When I am planning my project, I want to effectively ensure that task definition does not add more risk to my project and that I have all tasks and activities covered for my project, considering the fact that I am totally new to the Project industry or area. What are some factors to consider? Saving Changes...
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Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Azibator
for scope definition, start with a hierarchical work breakdown structure (WBS). Decomposition of the overall scope into work packages and eventually into activities will enable to cover all scope known at this point in time. Be aware, due to changes, during the project new scope items may be added and others may be changed or even removed.
As for activities, they include durations and efforts, as well as dependencies (e.g. activity B can only start after A). You will define a control period for your project or phase, e.g. you check progress every week or every month. Make sure the durations of your activities do not extend the control period.
Consider using Earned Value as one instrument top understand progress. Saving Changes...
A lot depends on the nature of your project. If it is one which lends itself to a highly predictive approach, then Thomas's recommendations will be very helpful in reducing the risk of having missed something critical in your scope baseline.
However, if your project's scope is conceptual and it is not realistic to expect stakeholders to understand all their requirements at an early stage in the project then adaptive scope management techniques might be a better fit.
So from a factors perspective, one of the first is - where does my project fall on the highly predictive to highly adaptive continuum.
Another factor is to ensure you have all the key stakeholders identified and engaged so you don't risk missing out on an important subset of the project's scope.
