Project Scope

UNIT 4 PROJECT SCOPE MANAGEMENT Management

Objectives

After studying this unit, you will be able to:

• Define project scope

• Establishing project priorities
• What are the deliverables
• Work breakdown structure (WBS)
• Time estimation
• Resource estimation
• Responsibility Matrix (RM)

Structure

4.1 Introduction
4.2 Defining Project Scope
4.2.1 Example of a Project Scope Statement
4.2.2 Priorities of a Project

4.3 Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)

4.3.1 Hierarchical Composition of WBS
4.3.2 Work Breakdown Structure of Motorcycle (Sample)
4.3.3 Advantages of WBS
4.3.4 Work Packages
4.3.5 Responsibility Matrix (RM)

4.4 Let Us Sum Up

4.5 Self-Assessment Exercise
4.6 Further Readings

4.1 INTRODUCTION
A project is a unique activity in the sense that you can’t compare one project
with another as there is a change in time, cost and scope. Project managers
are the custodians / in-charge of a single small project and are responsible for
planning and scheduling the project. The scope is defined by the cost, time,
and quality of the deliverable in project terms.

Project scope management (PSM) is a part of the project planning exercise;

one needs to clearly draw a boundary with respect to all the aspects of the
project, including all connected activities, resources requirement, timelines,
and deliverables (with all the expected parameters which defines the final
product/service quality). PSM is the guide for executing the project to its end,
so defining the scope of the project is very much essential for successfully
completing the project.
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Project Planning PSM also summarizes the key stakeholders, procedures, activities,
hypotheses, and limitations, along with dos and don’ts too. Without a clear
project scope statement, your project will end up beyond your team’s ability
to complete it due to delays (time overrun) and cost overrun.

4.2 DEFINING PROJECT SCOPE

For any project, one needs to define the objectives, needs and limitations.
The project scope is a function of project objectives/goals, needs, limitations,
deliverables, resources, and budget. The project manager needs to clearly
document the project objectives, resource plan (if you have one) / planning
resource, stating the budget requirement, time schedule (for completing the
project), constraints and deliverables at the end. Make sure that all the project
stakeholders have clearly understood the project boundaries.

The Key Steps for Defining any Project’s Scope are as Follows.

• Clearly defining the objectives.

• Create a sound resource plan.
• Budget requirement (maybe stage-wise/phase-wise).
• Project time durations (for completion of the total project along with the
time taken to complete each stage of the project).
• Identify and clearly state the project deliverables.
• Define the key milestones/stages of the project.
• Constraints, if any.
• Drafting the scope documents and getting them approved by all the
stakeholders.

A project scope document is a powerful tool for the successful completion of

the project, provided the plan has been communicated properly to all the
stakeholders.

Sometimes due to changing requirements, specifications, and priorities, the

project scope gets expanded over time is called scope creep.

4.2.1 Example of a Project Scope Statement

Project: Creating a website for the new venture which you’re planning for.
Following is the way the project scope might look like.

Key Project Objectives: To create a user-friendly and attractive website for

the new venture with easy to browse smoothly.

Resources: Web designer team (two people), 30 hours of work a week for 3
weeks. Software manager (one person), 10 hours of work a week for 2 weeks
and IT & Legal review as for the statutory compliances (two teams), 4 hours
of ad-hoc work for 1 week.

Budget: Rs. 200,000/- (you may also give the break-up for each activity).
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 Project Scope
Deliverables: User-friendly, attractive website. Management

Time Schedule: Timelines/milestones of the project are as follows.

• Project initiation and identifying the stakeholders – 2 weeks.

• Work breakdown structure, resource estimation and budget estimation –
1 week
• Drafting the project scope – 1 week
• Project allocation – 1 week
• Designing the webpage – 4 weeks
• Final launch of the website – 5th week.

Check Your Progress

Exercise 1:

You have been asked to lead an event for a marriage. The event is to organize
an orchestra–dance concert on the marriage eve. You have reserved a hall that
will accommodate 200 couples and have hired the orchestra troop. Develop a
scope statement for this project that contains all the elements (project
objectives, deliverables, milestones, schedule, technical requirements,
resources, budget, limits & exclusions, and audiences). Assume that the event
will occur in 3 weeks from now and provide your best guess estimate of the
dates for milestones.
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4.2.2 Priorities of a Project

The project objectives answer what, when and how much. It also defines the
priorities of a project which include Time, Scope, and Cost. One will have
three scenarios on which these priorities are viewed. These priorities will
have constraints where no other option will be available because as the
requirement is fixed with a parameter, accepting whatever is available and
last, there is a chance for enhancement / optimizing over others. The reasons
for project trade-off are due to the relative importance of criterion-related
cost, time, and scope. For example, if the date is fixed, then the project is
time -constrain, scope-accept and cost-enhance, meaning the project must be
completed on a specific date, the scope re-worked to meet the objective of
time and cost, and look for possibilities to reduce the cost. For the given
priorities, one can have the following three scenarios.

For the priority scenario– I: Time-constrain, Scope-accept, Cost-enhance

Examples: 1. Corona Vaccine 2. Energy efficient engine
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Project Planning For the priority scenario–II:Time-constrain, Scope-enhance, Cost-accept
Examples: 1. Wedding Party in India 2. Birthday Celebration
For the priority scenario– III: Time-accept, Scope-constrain, Cost-accept
Examples: 1. Construction of a living colony on the moon
2. Hyperloop transport system

Check Your Progress

Exercise 2:
Identify at least two real-life examples of a project that would fit in each of
the priority scenarios (I, II &III) described above.
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4.3 WORK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE (WBS)

Work breakdown structure (WBS) is a project management tool which
establishes a step-by-step approach for completing any kind of project, which
ranges from very small to complex one. WBS will help in planning various
deliverables with timelines.

WBS is used to estimate the time, cost and scope which are required for a
project. This is a top-down approach for making the work packages to an
extent of the smallest assignment where there is a very slim scope for
subjectivity. WBS is breaking down the project into possible levels where
there is much scope for objectivity to estimate the appropriate requirement of
time, cost and scope. The WBS levels depend on the size and complexity of
the project. Smaller projects will have a maximum of two levels, and a
complex project like the Mangalyaan mission may have multiple levels.

4.3.1 Hierarchical Composition of WBS

Level I : Project (Complete Project)
Level II : Major Deliverables (main major parts ranging from minimum 2
to 10)
Level III : Sub-deliverables
Level IV : Sub-deliverables (Next lower level)
Level V : Cost / Resource Account (Summing of work packages for
monitoring progress and responsibility)
Level VI : Work packages / Assignments (Identifying time, cost and scope)

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 Project Scope
4.3.2 Work Breakdown Structure of Motorcycle (Sample) Management

Motor

Fram Gears Whe Brake Engine

Handle Body Sea Gear Shifting Tire Ri 2 Stroke 4 stroke

bars Spok Fron Bac
Box mechani

D M D
D M D M M M D M D M

Dis Norma
Leathe Syntheti

Clutch Gear shift Throttl

lever lever
mechanism

Figure 4.1
Source-D: Design, M: Material

Check Your Progress

Exercise 3: Develop a WBS for Solar Car
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Exercise 4: Develop a WBS for Mobile Phone
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Exercise 5: Develop a WBS for Corona Vaccine Project
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4.3.3 Advantages of WBS.

• WBS is a widely used project management tool for decision-making.
• It allows evaluation of the cost, time and technical performance of a
project along with the organization which is executing the project. 65
Project Planning • It helps in project planning, time scheduling and budget estimation.
• It describes communication channels and helps in coordinating various
project components and stakeholders.
• It enables management with the required information to various
departments and functions in the organization.
• It assists in the development of an organization breakdown structure
which helps in assigning project responsibilities to various departments,
centres, units and individuals.

4.3.4 Work Packages

The work package is the lowest/bottom level of the work breakdown
structure, which gives quantifiable/subjective parameters.

• At the work package level, one can easily estimate how much work is
there / how much work needs to be done.
• What are the resources required for completing the work can be easily
assessed.
• Easy to estimate the time taken to complete the work.
• It identifies the number of manpower required to complete the work
package.
• It determines milestones in the work package completion.

Check Your Progress

Exercise 6: Below is a software development project WBS with cost

apportioned by percent. If the total project cost is estimated to be Rs.
1,000,000, what are the estimated costs for the following deliverables?

Software Development Project

Cost: Rs. 1,000,000

Initiation Planning & Design Execution and Monitoring

15% 35% 50%

Objectives Requirements In-house testing Customer testing & review

7% 8% 40% 10%

Outputs Files Interfaces Programming

Inputs
8% 20%
3% 3% 4%

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 Project Scope
4.3.5 Responsibility Matrix (RM) Management

It is a simple matrix used by the project manager in assigning roles and

responsibilities for individuals to complete the tasks/deliverables assigned to
them.

RM is also called as linear responsibility chart, which clearly identifies the

list of tasks to be accomplished and the responsibility of individuals w.r.to a
particular task completion in the project.

Example: You are one of the four members (father, mother, son – 15 years
and daughter, 13 – years) planning a weekend tour to a hill station. Develop a
responsibility matrix for the work that needs to be done before starting your
family trip to a hill station. The partial responsibility matrix is shown in table
4.1.

Table 4.1 The partial responsibility matrix

Task Date Father Mother Son Daughter

Research sites S R S S
Decide on site S R S S
Reserve site R - - -
Shopping list S R S R
Packing for the trip R R R R
Travel arrangements R - - -
Boarding arrangements R S - -
Fill car with gas R - - -
Get cash S R - -

R: Responsible, S: Supervision

Check Your Progress

Exercise 7: Develop a Responsibility Matrix for your son’s marriage (in the
family, you, your wife/husband, son – 25 years and daughter – 22 years).

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Project Planning
4.4 LET US SUM UP
Prior to the commencement of any project, it is necessary to define the scope,
priorities and breakdown structure. While defining the scope of the project,
the project managers primarily focus on the end product/items of the project.
It is essential to develop a priority list for every project to take meaningful
decisions. In project management, the structure provides two views of the
project—one on deliverables and one on organizational responsibility—
helping to ensure that all of the project's duties are defined. The WBS
prevents the project from being controlled by an organizational function or a
financial system. The organizational design demands consideration of
reasonable staffing, equipment, and financial needs.

Without a systematic, disciplined approach, it is impossible to design a

project plan or control system that works properly. This discipline is offered
by the cost account codes, WBS, and OBS. The project network, which sets
the schedule of work, personnel, equipment, and costs, will be developed
using the WBS as the database. Responsibilities matrices can be used in
small projects to define individual responsibility.

Planning begins with defining your project precisely, which is the first and
most significant stage. Project failures are most frequently attributed to a lack
of a well-defined project plan. Using a WBS or a responsibility matrix will
mostly depend on the scope and scale of your project.

4.5 SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE

1. What are the elements of a project scope statement? Discuss.
2. What do you mean by project objective? What kind of questions does a
project objective answer? Write an example of a good project objective.
3. What are the project priorities? What are the most relevant priorities of a
project? Discuss some of the priorities, including Time-constrain, Scope
acceptance, and Cost-enhance.
4. What is a work package? Discuss what kinds of information are included
in a work package.
5. What do you mean by responsibility matrix? When do you use the
responsibility matrix? Discuss with suitable examples.

4.6 FURTHER READINGS

1. Clifford F.Gray, Erik W. Larson, Gautam V.Desai, Project Management:
The Managerial Process, 2010, Tata McGraw – Hill 6th Edition.
2. Jack R. Meredith & Samuel J.Mantel, 2010, Project Management: A
Managerial Approach, 7th edition, Wiley India Edition.
3. Rory Burke, Project Management: Planning and control Techniques, 4th
edition 2010, John Wiley & Sons.
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4. Pinto Jeffrey K, Project Management-Achieving Competitive Management
Advantage, Indian edition, Pearson
5. Jhon M.Nicholas, Herman Steyn. Project Management for Business,
engineering, and Technology, 3rd edition, 2010, Elsevier.
6. Jack Gido, James P. Clements. Project Management, 2011, Cengage
Learning India Private Limited.
7. The Project Management Institute. A Guide to the Project Management
Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide). Upper Darby, Pa: PMI.
8. Harold Kerzner. Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning,
Scheduling, and Controlling, 7th edition. New York: John Wiley &
Sons, 2010.
9. Chandra, Prasanna, PROJECTS – Planning, Analysis, Selection,
Financing, Implementation, and Review, Tata McGraw – Hill 7th Edition.
10. Gary L. Richardson, Project Management Theory and Practice, 2011,
Taylor & Francis Group.

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