Picture courtesy: 'the internet'
The scope of any undertaking
is difficult to define or describe as it’s a variable component. Starting from the customer to the vendor, it’s
always wisdom in hindsight. The foresight to envision the final figure is very
subjective and can never be fixed or finalized in the first cut. Often
improvisation on an incremental basis is inevitable. Change can’t be resisted
and ought to be factored, which is referred as risk – the element of improbability.
Uncertainty notwithstanding,a project scope management plan is prepared clearly
laying out the components that help in defining, verifying and controlling
scope and a work breakdown structure in tandem to get a firm grip.
If nailing the scope is near
to impossible, then defining what constitutes in-scope and out-of-scope is
painfully unmanageable. Assuming the scope is to build a mansion, the finer
details are not captured on the frame. It’s not fair to expect the customer or
business owner to come out with a document that records everything right to the
last dot. At best we can box and
determine the lines but then it will be a bird’ view
Scope management is primarily
concerned with defining and controlling what is and is not included in the project
as stated in PMBOK. Please underscore ‘not included’.
Scope is the definition of
boundary for the particular product or project from the existence of the
product or Project. It brings the structure or shape to the product or Project
and it can be named as abstract of the project.
Without scope, project or product will be in non-existence state and
it’s the entry point for any project or product.
One can visualize the product
or project with the scope even before its existence. So it’s very critical and
crucial how you define the scope of the product or project. It’s the vision of
project owner or product owner which gets transformed as Scope document. Though
the initial point is the vision or core objective which plays the critical role
in scope definition, it’s the boundary which baselines the scope into proper
shape.
Awareness of what we don’t
want is also as much as important as what we want for a product or project.
Unless you know the entire existence you will not be able to define what you
want, which means when you define the
scope of the product or project, it’s all the more important to know what you
don’t want to define as your scope.
In most cases, outside of the
scope defines the scope inside. For example, I need a program to report my
balance sheet every month.
Possible inputs:
Possible expectations:
1.
Generate the balance sheet report for
Weekly/Monthly/Yearly
2.
Generate the reports in PDF/Excel
If I am sure that I don’t want any manual entry,
then I should be able to strike out in the Possible Inputs as‘out of scope’ in
my scope document.
We can discuss about scope
creep and scope change in my next post.
I would like to hear your
opinion and views to enhance knowledge about Scope. For more details visit www.icertglobal.com or reach me at info@icertglobal.com
