Scope - Areas affected
General
When defining the project scope you will need to gauge the impact on other areas.
Some of the areas that may need consideration are given below:
Departments
Drain of resource, conflict of projects, do they have the technical expertise, how much office space will be used?
Personnel
Do they have the expertise?
Will training be required, will temporary staff be needed etc?
Location and regions
Are there any environment issues to worry about?
Is the project local, nationwide or further?
Is local office space adequate for staff and does it have suitable equipment?
Business processes
Does it fit in with core business values?
How risky is the venture?
What sort of priority will it get?
Who will be making key decisions on spending?
Products
Will there be any adverse affect on any other product?
Once the project management team have considered these areas it is in a position to document the project scope in terms of what will and what will not be included in the project.
If change occurs?
Note that should the scope of the project change, for any reason, then risks, assumption etc should be revisited and agreed again.
Be wary of project creep.
When the project is on the fringe of a boundary it may be tempting to just move it a little.
Try to resist this.
Make sure that you document any changes, impacts and actions in just the same way as for risks and issues.
- Document it
As with many aspects of project management it is important to record and document the agreed scope.
As with many documents control of different version is required for when changes occur.
A typical document format may include:
Project no: Date: Ref. number Title / description External risk ref: To the risk or issue perhaps causing a version number change of the scope document External assumption ref: To the assumption perhaps causing a version number change of the scope document Review date
Note that the function of archiving and document control under PRINCE2® 2005 is the responsibility of the Configuration Librarian.
Under PRINCE2 additional areas affected would be benefits and risk.
Under PRINCE2 [see ‘The Complete Project Management plus PRINCE2’] additional areas affected would be benefits and risk.
PRINCE2® is a Registered Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce in the United Kingdom and other countries.