- Discuss the process of further defining project scope, going from information in a project charter to preliminary scope statement, project scope statement, WBS etc. – 4 Points
- Please provide a short reflection on why Scope and Time Management is important during project lifecycle. What impacts you may have if either one of them increases? – 2 Points
Topic #
4
Scope and Time Management
Reference: Chapter
5
& 6, Information Technology Project Management
Learning Objectives
• Understand the importance of scope management
• Describe the process of planning scope management
• Discuss methods for collecting and documenting
requirements to meet stakeholder needs and
expectations
• Explain the scope definition process and describe the
contents of a project scope statement
• Discuss the process for creating a work breakdown
structure using the analogy, top-down, bottom-up,
and mind-mapping approaches
• Explain the importance of validating scope and how
it relates to defining and controlling scope
2
Learning Objectives
• Understand the importance of controlling scope
and approaches for preventing scope-related
problems on information technology (IT) projects
• Understand the importance of good project time
management and discuss the process of planning
schedule management
• Define activities as the basis for developing project
schedules and describe how project managers use
network diagrams and dependencies to assist in
activity sequencing
• Understand the relationship between estimating
resources and project schedules
3
What is Scope Management?
• Scope refers to all the work involved in creating
the products of the project and the processes
used to create them
• A deliverable is a product produced as part of
a project, such as hardware or software,
planning documents, or meeting minutes
• Project scope management includes the
processes involved in defining and controlling
what is or is not included in a project
4
Scope Management Processes for an initiative
• Planning scope: determining how the scope and requirements will be
managed
• Collecting requirements: defining and documenting the features and
functions of the products produced during the project as well as the
processes used for creating them
• Defining scope: reviewing the project charter, requirements
documents, and organizational process assets to create a scope
statement
• Creating the WBS: subdividing the major project deliverables into
smaller, more manageable components
• Validating scope: formalizing acceptance of the project deliverables
• Controlling scope: controlling changes to the overall scope
throughout the lifecycle of the project/initiatives
5
Project Scope Management Summary
6
Scope Management Plan Contents
• The IT team uses expert judgment and meetings to
develop two important outputs: the scope management
plan and the requirements management plan
• The scope management plan is a subsidiary part of the
project management plan
• How to prepare a detailed project scope statement
• How to create a WBS
• How to maintain and approve the WBS
• How to obtain formal acceptance of the completed
project deliverables
• How to control requests for changes to the project
scope
7
Collecting Requirements
• The requirements management plan documents
how project requirements will be analyzed,
documented, and managed
• For some IT projects, it is helpful to divide
requirements development into categories called
elicitation, analysis, specification, and validation
• It is important to use an iterative approach to
defining requirements since they are often
unclear early in a project
8
Relative Cost to Correct a Software
Requirement Defect
9
Methods for Collecting Requirements
• Interviewing
• Focus groups and facilitated workshops
• Using group creativity and decision-making
techniques
• Questionnaires and surveys
• Observation
• Prototyping
• Benchmarking, or generating ideas by comparing
specific project practices or product characteristics to
those of other projects or products inside or outside
the performing organization, can also be used to
collect requirements
10
Requirements Traceability Matrix
• A requirements traceability matrix (RTM) is a table that lists
requirements, various attributes of each requirement, and
the status of the requirements to ensure that all
requirements are addressed
11
Defining Scope
• Project scope statements should include at least a
product scope description, product user acceptance
criteria, and detailed information on all project
deliverables. It is also helpful to document other
scope-related information, such as the project
boundaries, constraints, and assumptions. The
project scope statement should also reference
supporting documents, such as product
specifications
• As time progresses, the scope of a project should
become more clear and specific
12
Sample Project Charter (partial)
Information Technology Project
Management, Seventh Edition 13
Further Defining Project Scope
Information Technology Project
Management, Seventh Edition 14
Creating the Work Breakdown
Structure (WBS)
• A WBS is a deliverable-oriented grouping of the work
involved in a project that defines the total scope of the
project
• WBS is a foundation document that provides the basis for
planning and managing project schedules, costs, resources,
and changes
• Decomposition is subdividing project deliverables into
smaller pieces
• A work package is a task at the lowest level of the WBS
• The scope baseline includes the approved project scope
statement and its associated WBS and WBS dictionary
15
Sample Intranet WBS
Organized by Phase
16
Intranet WBS and Gantt Chart in Microsoft Project
17
Intranet Gantt Chart Organized by Project
Management Process Groups
18
Approaches to Developing WBSs
• Using guidelines: Some organizations, like the
DOD, provide guidelines for preparing WBSs
• The analogy approach: Review WBSs of similar
projects and tailor to your project
• The top-down approach: Start with the largest
items of the project and break them down
• The bottom-up approach: Start with the
specific tasks and roll them up
• Mind-mapping approach: Mind mapping is a
technique that uses branches radiating out
from a core idea to structure thoughts and
ideas
19
The WBS Dictionary and Scope
Baseline
• Many WBS tasks are vague and must be
explained more so people know what to do
and can estimate how long it will take and
what it will cost to do the work
• A WBS dictionary is a document that
describes detailed information about each
WBS item
20
Sample WBS Dictionary Entry
21
Advice for Creating a WBS and WBS
Dictionary
• A unit of work should appear at only one place
in the WBS.
• The work content of a WBS item is the sum of
the WBS items below it
• A WBS item is the responsibility of only one
individual, even though many people may be
working on it
• The WBS must be consistent with the way in
which work is actually going to be performed; it
should serve the project team first, and other
purposes only if practical
22
Advice for Creating a WBS and WBS
Dictionary (cont’d)
• Project team members should be involved in
developing the WBS to ensure consistency and
buy-in
• Each WBS item must be documented in a WBS
dictionary to ensure accurate understanding of
the scope of work included and not included in
that item
• The WBS must be a flexible tool to accommodate
inevitable changes while properly maintaining
control of the work content in the project
according to the scope statement
23
Validating Scope
• It is very difficult to create a good scope
statement and WBS for a project
• It is even more difficult to verify project scope
and minimize scope changes
• Scope validation involves formal acceptance of
the completed project deliverables
• Acceptance is often achieved by a customer
inspection and then sign-off on key deliverables
24
Controlling Scope
• Global Issue in a project!!
• Scope control involves controlling changes to the
project scope
• Goals of scope control are to
– influence the factors that cause scope changes
– assure changes are processed according to
procedures developed as part of integrated change
control, and
– manage changes when they occur
• Variance is the difference between planned and
actual performance
25
Best Practices for Avoiding Scope
Problems
1. Keep the scope realistic. Don’t make projects so large that they
can’t be completed. Break large projects down into a series of
smaller ones
2. Involve users in project scope management. Assign key users to
the project team and give them ownership of requirements
definition and scope verification
3. Use off-the-shelf hardware and software whenever possible.
Many IT people enjoy using the latest and greatest technology,
but business needs, not technology trends, must take priority
4. Follow good project management processes. As described in this
chapter and others, there are well-defined processes for
managing project scope and others aspects of projects
26
Suggestions for Improving User Input
• Develop a good project selection process and
insist that sponsors are from the user
organization
• Have users on the project team in important roles
• Have regular meetings with defined agendas, and
have users sign off on key deliverables presented
at meetings
• Deliver something to users and sponsors on a
regular basis
• Don’t promise to deliver when you know you
can’t
• Co-locate users with developers
27
Suggestions for Reducing Incomplete and
Changing Requirements
• Develop and follow a requirements
management process
• Use techniques such as prototyping, use case
modeling, and JAD to get more user
involvement
• Put requirements in writing and keep them
current
• Create a requirements management database
for documenting and controlling requirements
28
Suggestions for Reducing Incomplete and
Changing Requirements (cont’d)
• Provide adequate testing and conduct testing
throughout the project life cycle
• Review changes from a systems perspective
• Emphasize completion dates to help focus on
what’s most important
• Allocate resources specifically for handling
change requests/enhancements like NWA did
with ResNet
29
Time Management Processes
• Planning schedule management: determining the policies,
procedures, and documentation that will be used for planning,
executing, and controlling the project schedule
• Defining activities: identifying the specific activities that the
project team members and stakeholders must perform to produce
the project deliverables
• Sequencing activities: identifying and documenting the
relationships between project activities
• Estimating activity resources: estimating how many resources a
project team should use to perform project activities
• Estimating activity durations: estimating the number of work
periods that are needed to complete individual activities
• Developing the schedule: analyzing activity sequences, activity
resource estimates, and activity duration estimates to create the
project schedule
• Controlling the schedule: controlling and managing changes to the
project schedule 30
Project Time Management Summary
31
Planning Schedule Management
• The project team uses expert judgment,
analytical techniques, and meetings to develop
the schedule management plan
• A schedule management plan includes:
– Project schedule model development
– The scheduling methodology
– Level of accuracy and units of measure
– Control thresholds
– Rules of performance measurement
– Reporting formats
– Process descriptions
32
Defining Activities
• An activity or task is an element of work
normally found on the work breakdown
structure (WBS) that has an expected
duration, a cost, and resource requirements
• Activity definition involves developing a more
detailed WBS and supporting explanations to
understand all the work to be done so you can
develop realistic cost and duration estimates
33
Activity Lists and Attributes
• An activity list is a tabulation of activities to be
included on a project schedule that includes
– the activity name
– an activity identifier or number
– a brief description of the activity
• Activity attributes provide more information
such as predecessors, successors, logical
relationships, leads and lags, resource
requirements, constraints, imposed dates, and
assumptions related to the activity
34
Milestones
• A milestone is a significant event that
normally has no duration
• It often takes several activities and a lot of
work to complete a milestone
• They’re useful tools for setting schedule goals
and monitoring progress
• Examples include obtaining customer sign-off
on key documents or completion of specific
products
35
Sequencing Activities
• Involves reviewing activities and determining
dependencies
• A dependency or relationship is the
sequencing of project activities or tasks
• You must determine dependencies in order to
use critical path analysis
36
Three types of Dependencies
• Mandatory dependencies: inherent in the
nature of the work being performed on a
project, sometimes referred to as hard logic
• Discretionary dependencies: defined by the
project team., sometimes referred to as soft
logic and should be used with care since they
may limit later scheduling options
• External dependencies: involve relationships
between project and non-project activities
37
Network Diagrams
• Network diagrams are the preferred
technique for showing activity sequencing
• A network diagram is a schematic display of
the logical relationships among, or sequencing
of, project activities
• Two main formats are the arrow and
precedence diagramming methods
38
Activity Duration Estimating
• Duration includes the actual amount of time
worked on an activity plus elapsed time
• Effort is the number of workdays or work
hours required to complete a task
• Effort does not normally equal duration
• People doing the work should help create
estimates, and an expert should review them
39
Gantt Charts
• Gantt charts provide a standard format for
displaying project schedule information by
listing project activities and their
corresponding start and finish dates in a
calendar format
• Symbols include:
– A black diamond: a milestones
– Thick black bars: summary tasks
– Lighter horizontal bars: durations of tasks
– Arrows: dependencies between tasks
40
Adding Milestones to Gantt Charts
• Many people like to focus on meeting
milestones, especially for large projects
• Milestones emphasize important events or
accomplishments on projects
• Normally create milestone by entering tasks
with a zero duration, or you can mark any task
as a milestone
• Milestones should be Specific, Measurable,
Assignable, Realistic and Time-framed
41
Sample Tracking Gantt Chart
42
Gantt Chart for Software Launch Project
43
Critical Path Method (CPM)
• CPM is a network diagramming technique
used to predict total project duration
• A critical path for a project is the series of
activities that determines the earliest time by
which the project can be completed
• The critical path is the longest path through
the network diagram and has the least
amount of slack or float
• Slack or float is the amount of time an activity
may be delayed without delaying a
succeeding activity or the project finish date
44
Using the Critical Path to Shorten a
Project Schedule
• Three main techniques for shortening
schedules
– Shortening durations of critical activities/tasks by
adding more resources or changing their scope
– Crashing activities by obtaining the greatest
amount of schedule compression for the least
incremental cost
– Fast tracking activities by doing them in parallel or
overlapping them
45
Summary
• Project scope management
includes the processes
required to ensure that the
project addresses all the
work required, and only the
work required, to complete
the project successfully
• Main processes include
– Define scope management
– Collect requirements
– Define scope
– Create WBS
– Validate scope
– Control scope
46
• Time management is
often cited as the main
source of conflict on
projects/initiatives.
• Main processes include
– Plan schedule
management
– Define activities
– Sequence activities
– Estimate activity
resources
– Estimate activity
durations
– Develop schedule
– Control schedule
Reference Details
47