Project Management Scope: Planning Out Everything to Start

The primary goal of the project management scope method is to define all of the work needed to successfully fulfil the project’s objectives before the start of the project. For a more flexible project management style, Agile offers iteration planning for when the needed work is constantly being redefined and updated. Scope, on the other hand, reviews all of the requirements needed for a project before it begins.

After the project’s objectives are outlined, the deliverables, or anything needed to be produced for the project, need to be defined in the scope of the project. Deliverables include all of the products and services that will be performed for the client, customer, or sponsor. During the scope planning phase, project management documents also need to be outlined. Project management documents include plans, schedules, budgets, blueprints, and intermediate documents.

When using the project management scope method, project requirements are the next assets to be defined. These requirements focus on the functionality and characteristics of the final deliverable regardless if it is a product or service. The project requirements outline the goals of the project and how it is supposed to be created and implemented. According to BC Campus, “Requirements must be measurable, testable, related to identified business needs or opportunities, and defined to a level of detail sufficient for system design.”
There are six basic categories of requirements: functional, non-functional, technical, business, user, and regulatory.

Functional requirements are straightforward and describe the final deliverable’s characteristics in plain language. This is to promote customer comprehension. Customers play a direct role in the functionality of the final deliverable. In short, it is what you want the deliverable to do.

Non-functional requirements are used to evaluate the final product or service that the project delivers. They are restrictions or constraints put on a deliverable that restrict the number of solutions that meet a set of requirements. The three types of constraints are time, resource, and quality. Define when the deliverable should be delivered, the budget available to develop it, and any standards used to develop the deliverable.

Technical requirements focus on the technology or procedures that need to be designed and implemented to achieve the final deliverable’s functionality and operational characteristics. Business requirements are statements of business rationales presented to the sponsors that explain the broad business outcomes. User requirements, however, focus on the user experience and what the user needs to do with the final deliverable. Regulatory requirements are often non-negotiable internal or external requirements related to the product or business. These include applicable government-imposed restrictions, licences, and laws.

How to Implement:

• Define the project’s objectives, goals, and stakeholders
• Use background information from stakeholders to help determine what the final product or service will feature
  • Interviews, focus groups, prototypes, observations, and surveys are techniques used to gather the stakeholder information
• Outline the deliverables required to satisfy the project objectives. Focus on the final deliverable’s functionality and characteristics, such as product dimensions.
• Define the six requirements (functional, non-functional, technical, business, user, and regulatory) that impact the final deliverable
• Produce a requirements table (aka requirements traceability matrix) that links requirements to their origin and traces them through the project life cycle
• Break down the project using a work breakdown structure, which breaks down a project into components that are scheduled, estimated, monitored, and controlled
  • This process is about creating smaller tasks needed to complete the overall project
  • The main purpose of this schedule is to capture all of the tasks regardless of their sequential order
• Produce the scope statement, which explains the project’s deliverables and major objectives

When to Use it: The project management scope method is useful when your final deliverables are unlikely to change during the course of the project. This is beneficial for manufacturing or producing speciality products.

Resources
BC Campus. Scope Planning.