Scope Management Knowledge Area ~ PMP TIPS

Every work, every project has a scope. This scope is predefined in some projects in the planning section and some are developed progressively. Scope management is a knowledge area in descriptive lifecycles.

The scope management knowledge area is about how we define the scope of the project, how we are controlling it and what kind of output we are trying to create by the end of the project, what outcomes are we trying to achieve for our stakeholders, and what benefits of the project that we are trying to help our stakeholder achieve or the result or the outcome that we are working for.

Project scope management consists of two main parts: project scope and product scope. The scope of the project includes the work to be done to achieve the result, product, or service with specific features and functions targeted as a result of the project.

Product scope refers to the features and functionality that will be used to define a result, product, or service. Project scope management can be applied especially in planning and monitoring/control process group for measurement purposes. Scope management in the simplest terms is neither missing nor too much giving, it is to give the customer exactly what he wants. The endeavor to apply this is to deliver optimum value at the end of the project by tailoring scope-related processes as efficiently as possible.

Scope management is exactly the knowledge area in which we define what is involved and what is not involved in the project. However many problems arising when managing projects occur as a result of not conducting efficient scope management.

Processes:

One of the considerations that have the most level of importance is that we should pay particular attention not to go outside of the scope in an uncontrolled way. In our daily routine, I am sure there have been so many times when we started a task, we suddenly become baffled with so much related work and we usually miss the main task we were going to do. So it is important to continuously use measurement tools to control the scope. Also, scope verification is dependant on the usage of measurement methods.

With the most basic example, assume that you're doing your home assignment in school. All you need to do is creating content for your document, but you suddenly feel a temptation to decorate the cover to have an impact on your teacher's mind. Your initial plan was to write as many words as you can, but why not some decoration? So many times we notice at midnight our assignment has loads of work to do and it is still incomplete. This is a scope management issue. In other topics under this blog, we will for sure provide more specific examples about projects that failed for various reasons.

Scope management-related documents like scope management plan and scope baseline are called among project artifacts. The scope management plan is used as an artifact in;

Similarly, the scope baseline is used as part of;

Why it is difficult?

This is because if the scope of the project could not be managed properly it may lead to unwanted conditions such as scope creep, gold plating, resource, time, and money losses. Additionally, the project team, the sponsor, and the key stakeholders should incorporate the scope of the project clearly in order to be able to execute the project.

There are certain tailoring considerations for each of the knowledge areas. It is important to know what are the tailoring considerations under scope management. A single solution doesn't fit all so we'll have to tailor the process that we are working on. If I have to work on scope management I might have to tailor the process based on the context I am working in and that really differs according to the sector which you're working on. Because the context is different you're dealing with different kinds of stakeholders so it's very important for us to tailor the process based on the context that you're working in.

Under each of the knowledge areas, you'll find various processes. Speaking of scope management we start with plan scope management and this is where we focus on how to plan the scope management activities on the project. Collecting requirements is definitely one of the important processes where we reach out to the stakeholders to identify their needs and requirements based on the project or product that we are working on. Then based on the requirements that we have gathered before, we define scope and we ensure that whatever it is defined in the scope you only work on those items and not something which is not part of the scope. Creating WBS process certainly gives us an idea about what are the low-level activities, tasks, work packages that we have to work around and decomposition is one of the techniques that is used while creating WBS. The creation of WBS is definitely one of the important processes within scope management.

After this, we have to validate the scope against the acceptance criteria. That is defined between you and the customer for each deliverable that you are producing by the end of each phase in the project or product lifecycle. It's important to define very clearly the acceptance criteria and then lastly we have got control scoop and this is where we basically see how we control effectively the changes that might happen to the scope and how we go about managing those changes so these are the six processes that we have within scope management.