Project Scope and How to Define It

The project scope is a clear set of steps that you need to undertake to complete the project successfully. The scope is derived from the project requirements and ensures that only the required work is done to complete each deliverable on time and within budget.

When starting a new project with a new client, it’s often a challenge to understand, define, and estimate the work needed to complete the project. Clients can tell you what they want to get, but it’s your job to understand how to achieve the end goal on time and budget. Generally, the work refers to the high-end project deliverables, which vary depending on the project. The deliverables can be defined as building blocks/milestones of the overall project, which are then brought together to form the end deliverable.

For instance, the deliverables can include functionality, mockup, wireframe, and animations if we're talking about a website. For a software product like a smartphone app, the deliverables include features, functionality, an Alpha build, a Beta build, etc. Later, each of these big milestones is broken down into smaller ones, and so on. This process is often called deriving the project scope and project scope management in project management.

What is The Project Scope?

In simple terms, this is a list of specified project goals, features, tasks, functions, deadlines, and costs that need to be undertaken to complete the project on time and budget. Defining the scope is important because it lets you do three things:

• Define the time and resources needed to complete the project.
• Break big chunks of work into smaller tasks to figure out the details.
• Avoid extra work that doesn’t directly contribute to the end goal.

Defining the scope early in the process allows you to get on the same page with your team and stakeholders, which is extremely important. Once you have agreed on certain terms and conditions, this document becomes “the ace up your sleeve” in terms of deliverables and expectations. Let me explain.

In project management, client expectations and demands evolve (or, better, skyrocket) throughout the project, often resulting in extra work. The project scope allows you to refer to it whenever needed and ensure everyone stays on the same page with the previously agreed-upon deliverables, features, functionality, deadlines, and costs. For instance, if a certain deliverable hasn’t been mentioned in the scope, it can be added in, but you can request additional time and resources to deliver it since it wasn’t on the original list.

If you take the time to draft it properly, a clear, detailed scope can save you time, resources, frustration, and unnecessary headaches. Once the scope is defined, it is also recommended that you create a project scope statement, a one-page document that identifies the constraints, deliverables, and key success factors. The project scope can be dozens of pages long, and presenting all of that to the stakeholders will be highly ineffective if you want to have productive and short meetings.

What is Project Scope Management?

Project scope management is the process of ensuring that you have defined all the work that is required to achieve the end goal of the particular project. In other words, the scope is the document, and scope management is the process of drafting that document correctly.

How to Define the Project Scope?

In project management, the steps needed to define the project scope are relatively the same each time you undertake a new project. The below-mentioned processes are the key to drafting the scope correctly, but it will be your job to focus on the details of each deliverable. Over time, you’ll learn to focus on more distinctive details that will make your life easier. Here is the list:

1. Define the Project Requirements

Before defining the scope, you must first understand the project's end goal. Here, your job will be to figure out all the functionality and features that need to be built. For example, a client may request a website for his or her business. However, there will be several questions:

• Do you need to include anything specific in the design, like videos, animations, backgrounds, etc.?
• How many website pages will be required? Any specific page you’ll need to create?
• Is there a branding guideline to follow? If not, will you also need to create one?

This list can go on, but you get the idea. The important part is to remember that each client can have drastically different expectations that seem natural to them yet feel unusual to you. You need to figure out the details and explain why something may be required/not required based on the information you receive.

Remember, the amount of data you collect is directly correlated to the success of your project. The more you find out early, the easier it is to deliver everything on time and within budget, avoid complications, and decrease possible confusion.

2. Understand the Existing and Future Business Processes

The business processes generally refer to the requirements that describe how users will interact with the product/service and how it will interact with other (existing or future) business branches. Often, your clients will have existing businesses/apps/processes that your project (product or service that you will create) has to interact with. For instance, if you’re building an e-commerce website app, the chances are that a desktop version is already live. In this case, you’ll need to understand all the human and business interactions between the app and the desktop site.

Another example. If you’re building a website that sells products/services, questions such as these may arise:

• What are the requirements for billing transactions through the website?
• Which payment methods are supported?
• How do these transactions link to invoicing and bank accounts?
• When and how can team members make changes to the order statuses? Etc.

3. Identify the Project Deliverables

Once you have nailed down the requirements and business processes, you must draft the project deliverables. These milestones will help you understand what needs to be done to achieve the end goal. It’s recommended that you break these milestones into small tasks and estimate the time and resources needed for each. This will also be useful when organizing the backlog via an online project management tool.

Most importantly, though, identifying the deliverables allows you to document what doesn’t need to be done. As mentioned above, this will help avoid confusion regarding assumptions on certain aspects of the project (trust me, this will happen). Frankly, if something isn’t in the initial scope, one can assume it was there.

4. Involve the Stakeholders

Continuing our previous point, it’s vital to involve all the correct stakeholders, both internal and external, from the earliest stages of the project. Again, this is important to avoid assumptions and confusion from either side—your company or clients. Everyone has to understand what they are dealing with, what features/functionality they will get, and how much time and resources it will cost them.

5. Define the Change Management Processes

While it’s strongly recommended not to alter the scope once it the stakeholders have approved it, it’s necessary to have a clear, strict change management process in place. As you should know, various changes at a given project phase are nearly inevitable in project management, especially regarding software development.

When change management procedures are implemented, it becomes a lot easier to add/remove certain items from the project scope if needed. Also, this way, you’ll be able to avoid scope creep – when some parts of the project end up requiring more work and resources in the same time. This is also where the project scope statement will come in handy since redefining the whole thing will take longer and won’t be as productive.

Conclusion

Project scope management is one of the vital aspects of effective project management. The points mentioned above are the most important aspects of defining the project scope and can be easily adapted close to any software or IT-related project planning. Whether you’re asked to build a website, create a smartphone app, or design SaaS software, the methodology and approach to the scope planning will be relatively the same.

At its core, effective scope management requires precise communication and attention to detail to nail down the requirements and deliverables and agree upon exactly how and when the end goals will be met. Keep everything simple, to the point, and as detailed as possible, and you’ll be on the right track to success.