Why change initiative needs a scope?

Lenka -

Without having scope defined, there is likely to be an expectation gap between what the team delivers and what the customer or other key stakeholders expected. This can lead to projects which continue well past their planned completion date.

High-level scope definition also helps to create shared understanding and identify misalignment between key stakeholders at an early enough point that it can be resolved without impacting the success criteria for the project.

Kiron

What is the expected result of the change initiative. If you specify this you have a scope. If there is an allergy against the term, call it epic or value description.

Normally you are dealing with people and changing behaviors. I would not do trial and error or you might run into resistance you would not have with a proven approach.

Lenka,
Configuration control includes the change process, and the documentation defining a change is a configurable item, so without a defined scope, you lack configuration control. That can cause your cost and schedule to grow out of control as people decide that this is an opportunity to include many extra things because it seems like a good opportunity. Technical conflicts also arise as the SOW of various groups diverge.

Furthermore, when people keep adding things to an existing change, it becomes impossible to approve and incorporate the included items into the downstream business systems. When that goes on too long, by the time the change can be approved, you can find you're already off the critical path because the team couldn't start working on Item A, until Item B, then C, then D... could be included. That is a situation where I had to convince my leadership that we needed to bound a very large change, or my teams would be on-hold indefinitely until it is approved.