Project Scope Management

• Processes required to ensure that the project includes all, and only, work required
• Defining what “is/is not” included in the project
• Project scope – work that must be done – measured against project plan
• Product scope – features and functions included in the product or service – measured against requirements
• Initiation – process of formally recognizing that a new project exists, or an existing project continue to next phase
• Involves feasibility study, preliminary plan, or equivalent analysis
• Authorized as a result of:
• Market Demand
• Business Need
• Customer Request
• Technological Advance
• Legal Requirement

Initiation Inputs:

• Product Description – characteristics of the product/service that the project was to create
• Less detail in early phases, more comprehensive in latter
• Relationship between product/service and business need
• Should support later project planning
• Initial product description is usually provided by the buyer
• Strategic Plan – supportive of the organization's goals
• Project Selection Criteria – defined in terms of the product and covers range of management concerns (finance, market)
• Historical Information – results of previous project decisions and performance should be considered

Tools & Techniques for Initiation

Project Selection Methods:

• Benefit measurement models – comparative approaches, scoring models, economic models
• Murder Boards
• Peer Review
• Scoring Models
• Economic Models
• Benefits compared to costs
• Constrained operation models – programming mathematical
• Linear Programming
• Integer Programming
• Dynamic Programming
• Multi-objective programming
• Decision models – generalized and sophisticated techniques
• Expert judgment
• Business Units with specialized skills
• Consultant
• Professional and Technical Associations
• Industry Groups
• Delphi Technique – obtain expert opinions on technical issues, scope of work and risks
• Keep expert’s identities anonymous
• Build consensus

Outputs from Initiation:

Project Charter – formally recognizes project, created by senior manager, includes:

• Business need/Business Case
• Product description & title
• Signed contract
• Project Manager Identification & Authority level
• Senior Management approval
• Project’s Goals and Objectives - 
• Constraints – factors that limit project management team’s options
• Assumptions – factors that are considered true for planning purposes.  Involve a degree of risk 

Scope Planning – process of developing  a written statement as basis for future decisions

• Criteria to determine if the project or phase is successful

Scope Planning Inputs:

• Product description
• Project Charter
• Constraints
• Assumptions

Scope Planning Tools & Techniques

• Product Analysis - - developing a better understanding of the product of the project
• Cost/Benefit Analysis – estimating tangible/intangible costs and returns of various project alternatives and using financial measures (R.O.I.) to assess desirability
• Alternatives Identification – generate different approaches to the project; “brainstorming” 
• Expert Judgment

Scope Planning Outputs

• Scope Statement – documented basis for making project decisions and confirming understanding among stakeholders.  Includes:
• Project justification – business need, evaluating future trade-offs
• Project Product – summary of project description
• Project Deliverables – list of summary of delivery items marking completion of the project
• Project Objectives – quantifiable criteria met for success. Addresses cost, schedule and metrics – unqualified objectives indicate high risk (customer satisfaction)
• Supporting detail – includes documentation of all assumptions and constraints
• Scope Management Plan – how project scope is managed, change control procedure, expected stability, change identification and classification
• Control what is/is not in the project; prevents delivering “extra” benefits to the customer that were not specified/required
• Scope Definition – subdividing major deliverables into smaller, manageable components
• Improve accuracy of cost, time, and resource estimates
• Define a baseline for performance measurement
• Clear responsibility assignments
• Critical to project success – reduces risk of higher cost, redundancy, time delays, and poor productivity
• Defines “what” you are doing; WBS is the tool
• Scope Definition Inputs:
• Scope Statement
• Constraints – consider contractual provisions
• Assumptions
• Other Planning Outputs
• Historical Information
• Scope Definition Tools & Techniques
• Work Breakdown Structure – templates from previous projects
• Decomposition – subdividing major deliverables into manageable components:
• Major elements – project deliverables and project management approach
• Decide cost and duration estimates are appropriate at level of detail
• Constituent elements – tangible verifiable results to enable performance management, how the work will be accomplished
• Verify correctness of decomposition
• All items necessary and sufficient?
• Clearly and completely defined?
• Appropriately scheduled, budgeted, assigned?
• Scope Definition Outputs
• Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) – a deliverable-oriented grouping of project assignments that organizes and defines the scope of the project 
• Each descending level represents further detail; smaller and more manageable pieces
• Each item is assigned a unique identifier collectively known as “code of accounts”
• Work element descriptions included in a WBS dictionary (work, schedule and planning information) 
• Other formats:
• Contractual WBS – seller provides the buyer
• Organizational (OBS) – work elements to specific org. units
• Resource (RBS) – work elements to individuals
• Bill of Materials (BOM) – hierarchical view of physical resources
• Project (PBS) – similar to WBS
• First Level is commonly the same at the Project Life Cycle (requirements, design, coding, testing, conversion and operation)
• First level is completed before the project is broken down further
• Each level of the WBS is a smaller segment of level above
• Work toward the project deliverables
• Break down project into tasks that
• Are realistically and confidently estimable
• Cannot be logically divided further
• Can be completed quickly (under 80 hours rule of thumb)
• Have a meaningful conclusion and deliverable
• Can be completed without interruption
• Provides foundation for all project planning and control
• Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) - Benefits
• Prevent work slippage
• Project team understands how their tasks fit into the overall project and their impact upon the project
• Facilitates communication and cooperation between project team and stakeholders
• Helps prevent changes
• Focuses team experience into what needs to be done – results in higher quality
• Basis and proof for estimating staff, cost and time
• Gets team buy-in, role identification
• Graphical picture of the project hierarchy
• Identifies all tasks, project foundation
• WBS phrases
• Graphical hierarchy of the project
• Identifies all tasks 
• Foundation of the project
• Very important
• Forces thought of all aspects of the project
• Can be re-used for other projects
• Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) – Dictionary
• Designed to control what work is done and when
• Also known as a task description
• Puts boundary on what is included in a task and what is not included
• Scope Verification Inputs
• Work results – partially/completed deliverables, costs to date
• Product documentation – description available for review (requirements)
• Scope Verification Tools & Techniques
• Inspection – measuring, examining, testing to determine if results conform to requirements
• Scope Verification Outputs
• Formal acceptance – documentation identifying client and stakeholder approval, customer acceptance of efforts
• Scope Change Control:
• Influencing factors to ensure that changes are beneficial
• Determining scope change has occurred
• Managing changes when they occur
• Thoroughly integrated with other control processes
• Scope Change Control Inputs:
• Work Breakdown Structure
• Performance Reports- issues reported
• Change Requests – expansion/shrink of scope derived from :
• External events (government regulations)
• Scope definition errors of product or project
• Value adding change – new technology
• Scope Management Plan
• Scope Change Control Tools & Techniques
• Scope Change Control System – defines procedures how scope change can occur
• All paperwork, tracking systems, approval levels
• Integrated with overall change control procedures
• Performance Measurement – determine what is causing variances and corrective actions
• Additional Planning 
• Scope Change Control Outputs:
• Scope Changes – fed back through planning processes, revised WBS
• Corrective Actions 
• Lessons Learned – cause and reasoning for variances documented for historical purposes
• Management By Objectives (MBO)
• Philosophy that has 3 steps:
• Establish unambiguous and realistic objectives
• Periodically evaluate if objectives are being met
• Take corrective action
• Project Manager must know that if project is not aligned or support corporate objectives, the project is likely to lose resources, assistance and attention.
• MBO only works if management supports it