when the project scope is fairly well defined, many IT projects suffer from scope creep

• Scope validation involves formal acceptance of the completed project deliverables

Scope Creep

tendency for project scope to keep getting bigger and bigger

Acceptance

is often achieved by a customer inspection and then sign-off on key deliverables

What Went Wrong

• A project scope that is too broad and grandiose can cause severe problems

  • Scope creep and an overemphasis on technology for technology’s sake resulted in the bankruptcy of a large pharmaceutical firm, Texas-based FoxMeyer Drug

  • In 2001, McDonald’s fast-food chain initiated a project to create an intranet that would connect its headquarters with all of its restaurants to provide detailed operational information in real time

    • After spending $170 million on consultants and initial implementation planning, McDonald’s realized that the project was too much to handle and terminated it

Scope Control

involves controlling changes to the project scope keeping project goals and business strategy in mind

• Influence the factors that cause scope changes

• Ensure changes are processed according to procedures developed as part of integrated change control

• Manage changes when they occur

Goals of Scope Control

Variance

the difference between planned and actual performance

• Develop a good project selection process and insist that sponsors are from the user organization

• Place users on the project team

• Conduct regular meetings with defined agendas

• Deliver something to users and sponsors on a regular basis

• Do not promise to deliver what the team cannot deliver in a particular time frame

• Locate users with the developers

Suggestions for improving user input

• Develop and follow a requirements management process

• Employ techniques such as prototyping, use case modeling, and JAD to get more user involvement

• Put requirements in writing and keep them current

• Create a requirements management database for documenting and controlling requirements

• Provide adequate testing and conduct it 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

Suggestions for reducing incomplete and changing requirements

• Word-processing software helps create several scope-related documents

• Spreadsheets or presentation software to develop various charts, graphs, and matrixes related to scope management

• Mind-mapping software can be useful in developing a WBS

• Communication software like e-mail and web-based applications can transmit project scope management information

• Project management software helps in creating a WBS; basis for creating a Gantt chart

• Specialized software is available to assist in project scope management

Using Software to Assist in Project Scope Management

Stakeholders

define and approve the detailed scope before the start of an iteration with an adaptive or agile product life cycle, producing a usable product at the end of each iteration

Agile approach

provides several usable products during the project

• Word-processing software

• Spreadsheets or presentation software

• Mind-mapping software

• Communication software like e-mail and web-based applications

• Project management software

• Specialized software

• helps create several scope-related documents

• to develop various charts, graphs, and matrixes related to scope management

• can be useful in developing a WBS

• can transmit project scope management information

• helps in creating a WBS; basis for creating a Gantt chart

• is available to assist in project scope management