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Categories: Scheduling
It’s time to look at another project management Knowledge Area from the PMBOK Guide®-- Sixth Edition. This time, we’re diving into Project Scope Management. I’m going to be looking in detail at the major changes between the Fifth Edition and the current version. It feels like the Fifth Edition came out of circulation a while ago, but I know (anecdotally) that some people are still yet to update their internal processes to align to the Sixth Edition.
In practice, I don’t think that matters much. The changes aren’t radical – and while it’s good for new people being certified to work in an environment where the language and expectations align to what they studied as part of their PMP® prep, no one is going to find it difficult to work in a v5 environment.
So, onwards to this Knowledge Area. Let’s dive in!
Plan Scope Management Process
This is the first process in the Knowledge Area, and it makes sure you are setting yourself up for success. As with many Knowledge Areas, we start by planning out what we are going to do in this domain before getting on with the work.
Inputs
The inputs haven’t changed from the Fifth Edition. They are still:
- Project management plan
- Project charter
- Enterprise environmental factors (of course)
- Organisational process assets (of course).
The objective of this process is to consider how you are going to get to an understanding of what the project scope is, so you need all of those things.
Tools & Techniques
There isn’t much change here either. Expert judgment and meetings remain as they were before, and there is the addition of data analysis.
You might recall that data analysis was added in as a tool and technique to schedule management too.
Data analysis is a lovely catch all for the kinds of things you might be looking at during your planning. For example, you will probably do some alternatives evaluation to decide which requirements and specific functionality or solutions you want to move forward with.
Outputs
Nothing has changed here either.
At the end of working through this process, you’ll have the scope management plan and the requirements management plan.
I’d say that if you have a repeatable process in place with solid templates and expectations for managing scope, you should be able to complete the work required here quite quickly. You might not need to write a detailed document for requirements management and scope management, if you can include a paragraph in your main project management plan. There’s nothing in the PMBOK Guide®-- Sixth Edition that specifies you have to have separate documents, so go light on paperwork where you can!
Next time I’ll be looking at the second process in this Knowledge Area: Collect Requirements.
Posted on: July 02, 2019 08:59 AM |
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