SCOPE CONTROL

Note : This article is based on 06 weeks of my research

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The success of a project is influenced by a lot of factors. While managing projects, the project managers face a multitude of challenges including, but not limited to, time, money, quality, benefits, risks, and scope. While it is important for a project manager to have updates/information on every constraint, the scope is perhaps the most important because it defines what tasks do and does not belong to the project.

A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK? Guide)— states that the project scope is “The work that must be performed to deliver a product, service, or result with the specified features and functions”. The phrase "project scope" refers to the entirety of the work and actions that must be completed in order to meet the project's set objectives and deliverables on schedule and without exceeding the budget (O'Connor, 2021). Project Charter is a document that clearly defines the objectives and work that needs to be accomplished to meet the set project goals. It also defines the roles and responsibilities and identifies all stakeholders. The popular Work Breakdown Technique is derived from the project charter itself. In the end, it is the project charter that is responsible for providing the necessary project structure in order to organize the process of scope management. Thus, a project charter homes the scope of the project.

The scope of a project defines, in simpler terms, as what aspects of the work are included, and which ones are excluded.

Two significant documents that are helpful to the project plan are known as a scope statement and a work breakdown structure (WBS), respectively. These statements are responsible for capturing and defining the scope of a project.

Before discussing the topic of Scope Control, it is important to talk about elements that affect a project’s performance throughout its lifecycle. Incomplete requirements, uncontrolled changes and unclear project objectives were three of the top 10 problems that contributed to challenging projects, as stated in "The Chaos Report" which was published in 1994 by The Standish Group. The AST Group (2001) identifies a lack of formal project management procedures and an insufficient project scope as two of the top ten reasons why projects are unsuccessful that is responsible for providing the necessary project structure in order to organize the process of scope management. Thus, a project charter homes the scope of the project.

Two significant documents that are helpful to the project plan are known as a scope statement and a work breakdown structure (WBS), respectively. These statements are responsible for capturing and defining the scope of a project.

Before discussing the topic of Scope Control, it is important to talk about elements that affect a project’s performance throughout its lifecycle. Incomplete requirements, uncontrolled changes and unclear project objectives were three of the top 10 problems that contributed to challenging projects, as stated in "The Chaos Report" which was published in 1994 by The Standish Group. The AST Group (2001) identifies a lack of formal project management procedures and an insufficient project scope as two of the top ten reasons why projects are unsuccessful.

When we are talking about Scope Control, we should consider that it is one of the most important tools of a Project Manager. Scope Management when done efficiently points toward the project’s output that is to be delivered in consideration of triple constraints - budget, schedule, and scope with at-par quality.

The process of managing changes to a project's scope is referred to as scope control. The goal of scope control is to guarantee that the project remains on course, achieves its goals, and provides stakeholders with the value they have come to anticipate. The process of scope control entails locating and managing changes to the project's scope, assessing how those changes will affect the project's goals, and choosing whether to accept or reject the modifications.

METHODS

Scope control allows project managers to maintain a project baseline throughout the lifecycle of the project. Also, it is inevitable that throughout the project’s lifecycle, there would be changes. In the six weeks of my research, I dig deep into how to manage scope creep with scope control. When we talk about scope, the first requirement is to plan out the requirements for the project. According to research published by pwc just 2.5% of businesses complete their projects completely and successfully, which is based on more than 10,600 projects. When a project fails, most of the time it is because of over budget or overshooting schedule or sometimes both.

Keeping project scope under control helps the stakeholder to stay on schedule. Setting a realistic deadline that can be met is considerably easier when we are aware of all the requirements for finishing a job.

According to the System to Aid Project Management (SAPM) (Souza et al., 2011) expansion, the module talks about the aim of assisting in the execution of managerial tasks in accordance with the best practices outlined in the PMBOK handbook. Therefore, requirements engineering techniques were added to the scope management's "Collect Requirements" process, enabling both the assessment of the suitability of the outcomes and the detection of potential flaws. Even though scope management is necessary to carry out project activities, failing to have tools to support requirements gathering can lead to failures because requirements become part of project planning once they are documented (Di Thommazo et al, 2015). As a result, it was interesting to know that Requirement Engineering can also be used for managing scope with the added advantage that it can help to reduce uncertainties.

The paper (Lampa et al.) details about the process of Requirement Engineering and how to handle scope in line with the project's objective. A short process of the same in shown below using the flowchart.

How to control the Scope of the project through practical approach:

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1.???? Firstly, effective Scope Management and Control is to have a robust Scope Statement that defines the objective of the project clearly along with the deliverables. Out of all the readings and research papers I have gone through, one of the important learning is to involve all the stakeholders in the process and the earlier we start this, the better understanding is maintained among all.

An illustrative Project Statement is shown below :

2. ?? The next step would be, when a change is to be introduced, our objective should be to find out the WWH of that change.?

NOTE: WWH here means –

What? i.e. What the change is about

Why? i.e. Why that change is necessary

How? i.e. How are we going to implement it without affecting much of the system/project.

3. ?? Make a Change Control plan where any changes in the scope would be filtered through stages to further analyze their effect on the project. The plan can also have a structure that is stated above in Fig.2 - Flowchart of the process of Requirement Engineering

4.???? Formalize and validate the changes through documentation and get acceptance from the sponsors/client.

5.???? Lastly, the most important step is to communicate those changes among ALL STAKEHOLDERS.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

According to an article published in (Sun et al.) depending on the severity, a change that takes place during an endeavor can be either a "gradual change" or a "radical change". (Cao, 2000) defines gradual change, also referred to as incremental change, as occurs gradually over a lengthy period of time and typically has a low intensity while a radical shift happens quickly, dramatically, and has a noticeable impact. During the design development stage, where many choices are gradually fine-tuned and refined, gradual changes frequently take place. At the post-design development and on-site stages, radical changes more frequently take place. "Anticipated changes" and "new changes" are additional categories for project modifications. Changes that are discovered during a project but before they truly happen are called anticipated changes.

Another interesting thing that is cited in the article by Orlando, D. (2013) says that client satisfaction is lowered when scope adjustments are rejected. And this is backed up by another research paper (Albrecht, 1998) that tells the project deliverables, the project management procedures, and the project manager will all gain value perceptions from stakeholders. This perception will be significantly impacted by our capacity to manage scope as well as their expectations in relation to it. Thus, Stakeholder Engagement and proper management is one of the key aspects when we are building a process for change management.

When I set on my research, I had a rough sketch of what Scope Control is and through the six weeks I spent, I realized that – Scope Control is a regulated method to prevent scope creep by engaging a lean process in coordination with all the stakeholders. It was also interesting to note how we can learn from the mistakes of history (in the sense of projects) and implement them in the present projects.

One of the important findings I expected from my research is stakeholder management and the idea of saying No to the change requester.” NO” can be something which should be avoided while communicating with the client. However, the idea is not to please them but to ensure that the change request is processed through a channel that evaluates, analyzes and reviews the change before making any decision.

When I am saying about the practical significance of my finding, I am further elaborating that having a well-defined Scope Statement and a clear Change Control Procedure helps in scope control. One of the important understandings here is Project Scope Statement provide the basis of the Work Breakdown Structure. The objectives, context diagram (business processes and external entities), project constraints, important success factors, and project assumptions are all included in the project scope statement. Although not every item in these documents directly relates to the

WBS, there may be important delivery data that the stakeholders use when working on WBS (Burek, 2011).

Through my findings, my takeaway is that whenever a change is implemented, it should be through a regulated and well-established channel of Change Control. My research addresses the preliminary question of stakeholder engagement when a change to the scope is requested. Refer to the chart below that clearly and concisely describes my take on Stakeholder Engagement when a change is introduced.

Since projects are people driven, one of the questions that are necessary to implore is how the success of scope control depends on a range of cultural and organizational factors, such as communication, leadership and stakeholder engagement.

CONCLUSION?

Scope Control is a branch of Scope Management that helps to keep check Scope Baseline. The management of scope is an important part of any project, but it also needs to be integrated with other processes like risk management, schedule management, and budget management. To assess the effects of changes in scope on triple constraints, a change control method needs to be established early in the project.

During these six weeks of learning, I became more aware of the importance of Scope Management through various processes of Scope Management Planning, Implementing and Controlling. I learned about the Integrated Change Control Plan and was introduced to a beautiful word – Gold Plating. This made me aware that everything that has “Gold” cannot be taken as desirable. The word “Gold” here means changes that have been added without necessary approvals.

It seems that scope when uncontrolled becomes a scope creep. I can conclusively say that it is very closely intertwined with the topic of “Scope Control”.

References :

Atlassian. (n.d.). How project scope management can save you time: The workstream. Atlassian.

Retrieved March 31, 2023, from https://www.atlassian.com/work-management/project- management/project-scope

AST Group. (2001). The top 10 reasons why projects fail. Techforum. Retrieved June 14, 2008 from https://www.itweb.co.za/office/ast/0107120730.htm

Burek, P. (2011). Influence of the scope statement on the WBS. Paper presented at PMI? Global Congress 2011—North America, Dallas, TX. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.

Cao G., Clarke S., and Lehaney L., A systematic view of organisational change and TQM, The TQM magazine, 12 (3), (2000) 186-193

Di Thommazo, A., Camargo, K., Hernandes, E., Goncalves, G., Pedro, J., Belgamo, A., Fabbri, A., 2015. Using the dependence level among requirements to priorize the regression testing set and characterize the complexity of requirements change. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS), vol. 2, pages 231-241.

Lampa, I. L., Contessoto, A. de G., & , Anderson Rici Amorim, Geraldo Francisco Donegá Zafalon, Carlos Roberto Valêncio and Rogéria Cristiane Grat?o de Souza. (n.d.). Project Scope Management: A strategy oriented to the requirements ... Retrieved March 11, 2023, from https://www.scitepress.org/Papers/2017/63186/63186.pdfLinks to an external site.

?Millhollan, C. (2008). Scope change control: control your projects or your projects will control you! Paper presented at PMI? Global Congress 2008—North America, Denver, CO. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.

O'Connor, S. W. (2021, May 28). How to create a Project Scope Management Plan. Northeastern University Graduate Programs. Retrieved March 30, 2023, from https://www.northeastern.edu/graduate/blog/scope-management-plan/

Orlando, D. (2013). Scope and stakeholder management: pain points, perils, and prosperity. Paper presented at PMI? Global Congress 2013—North America, New Orleans, LA. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.

Project Management Institute. (2017). A guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK guide) (6th ed.). Project Management Institute.

Portillo, C. (2021, December 21). ProjectManagement.com - Effective Project Scope Management.?????? Retrieved???????? March? 30,?????? 2023,???????????????????????????????????? from https://www.projectmanagement.com/contentPages/article.cfm?ID=284100&thisPageURL

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The???????????????? Standish????????????????? Group.????????????????? (1994). The???????????????? chaos????????????????? report from https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/NCP08083B.pdf

Sun, M., Fleming, A., Senaratne, S., Motawa, I., & Yeoh, M. L. Y. L. (n.d.). (PDF) A change management toolkit for construction projects - researchgate. Retrieved March 10, 2023, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233590812_A_Change_Management_Tool kit_for_Construction_ProjectsLinks to an external site.