Question

compare and contrast scope statements on the example below and offer suggestions on how statements can be improved.

The scope statement is essential to the success of the project. A scope statement, Mindedge (2014), functions by providing details of the project's major deliverables, key objectives and the activities that are needed to meet those objectives. In the scope statement it will describe the overall outlook of the project with its complexity, time for completion and the cost to get the projecti successfully completed. The scope statement should have the following elements which can differ according to goals of the project manager and owners.  

Objectives - It should be included in the scope statement since this will let the team and stakeholders know what is expected on completion of the project.

Product scope description - Details of what is required of the product or service.

Deliverables - Reports and or documents, Eastwood (2019), that are tangible and measureable.

Exclusions - It is important to detail what should not be included in the project. This provides clarity on what is relevant to the project's life cyle.

Constraints - Stating the limitations if necessary, that will challenge the completion of the project.

Assumptions - Decisions made by the team that may be valid but may have an impact on the project if it turns out to be invalid.

Including these elements in the scope statement will be the basis of how the project will take shape and able to get to completion successfully.

Answer 1

The following are the critical components of the scope document of the project. The scope statement is a moving target and very difficult to hit the bullseye. But if we are able to create a perfect scope document it will really hit the bull's eye and will set the project on the right track. Following elements should be incorporated in the project scope statement in the given sequence:

a. Project Justification

b. Project description

c. Project or business objectives:

d. Project deliverables

e. Project exclusion f. Project constraints linked to the deliverables

g. Project assumptions

The above statement does have objectives, deliverables, exclusions, constraints, and assumptions.

In order to improve the scope statement, the justification must be included. No project is relevant if there is no need for it, therefore, the first element of the scope statement should be the justification of the project as to why this project is required and how this is the most suitable project because the desired changes as the outcome of the project can be achieved through this project. This will make the project justification ground very solid and then the rest of the project scope elements can be included and described.

The second improvement in the scope statement has to be done by adding the scope description. The purpose of scope description to the set the boundaries of the project scoep as what are the within the scope of the project and what are not in the scope of the project. It should not be confused with the exclusion becuase exclusion is fine details of elements which we are not considering but the scope description will give a high level view.