Project scope

Project scope
See also
Project charter Stages of project Project initiation Structure of enterprise planning system Quality planning Process performance Project cost management Quality plan Validation master plan

The scope of the project is a document that is the basis for determining further work in the project, because it defines the boundaries of the project (in various senses: financial, time, people, material, etc.). It is very important to properly define the scope of the project, because it will provide the basis for further work in the project. Scope of the project undergoes many changes. It is important to detect changes in the scope of the project and to manage them

Contents of the project scope

Project scope document must contain an estimate of the expected stability of the project scope, i.e. what is the likelihood that the plan will change and how often and to what extent. Plan of scope management must describe how the change in the project scope will be identified, defined, classified and implemented.

Importance of the project scope

Defining the project scope is of great importance for achieving its objectives. If the scope of the project will be poorly defined, it may happen that the project costs will be higher because of a small (according to managers) change, causing the need to repeat some of the work, which extends the duration of the project and its cost.

The scope of the project is defined differently. In the IT industry it can be a functional specification of software or hardware system. Project scope can be called differently in various industries, e.g.: form of the project, statement of the project scope, etc.

Elements of the project scope

The scope of the project may include:

• project business justification – description of needs, which took the decision to launch the project (business case),
• description of the product - summary description of the product, which will be produced during the implementation of the project, deliverables of project (i.e. in software industry: source code, prototype, user manual). Project objectives should include a timetable, costs, quality measures, etc.
• intermediate products - list of partial products which will be delivered during project implementation,
• project objectives or criteria that should be met, before the project could be regarded as completed.

See also:

• Budget of a project

References

• Clark, K. B. (2003). Project Scope and Project Performance. Operations Management: Critical Perspectives on Business and Management, 3(10), 446.
• Khan, A. (2006). Project scope management. Cost engineering, 48(6), 12-16.
• Kraus, W. E., & Cressman, K. R. (1992). Project Scope Definition-A Practical Approach, COST ENGINEERING-ANN ARBOR THEN MORGANTOWN-, 34, 15-15.
• Meredith, J. R., & Mantel Jr, S. J. (2011). Project management: a managerial approach. John Wiley & Sons.
• PMI (2001). Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® GUIDE). In Project Management Institute.