Project scope management fundamentals – 5 Key Phases

Scope management fundamentalsDecember 5, 2015
A significant proportion any project management methodology is devoted to the area of scope, specifically scope planning, the project’s ‘whats’ and ‘whys’. The requirements for the project stem from organizational needs. To identify needs the team must review the project’s business case and charter documents and consult with a variety of stakeholders. The project objectives need to be based on the business benefits that an organisation expects to achieve as a result of spending time, money, and exerting effort to complete a project.

For scope management training, you can take part in our two day project management fundamentals course in Melbourne or other capital cities and regional centres around Australia.

The 5 Key Scope Management phases are:

  1. Scope Planning. There are three stages in the scope management process. So, what occurs in each stage?
  1. Initiation – development of project charter, and identification of objectives, deliverables constraints and assumptions.
  2. Scope definition/execution – development of scope details, scope statement and scope management plan. WBS creation.
  3. Scope monitoring/controlling – verification – validating and approving deliverables. scope control – controlling changes to scope, closeout – lessons learnt to inform future projects
  1. Scope Definition.

It is important for the project manager to have a clear definition of what each group of stakeholders view as successful outcomes for the project. There can be different interpretations of successful outcomes by different levels of management all working on the same project. Executives might view the project as a source of new customers. Line managers might view is as a means of developing new technology, and the project manager might view it as a chance to generate profit. It is essential there is a clear, documented and agreed set of outcomes for the project to be measured against.

  1. Scope Creep is one of the leading causes of project failure.

Uncontrolled changes to the project (scope creep) lead to more tasks required than originally specified, which leads to either higher project costs or an extension to the time for the project, or both. Time and cost blow outs are the main causes of a project failing. Scope creep also affects the quality and the level of risk in the project which can also lead to project failure.

  1. Scope Change.

Understanding the relationship between scope change management and risk management is critical. Changing the scope of a project, especially during the downstream life cycle phases, can drastically increase the project’s risk. The processes of scope change and risk management need to be integrated so that early identification of scope changes can be assessed for their impact upon overall project risk. Drezinex

  1. Scope Monitoring and Control. The methods that can be used to monitor and control the scope of a project are:
  • Influencing the factors that create scope change.
  • Determining that scope change has occurred.
  • Managing the actual changes through a scope control system.
  • Reporting project progress