Question

Why is it important for a project to have a clearly defined scope statement all parties agree with?
What can happen if the project scope is not clearly defined and not agreed to by all parties?
Give us examples in which project scope was not clearly defined and explain what could be done differently.

Answer 1

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- Defining a project scope is very important part of the upfront process of defining a project. The purpose of defining the scope is for clearly describing and to gain the agreement on the logical boundaries of the project. Scope statements is used for defining what is within the boundaries of the project and what's outside those boundaries. It is the most critical part of the project and the project manager is having that role .

There are some good reasons why scope management must be in top priority:
Cost- the project manager is responsible for the cost schedule and the quality of the project. Each scope change can affect the work which is already performed and the cost also will be more for rework .
Schedule - each scope change would lead to the diversion of the project resources to the activities which is not identified in the original project.
Quality- for the product quality each of the changes should be analysed. When not analysed properly , scope changes will lead to quick fixes that leads to quick fixes and will affect the product quality.
The three processes of project scope management is the planning, controlling and closing. The project must not be closed in mid way.
- The project scope must be clearly defined and agreed by all the parties orelse there will be a huge loss in the project in terms of cost , quality, resources and time. It's actually an agreement of work. A clear project scope statement helps the project manager for managing the expectations of the stakeholders or the client and also to avoid common problems which is seen in the project like:The final product or service is not what the client was expecting. The requirements are constantly being changed throughout the project.
- Example is buying a vehicle: if you are buying vehicle for the business, then the functional requirements would be : the vehicle must be able to take a ton of load from a warehouse to the retailers shop.
So if the scope was not explained properly then the work cannot be done. In mid way we need to make changes which may cause a cost hike in the project which was not expected and also the resources would be added and manpower, etc. Hence the scope of work must be defined properly and correctly to avoid further huge corrections and the satisfaction and good working of the system.