Thursday 10 February 2022

How to effectively control the scope of the project?

 


The controlling project scope refers to project management activities that monitor project status, discover whether deliverables meet documentation needs, and manage changes to project scope baselines.


what do you need to control the scope?


the first thing to look at is the project management plan, especially the scope baseline, which is the "expected scope", compared to the scope of implementation of the project, and calculate the difference. if there is a deviation, the project manager needs to plan corrective or preventive actions by making a change request through the change control committee.



other information we use from our project management plans are requirements management plans, scope management plans, change management plans, and configuration management plans. these documents tell us, respectively, how to manage changes to requirements and scope, manage any changes to baseline documentation, and the process of updating configurable. there will also be surprises in the control process, and you may find other changes, such as changes in demand, that affect other ancillary programs.



what does "configurable" mean?


in short, configurable items are versioned documents (or project artifacts such as design, art, spreadsheets, and source code). this means that any changes to them are made by authorized personnel on the team, in consultation with the required team members and/or other stakeholders, and using the change control process.


these documents are saved in an access-controlled environment, using a system that allows multiple people to make changes to the same document without overwriting each other. the configuration management plan defines these items and the process of controlling changes to these artifacts. when an approved change is made to a configurable item, it is versioned and re-baselined.


we may need to go back and refer to the requirements documentation and requirements traceability matrix – in order to verify that the delivery actually meets the documented requirements or that there are any deviations.


next, we will need to know how we execute the project, which is performance-related data. for example, how many deliverables have started, at which stage of development they are in, how many change requests have been received, and which deliverables have been completed.


finally, the policies, processes, templates, and guidelines that your organization sets for scope, as well as any templates that are already available, will help us have more control over scope.


how do you control the scope?


discover differences by comparing the current scope state of the project with the base lined range information. if variation is found, corrective or preventive actions should be taken. any change requires the project manager (or any stakeholder) to decide whether preventive or corrective action needs to be taken and to request a change. when a change request is approved by the change control board, it is executed by making the necessary changes to the schedule and recreating the scope and schedule baseline.


changes to scopes can occur for different reasons – range creep, gold plating, or customer requests. some of the changes are so small that the project manager (or project management team) finds that implementing them has no impact on any project constraints. in this case, the change control process is unnecessary.


the first is a change request. you or the customer may find many incorrect things, and such "complaints" are documented and passed through the change control board. they are used to implement corrective or preventive actions, as well as to manage differences in scope. due to the scope change of the customer's special request, a change request may also be made.



subsidiary management programs, such as the scope management plan for the project management activities themselves, provide feedback on how our earlier plans were completed. therefore, you can use this information to update the project management plan.



during this process, as the range baseline is updated, we may update the cost baseline, the progress baseline, and the performance metrics baseline.



if the impact of the change is significant, then we may even end up updating the project documentation, such as the requirements documentation and the requirements traceability matrix.


how do i implement a scope change?


someone on the team or any stakeholder finds that the scope needs to be changed and submits a change request. this change request is then submitted to the change control board by performing an integrated change control process. the project manager may also assess the impact of the change on the project objectives to help make decisions in the change control meeting.


if the change is approved, the impact on project constraints such as schedule, scope, and cost is evaluated in detail. this is where anova comes into play. the new work is then planned based on the results of the analysis of variance.


scope baselines are updated to create new baselines and distribute to teams. all further development work will refer to this new baseline. when a new baseline is created, the previous baseline becomes obsolete. finally, changes are made to implement according to the modified schedule.

how to effectively control the scope of the project


To perform change control, an effective scope change process must be established. Modern project management software Software PM can help you make effective decisions and measure whether every change is meaningful and affordable.



You and your team can communicate with transactions, issues, defect reports, improvement needs, and more through Software PM's change management module. In the system, change requests can be differentiated by severity, can be queued at different priority levels to control access, and can be re-prioritized or shifted change requests.



The importance of the scope of control is that it should document changes and notify stakeholders. Software provides change request capabilities to record and manage project changes quickly and efficiently, automatically tracking and documenting the behavior of all submitter and reviewers in real time. Change requests can be applied to record changes to the WBS of a project, with the impact of the change and the change request permanently linked, which helps project personnel make more effective and accurate decisions and measurements.


The project scope management is not difficult to implement, but it does take effort and time, and project management software is a worthwhile investment. with its process-based scope management, projects can be delivered with minimal risk by avoiding the challenges that projects can face due to inflated scope and substandard checklists.

 

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