Project Scope - Make It Manageable and Measurable

So your organization or department has identified an area for improvement – great!  A team is assigned to tackle the challenge – fantastic!  Now, how can you make sure that the team will achieve results?  

A common pitfall of projects is a scope that is either ill-defined or vague or alternately, that is too broad and all-encompassing.  So how can you prevent this?  The key to success is in the set-up.  It’s all about the planning.

• First, discuss the improvement or idea for the project and brainstorm the desired end state.  What will the end state look like when improvements are made?  This becomes your team’s Vision Statement - a vision of what they are aiming towards. 

• Second, elaborate on the vision by defining, in more detail, what success will look like, for example, lower call hold times or increased sales.  Turn these into a Success Statement that will help the team visualize the future end state. Additionally, define key performance indicators or measures, of these successes, that can be tracked.  For example, customer service will be improved and a measure of that improvement might be: 80% of first time calls to the customer service hot line will be resolved when maybe currently, only 50% of first time calls are resolved.

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• Third, create the Project Scope Statement.  The Project Scope Statement will explain what the purpose of the project is, what it will take to perform it and what its expected outcomes will be. The Project Scope Statement will articulate, at a high level, the
  • project opportunity,
  • project success criteria,
  • expected project benefits,
  • project deliverables,
  • organizational impact,
  • project exclusions, constraints and assumptions. 

It is after these three steps that the project team and stakeholders will need to determine whether the “case for the project” is strong enough to be worthwhile, whether the resources and time required are manageable, and whether the vision or the future state successes are clear and measurable. ​

As the project plan, timeline and associated resources are being developed, you have the opportunity to make sure that the vision and objectives are turned into realistic tactics that can be executed.  This is the time when a large scope should be turned into sub-projects or a program with multiple projects; this is the time when an unclear scope becomes clear by defining what is in scope, what success looks like, versus what is not in scope and what is not going to be tackled. 

Remember, a critical element of a project’s success, is making sure that the team sees and feels that they are making progress.  It is better to have sub-teams and sub-projects that have clear objectives that roll up to a program or alternately, that you have clear project phases with clear milestones/results, than a massive team with overwhelming project objectives that cannot figure out how to tactically make progress.

And what do you do if your project has already started and your team is struggling with an unclear or overwhelming scope?  It may be time to take a step back, re-evaluate and determine what needs to change to allow the project and team to continue productively.  It may be time to refine or clarify the end-state, redefine what is “in” and what is “out” of scope and/or possibly add sub-teams and/or sub-projects to make the scope manageable again.  It is better to take corrective actions, at any point in a project, than continue working with a discouraged team, an ineffective and possibly costly project, and unlikely odds of achieving success. 
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What methods or tactics have helped your team manage scope?

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Julie Medulan

About the Author
 
Julie Medulan is the Director of Practice Management and a Principal Consultant, for ProcureVision, LLC.  Creation of and education around consulting methodologies and processes is a key part of her role, to ensure each client has an implementable solution and a successful outcome.  ProcureVision’s clients reap the benefits of Julie’s consulting proficiency through the proven methodologies our teams use to delivers our consulting engagements.