5.1 Scope Planning

Defining and managing the project scope influences the project’s overall success. Each project requires a careful balance of tools, data sources, methodologies, processes and procedures, and other factors to ensure that the effort expended on scoping activities is commensurate with the project’s size, complexity, and importance. For example, a critical project could merit formal, thorough, and time-intensive scoping activities, while a routine project could require substantially less documentation and scrutiny. The project management team documents these scope management decisions in the project scope management plan. The project scope management plan is a planning tool describing how the team will define the project scope, develop the detailed project scope statement, define and develop the work breakdown structure, verify the project scope, and control the project scope. The development of the project scope management plan and the detailing of the project scope begin with the analysis of information contained in the project charter (Section 4.1), the preliminary project scope statement (Section 4.2), the latest approved version of the project management plan (Section 4.3), historical information contained in the organizational process assets (Section 4.1.1.4), and any relevant enterprise environmental factors (Section 4.1.1.3).

Figure 5-3. Scope Planning: Inputs, Tools & Techniques, and Outputs

5.1.02TS Scope Planning - Techniques (TenStep Supplemental Content)

5.1.1 Scope Planning: Inputs

.1 Enterprise Environmental Factors
Enterprise environmental factors include items such as the organization’s culture, infrastructure, tools, human resources, personnel policies, and marketplace conditions that could affect how project scope is managed.

.2 Organizational Process Assets
Organizational process assets are the formal and informal policies, procedures, and guidelines that could impact how the project’s scope is managed. Those of particular interest to project scope planning include:

.3 Project Charter
Described in Section 4.1.

.4 Preliminary Project Scope Statement
Described in Section 4.2.

.5 Project Management Plan
Described in the introduction to Section 4.3.

5.1.2 Scope Planning: Tools and Techniques

.1 Expert Judgment
Expert judgment related to how equivalent projects have managed scope is used in developing the project scope management plan.

.2 Templates, Forms, Standards
Templates could include work breakdown structure templates, scope management plan templates, and project scope change control forms.

5.1.3 Scope Planning: Outputs

.1 Project Scope Management Plan
The project scope management plan provides guidance on how project scope will be defined, documented, verified, managed, and controlled by the project management team. The components of a project scope management plan include:

A project scope management plan is contained in, or is a subsidiary of, the project management plan. The project scope management plan can be informal and broadly framed, or formal and highly detailed, based on the needs of the project.

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