How To Define The Project Scope The Foolproof Way

Every project starts with an excellent idea and huge excitement. However, many projects fail. A major contribution to unsuccessful projects is the lack of understanding or a properly defined scope shared between the stakeholders. A lack of understanding on the scope leads to wrong planning which in turn leads to scope creeps and uncomfortable discussions later.

Here is the most famous internet picture about how projects can go wrong!

A properly defined and managed scope leads to a proper plan which then results in successful execution of a project within agreed costs and specified schedule. While most people understand the need of a plan, surprisingly little emphasis is given on the significance of right steps taken during scoping of a project.

Scope is fundamental to achieve three things in a Project

1. Define the boundaries of the project. The scope statement guarantees a common ground and clear understanding of the project between the stakeholders, thus helping to manage the notorious scope creep. In other words, project scope outlines what is included in the project and what is excluded. Therefore, it forms the basis for the project plan.
2. Ensure a common understanding of the project among stakeholders. In addition to being the foundation of the overall project plan, the scope of the projects ensures that all interested parties are on the same page. By setting the right expectations with stakeholders, project managers can reduce the chances of misunderstandings of requirements that could arise later and potentially derail the project.
3. Help manage change requests. Additionally, scope can help the project manager to manage the project effectively by using it as a guide to evaluate all the modification requests. For every request that is raised later, the project manager can go back and check if the request lies within the scope or not and if the change request does not fall within the limits defined in the project, the project manager can rightfully choose to raise a change request.

A Gartner survey conducted to provide insights into IT project performance in organizations across North America, France, Germany and the United Kingdom concluded that high-cost variance, delays, and functionality issues are the leading costs of project failures. All of those things can actually be managed during proper scoping.

In fact, poor quality of execution fares pretty low in comparison to cost, time and functionality issues.

The affirmation of the well-written project scope clearly defines the boundaries of a project. The scope of a project directly influences the other two elements of the triple project constraint, i.e. time and resources. Adequate scoping is, in fact, the base for any software project internally as well as externally. Only when all stakeholders are on the same page in terms of scope, the project can execute well.

SO WHY IMPROPER SCOPING HAPPENS

Often entrepreneurs find themselves failing at having proper scope for their work. The consequence of this is major cost overruns, excessive delays, bad estimates, and inadequate resource scheduling. Of Course none of it is deliberate but shit does happen. Here are some of the reasons why improper scoping happens are:

1. Rushing Through The Project Planning Process

Determining the scope of a project is not possible without spending a considerable amount of upfront time properly planning. Developing granular requirements and understanding end to end user flow and function points require considerable thought, coordination, and time. It also requires multiple back and forth meetings between the team and the whole process may seem overwhelming.

An entrepreneur may choose an easy road, falling into a promise when someone just says “Yes, we got it” 5 minutes into the meeting. It’s like a song to the ears of an entrepreneur under rush.

Too much urgency to start the development process can inevitably be the cause of your project failure.

2. Applying Half-baked Project Management Concepts

Many entrepreneurs read ideas over the internet or from books but may end up with a spaghetti of different things like agile means change things fast or an MVP could mean really launching something in a month. While this leads them to choose short roads to release, it also leads them to skip the important scoping stage.

3. Not Seeking An Expert Opinion

The role of experts is extremely useful during the planning and risk identification processes as they are very critical to project success. Particularly big and complex projects, experts or specialists from outside your organization can help you make unbiased and accurate decisions. Not seeking expert help in defining your project scope can cause you to make inaccurate estimates and ultimately under-deliver

4. Using Vague Language In Scoping

A scope with language that is not clear, too general, or not measurable is of little use to the stakeholders. The project could easily go astray if the stakeholders don’t clearly understand the scope.

5. Not Including The Details

Not including clarity for functions considered within scope as well as functionality that is out of scope can leave stakeholders confused later. A detailed scope should also list out the risks and assumptions taken while creating the scope.

So you now know what to avoid when defining the project scope. You may still be wondering what constitutes a good scope. However, before that, we first need to understand what makes up a scope.

WHAT MAKES UP A SCOPE

The scope definition of a software project consists of the following key aspects:

Modules
The modules in a project scope define the major different parts of the project. The software application for any project may contain several different modules. Each module serves unique and separate business operations. Each of these required modules should be defined in the scope.

User Stories
A user story is defined as an informal, natural language description of features of a software system. It is one of the most important aspects of any project scope. Its purpose is to articulate how a feature in a software product will be used by the end-user.

Wireframes
Wireframes are an essential part of the project scope definition and software development process. A wireframe is a schematic or blueprint that is useful for helping everyone think and communicate about the structure of the software or website.A wireframe is a low-fidelity design layout that serves to outline structure and layout, conveys direction, and presents all information on any page in a visual format.

Dependencies
A project dependency can be defined as a logical, constraint-based or preferential relationship between two activities in the development phase such that the completion or the initiation of one is reliant on the other. Dependencies inevitably arise in a project. You will rarely come across a project in which all the tasks and activities are independent of each other. Therefore, defining dependencies is vital as it plays a very important role in project management.

Technology Stack

A Tech Stack is a set of tools, languages, and frameworks that are used to construct and power an application.

It consists of a combination of software applications, frameworks, and programming languages that realize some aspects of the program. The choice of the technology stack of your project influences not only the speed and timeline of the development but also dictates the ability to scale in the future.

Timeline
A project timeline tracks the chronological order of activities that are supposed to be taken during the development of a project. These timelines give teams an understanding of a project’s stages at just a glance, keeping everyone informed and aligned at every stage of the project. It also gives teams a plan for the allocation of resources. The timeline consists of a series of tasks, each with its due date and duration. The link between those tasks can help to reveal underlying dependencies and pre-empt any potential blockers.

Clarity on Scalability
The scope in terms of the scale and future expansion is a crucial aspect of any scope definition. Stakeholders should be clear about the scale of the project. A clear definition of the potential user base and potential scaling-up requirements is imperative to define in the scope. It should be clear whether you are developing something just to test the market or manage a million users.The aforementioned aspects are the key points in any scope definition. With that being understood, let’s look at what makes a good scope.