Introduction to Scope Management
According to the PMI publication, Process Groups – A Practice Guide or the 6th edition of the PMBOK Guide, Scope Management includes the processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required and only the work required to complete the project successfully. It also states that managing the project scope is primarily concerned with defining and controlling what is and is not included in the project.
- From a common sense perspective, if we don’t have a way of managing scope, we could inadvertently miss delivering something crucial that some or all of the stakeholders were counting on. It’s a common problem due to not seeing the forest for the trees when we are stuck in the details and forget the bigger picture.
- When you are preparing for the certification exam, from a scope management perspective, they are testing you on two additional concepts that are quite valuable that your real life projects can benefit from:
- First, if you manage scope the way most people do, you will start planning the project by identifying the tasks that need to be executed. The better way to plan a project is to separate the problem you are solving from the solution to that problem. This allows you and the team the freedom of more solutions to choose from to find the best fit. Similarly, you should also separate the solution from the actions required to execute on that solution. This again allows the team the freedom of more approaches to choose from when executing on the solution.
- Second, if you are managing scope that is too big or complex, if you are like most people, you could fall prey to ‘paralysis of analysis’ and not know where to start or if you do start, you may feel like you are at constant threat of getting stalled or slowing down. So how should we go about reducing the complexity to a low enough level that it can be easily delegated for execution? Our best bet is to apply the old adage of how to eat an elephant – one small bite at a time. So if a project is too big, we can simplify the scope by applying the concept of a Work Breakdown Structure where you are breaking down the work into smaller and more manageable components of work to the point where they are simple enough to be delegated to someone that can execute on the work.
- These are the benefits of Scope Management. For simpler projects, the overhead may not feel like it’s worth it but for larger, more complex projects, many a time, project managers find that there isn’t a choice around the WBS so when you get to the $100M or $1B projects, I would expect the project manager to definitely do it this way. The problem is that for most projects, they are much smaller and it’s a judgment call whether to use the WBS or not. When we get to the WBS topic video, we will learn more but honestly with experience, it will become clear when it’s invaluable to use this technique and when it’s more optional. On the exam, assume you are on a project that can benefit from this technique.
Terms to know for the exam:
- Requirements Gathering Techniques: In terms of definitions of key terms in this chapter, make sure you know the following requirements gathering techniques – Brainstorming, Interviewing, Focus Groups, Questionnaires and Surveys, Nominal Group Technique, Affinity Diagram, and Context Diagram.
- Other Definitions (Required for Exam): Finally, it may be helpful to know the definitions of the following terms – progressive elaboration, rolling wave planning, control account, gold plating, scope creep, Autocratic Decision Making, Multicriteria Decision Analysis, Voting (Unanimity, Majority, and Plurality), and User Stories.
- Other Definitions (Optional for Exam): It may also be helpful to know the definitions of the following terms but not required (learn them from the book if you have extra time) – Joint Application Design/Development (JAD), Quality Function Deployment (QFD), 100 Percent Rule, Planning Package, and the Delphi technique.
If you are buying a house in a seller’s market, you could feel like you don’t have many choices and when you start executing on your plan to buy a house and you run into challenges, you could feel overwhelmed and not know how to solve the problem.
Applying what I was saying earlier, if you instead focused on the original problem you were wanting to solve with the project, you may find that there are other approaches to solving the tactical challenges you are encountering during execution by keeping the bigger problem in mind.
So if the actual problem you are trying to solve by buying a house is to have more space so your partner, yourself, and your recently graduated adult children that are staying with you can work from home, if you can’t find a house in your price range or a house that meets all your criteria, you could go back and revisit the solution and meet the original need by adding an extension to your house.
The project is still essentially the same – you need more space for everyone in your household to work from home but you can go in a different direction by extending your house to add space. If you didn’t know this scope management concept, you may still be trying to figure out how to buy a house in a seller’s market and overstretch yourself financially and increase your stress levels.
From an exam perspective, you need to know the difference between project scope and product scope and you also need to know the 4 project management deliverables in this chapter – scope management plan, requirements management plan, requirements traceability matrix, and scope baseline.
The scope baseline is the most important of the 4 deliverables and it includes the finalized and approved version of the project scope statement, work breakdown structure, and WBS dictionary.
- Definitions to know for the exam (read from the book or in later topics here):
- Requirements Gathering Techniques: In terms of definitions of key terms in this chapter, make sure you know the following requirements gathering techniques – Brainstorming, Interviewing, Focus Groups, Questionnaires and Surveys, Nominal Group Technique, Affinity Diagram, and Context Diagram.
- Other Definitions (Required for Exam): Finally, it may be helpful to know the definitions of the following terms – progressive elaboration, rolling wave planning, control account, gold plating, scope creep, Autocratic Decision Making, Multicriteria Decision Analysis, Voting (Unanimity, Majority, and Plurality), and User Stories.
- Other Definitions (Optional for Exam): It may also be helpful to know the definitions of the following terms but not required (learn them from the book if you have extra time) – Joint Application Design/Development (JAD), Quality Function Deployment (QFD), 100 Percent Rule, Planning Package, and the Delphi technique.