5 keys to better scope management

5 Keys to better Scope
management
WWW.PMDI.COM.AU

“Cheshire Puss, 'would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from
here”?
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don't really know where” said Alice.
“Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the
Looking-Glass (1872)
5 keys Focus Areas for better
Scope Managementwww.pmdi.com.au2

If ever there was a truism of Project Management, it is that the more
you plan, the luckier you will get. While spontaneity may often be
considered the spice of our normal life, it is rarely a good recipe for
successful and consistent project management. Probably, nowhere is
this truer than in the critically important area of project delivery known
as, Scope Management. Time and again, when reviewing projects to
try and get them back on the rails or even to assess “what could be
improved” on our most recently completed and generally otherwise
successful projects, we see the issues caused by lacklustre definition
and management of the project scope.
As Lewis Carroll outlined in his conversation between Alice and the
Cheshire cat those many years ago; if you don’t know where you are
going, it doesn’t really matter which way you go!

Often as a result of the reviews, the only explanation to where the
project has finished up or the circuitous route taken to get there; is
that the Project Manager really didn’t know where they were going in
the first place!
Understanding where we are going with a project of course brings us
back to scope management. Management of scope is really about
understanding, setting and agreeing the boundaries of the project and
then managing those boundaries while delivering everything inside the
boundary to the satisfaction of our stakeholders.
To this end I have developed a list of five key things to consider for
effective scope management.

Communicate,
Communicate,
And
Communicate!
How well to
you really
understand
the scope?
Are we all on
the same
page?
If things need
to change,
how will we do
it?
Would you
know if things
were drifting?

1) Communicate, Communicate, And Communicate!
When discussing scope management with clients and participants in our
online project management training courses, I regularly hear stories about
the difficulties they have experienced managing scope in their recent
projects. When I ask them what they have changed in response to their
identified problems, the response they give is often that they have changed
nothing! Without reciting definitions about the meaning of insanity, how will
we improve if we keep doing things the same way? Good scope
management always entails very clear and close communication between
the project team and the sponsor or client. It involves both the consultative
process and your skills in developing the common understanding of the
project. Many of the so-called radical PM methodologies pride themselves
on the notion of working hand in glove with the stakeholders in managing
scope effectively in fast moving IT or R&D environments. Many of us do not
have the same sort of pressures with respect to the delivery of something
that is not known at the beginning, so there is no excuse to not investing
the time along the same lines to get this right. If you are not getting the
results you want or need then you really need to look at re-designing the
front end consultative processes and probably develop your own skills in
being able to work more closely with the client.

2) How well to you really understand the scope?
As a Project Manager, when we look at the project in terms of defining
scope, we are trying to identify the boundaries of what we need to deliver.
Sometimes we may be an expert in the area, sometimes less so and a bit
fearful about some of the requirements that we don’t really understand.
Either position can lead us to make some assumptions that either aren’t
true (or maybe not for this client’s expectations) or perhaps allow us to
blithely go forward because we are sure that “someone will work that out”
and I am a bit frightened that I will look silly if I ask a dumb question.
During scope definition however, is exactly the right time to ask a dumb
question. It could cause you to find an underlying problem with the original
idea that will cause the project to fail. Now is the time to find out. Consult
widely, wisely and uncover all of the requirements and expectations for this
project and make sure they line up.

3) Are we all on the same page?
As mentioned, our work to really understand the scope, we make
assumptions to progress our planning. However, just as we bring a set of
assumptions to the table, you can confidently expect our stakeholders to
do the same and for the same reasons, including not really understanding
the project and being afraid to look stupid by asking questions. For our
project to be a success however, all of these have to be made visible and
dealt with. As such, you should clearly state and validate your assumptions
but as PM it is also your role to uncover the assumptions and expectations
of your sponsor or client. In our Online Diploma of Project Management, we
teach the concept of having a “common picture” of the project scope and it
is crucial that the intent of your scope management will drive to this intent.
Again you will need to have good processes, technique and skills to do so,
as it may be difficult. Time invested at this stage however is likely to bear
much fruit in preventing confusion, re-work and ultimately possible
schedule failure later in the project.

4) If things need to change, how will we do it?
Having a well-defined scope is a good start to our project but it is only the
start. By doing so, you have developed an agreed boundary to the project.
You now need some sort of control process to protect the existing boundary
or to allow it to change. Throughout the project there will be continual
challenges to the scope and a lot of stress will come to bear on the project
manager if there isn’t a clear mechanism by which this can be managed to
keep the integrity of the project’s objectives intact. A formal change control
process involving senior stakeholders (not too many though!) provides both
a means to maintain project alignment as well as a useful buffer to prevent
the PM being bullied into accepting change. Again this need to be
established at the start of the project and the roles and responsibilities
clearly communicated.

5) Would you know if things were drifting?
There is a saying in project management “that scope creep happens one
day at a time”. By this we mean that the scope is drifting and changing a
little at a time rather than as a “big bang”. Therefore if our monitoring and
controlling processes are not tuned closely to the daily activity and
completion of our deliverables then we can probably expect that that our
scope will creep including the consequent time and cost implications. In our
Project Management courses, we teach the concept of “setting up the
dashboard” to give us the early indicators of changes in any of the key
areas so that we can address them before they get away on us. Of course,
there are software tools that can do some of this for us now but if you are
not lucky enough to be able to afford these tools, it can still be done using
tried and true techniques in Project Management.

Earned Value management, which is a technique that has been successfully
used in the defence industries for generations, is an example of a
methodology that can be utilised to provide very good visibility of the
actual progress on your project. Continual vigilance and strong monitoring
systems are required to ensure we deliver exactly and only what we agreed
in our scope definition. Like all of the other areas of scope management,
this won’t happen by accident and will require the PM to think through this
is detail at the start and embed anything learnt from previous projects to
do this well.
I hope this helps you to consolidate your thinking with respect to Scope
Management and good luck with your projects.

5 keys to better scope management

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