scopemanagement

Scope management is the set of processes that define and control what is included in a project and what is not, ensuring that the project delivers the intended product or service and meets stakeholder expectations. It provides the framework for planning, defining, decomposing, validating, and controlling scope throughout the project life cycle.

The standard scope management sequence begins with plan scope management, which establishes how scope will be defined, validated, and controlled and what artifacts will be used. Collecting requirements follows, gathering the needs and expectations of stakeholders through interviews, workshops, surveys, and other techniques, and documenting them in requirements documentation and a requirements traceability matrix. Define scope then creates a detailed description of the project and product scope, producing the project scope statement and updating the traceability matrix as needed. Create a Work Breakdown Structure, or WBS, by decomposing deliverables into manageable components and developing a WBS dictionary for each element. Validate scope involves formal acceptance of completed deliverables by stakeholders, while control scope monitors project status and manages changes to the scope baselines, issuing change requests as necessary and updating related documents.

Key outputs of scope management include the scope management plan, the project scope statement, the WBS and WBS dictionary, requirements documentation and traceability matrices, accepted deliverables, and change requests. Effective scope management helps prevent scope creep, aligns deliverables with objectives, and supports informed decision-making about trade-offs and project constraints. In agile environments, scope management is adapted to an iterative backlog-driven approach, emphasizing frequent stakeholder feedback and incremental delivery within an evolving scope.