Chapter 5

Project Scope Management

Scope refers to all the work involved in creating the products of the project and the processes used to create them. A deliverable is a product produced as part of a project, such as hardware or software, planning documents, or meeting minutes.

There are 5 processes involved in the project scope management; scope planning, scope definition, creating the WBS, scope verification and Scope control.

Scope management plan is a document that includes descriptions of how the team will prepare the project scope statement, create the WBS, verify completion of the project deliverables, and control requests for changes to the project scope. The key output for scope planning and scope management plan are project charter, preliminary scope statement, and project management plan.

As for the scope definition, the preliminary scope statement, project charter, organizational process assets, and approved change requests provide a basis for creating the project scope statement. As time progresses, the scope of a project should become more clear and specific.

Creating WBS; WBS is a deliverable-oriented grouping of the work involved in a project that defines the total scope of the project. Decomposition is subdividing project deliverables into smaller pieces and a work package is a task at the lowest level of the WBS. The WBS design can be in form of; Organized by Product, Organized by Phase, Tabular Form or Chart Form. A WBS dictionary is a document that describes detailed information about each WBS item. The approved project scope statement and its WBS and WBS dictionary form the scope baseline, which is used to measure performance in meeting project scope goals.

Scope verification involves formal acceptance of the completed project scope by the stakeholders. Acceptance is often achieved by a customer inspection and then sign-off on key deliverables.


Scope control involves controlling changes to the project scope. Variance is the difference between planned and actual performance.