The key for organizations to grow and to thrive relies on how to manage projects and how to manage projects for organization success becomes an industry competitive advantage. But why do so many projects fail?
Is it lack of preparation?
Is it lack of communication?
Is it lack of commitment?
No, those are symptoms.
Projects fail for a variety of reasons, but they are set for failure before being launched when the project scope, itself, is not clear.
Of course if the target is not clear, how can you know, clearly, if you hit the target. Alternatively, if you constantly shift your focus [some might think about multi-tasking as an example of scope/focus] how can you do manage your resources effectively?
Once a project is underway there is a constant battle to manage scope and keep the original intent of the project pure; so to speak. Managing scope is one of the most important keys to deliver project success.
Scope management includes the processes required to ensure the project includes all the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully. Managing the project scope is primarily concerned with defining and controlling what is and is not included in the project and can include:
- Collect Requirements: The process of defining and documenting stakeholders’ needs to meet the project objectives
- Define Scope: The process of developing an in depth description of the project and product
- Create Work Breakdown Structure: The process of sub-dividing project deliverables and project work in to smaller, more manageable components
- Verify Scope: The process of formalizing acceptance of the completed project deliverables
- Control Scope: The process of monitoring the status of the project and product scope and managing changes to the scope baseline.
These processes interact with each other. In practice they overlap as well as interact.
Projects fail so often because they start their journey without an accurate map and head out on the road guaranteed for failure. Many people plan their vacations with more thought that companies plan their projects.
Think about planning for a vacation:
- Where would we like to go – scope
- Where have we heard is a good time or have been before – lessons learned
- How much time do we have – scope (time/schedule)
- How much can we afford – scope through resources assignment
- What do we pack – risk
- What do we need to buy – resources
- What do we need to coordinate to get there – work breakdown structure
- What is our budget flexibility – management reserves
When scope is not defined then no one knows what to expect or how to identify success or how to know when trouble arises.
When scope, is modified, when scope continually changes then expectations change, budget changes, and resources change. Each of these variables, expectations, budget, and resources, in motion are prime ingredients for project failure.
Within the below presentation you’ll find:
- How to identify common project roadblocks, hint: it’s people;
- A review of tools to identify the scope of impact a project has on people and process;
- A way to quantify how changes to scope affect projects; and
- A way to identify impact, the stakeholders, the risk, and many of the other factors to allow you to know the project and people involved and reduce the amount of surprises along the way
Managing scope means you don’t consider innovations and new product or project characteristics once the project is underway. You have to save changes for the change control board to decide if it is time for a new project or a post-launch an add-on/version update. See presentation pages 58 and 59 for formulas to calculate the cost of team changes, which usually happens when scope changes.
It is difficult to succeed in a ready, fire, aim environment when the target continually moves. Scope management helps provide clarity to launch projects, manage projects, and deliver projects.
No doubt I got some things wrong, or left out some important ideas. Please let me know what you think and suggestions you have for me to add value.
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