Scope Management

Term Definition
Scope management helps avoid challenged projects with every growing scope and unruly requirements list. Project scope defines what is or is not included in the project, and controls what gets added or removed as the project is executed. Scope management establishes control processes to address factors that may result in project change during the project life-cycle. Project changes that impact scope include:

• Requirements: the ultimate objectives of the project
• Constraints: limitations such as time, budget, resource dependency, business, legal, organizational, technological and management constraints
• Assumptions: statements that are considered facts for planning purposes but require verification; for example, a software project may assume a new system will not require a full-time database administrator after implementation is complete
• Risks: any business or technical factor that has reasonable potential to impact the project (or its assumptions); key risk characteristics include: probability of occurrence, impact, mitigating action, and contingent action

Project scope management is commonly broken down into five separate processes: project approval, scope planning, scope definition, scope verification, and scope change control. Each of these processes is briefly described in the following discussion and illustrated in the figure below.

Related Terms
Project Scope
Scope Creep
Project Plan
Scope Change Request

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