Chapter 26: Scope Management during Monitoring & Controlling the Project

Aim: To understand the following two processes related to Project Scope Management Knowledge Area in Monitoring & Controlling Phase.

• Verify Scope
• Control Scope

Verifying and Controlling Project Scope

The scope management knowledge area defines two processes in the monitoring and controlling process group. The first process, verify scope, is the formal process of accepting project deliverables. It provides a mechanism to verify that deliverables meet or exceed project requirements. The second process, control scope, is the process of managing the project’s status and any changes to the scope baseline. Let’s look at each of the processes individually.

The verify scope process provides the project manager with the formal process to classify deliverables as acceptable or unacceptable.

The table below shows the inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs for the verify scope process.

Verify Scope
Inputs	Tools & Techniques	Outputs
Project management plan Requirements documentation Requirements traceability matrix Validated deliverables	Inspection	Accepted deliverables Change requests Project document updates

One output of the verify scope process is the collection of change requests. These requests are individually addressed through the “Perform integrated change control” process and might result in approved change requests.

Exam Trivia:

Pay close attention to how the outputs of processes are used as inputs to other processes. When I took the exam, the questions were not only about identifying inputs/tools/outputs of a single process but about entities that were a common input/tool/output of multiple processes. I do understand that memorizing all these inputs, tools & outputs is difficult, but, if you understand what they are and how they are related to one another, it will be easy to crack these questions.

To know more about the Verify Scope process Click Here

The next process in the monitoring and controlling process group is the control scope process. This process monitors and controls all changes to the scope baseline to ensure the changes are being handled in a structured manner.

The table below shows the inputs, tools and techniques, and outputs for the control scope process.

Control Scope
Inputs	Tools & Techniques	Outputs
Project management plan Work performance information Requirements documentation Requirements traceability matrix Organizational process assets	Variance analysis	Work performance measurements Organizational process assets updates Change requests Project management plan updates Project document updates

A primary component of the project management plan is the scope baseline. The scope baseline defines the project scope and its associated deliverables, and documents the acceptance parameters of the final product. This baseline helps in clarifying any details that might have been left in a to-be-determined (TBD) mode during the project initiation phase or items that require further clarification with the project sponsor or its stakeholders. The project process indicators in this process are
• The work breakdown structure (WBS)
• Work package progress reports

Exam Trivia:

Do you remember what a work breakdown structure is? A work breakdown structure (WBS) decomposes the project work into manageable chunks or work packages.

The idea behind effectively defining the WBS is to create the roadmap that defines all the activities that will be executed to accomplish the project goal.

The WBS is one of those elements that changes as time and resource utilization passes. Why? As you perform the tasks outlined in your baseline, the recorded changes accommodate any differences between the planned theory and the actual execution.
An effective WBS assists the stakeholders to understand the activities and events that help in delivering the project promise, as well as outlining internal and external resource use. The entire project execution team looks at the WBS to inquire about present, past, and future deliverables and their effectiveness.

Due to its nature and importance, the creation of the WBS should not be taken lightly. It must be considered as the one element that all project participants might want to be considered when formulating an opinion.

To know more about the Control Scope Process Click Here

Prev: Chapter 25

Next: Chapter 27

Chapter 90: Verifying the Scope of Project Deliverables

Before we begin closing the project, we need to ensure that all the project deliverables have been successfully delivered to the customer. This is done by the Verifying Scope process.
Verifying scope is the process of formally accepting the completed project deliverables. Before you hand over the project deliverables to the appropriate party mentioned in the project management plan, such as the customer or the sponsor, you need to verify that these deliverables actually meet the planned scope. So, verifying the scope of the project deliverables includes reviewing deliverables to ensure that all of them are completed as planned and therefore as expected.

Trivia:
We should perform the scope verification process even if the project is terminated or ended before completion. In that case we would verify and document the level and extent of the project and product scope that was completed.

The process used to verify the scope is called Verify Scope and is illustrated in the picture below:

To verify the scope of deliverables, you need to pull out the project management plan and look at the sections related to the planned scope: the project scope statement, WBS, and WBS dictionary. The project scope statement includes the list of deliverables, the product scope description, and the product acceptance criteria. More scope-related details can be found in the WBS, which defines the decomposition of each deliverable into work packages. Further details, such as a description of each WBS component, the related statement of work, and technical requirements, can be found in the WBS dictionary.

The product requirements should be considered part of the scope and can be found in two documents: the stakeholder requirements document and the requirements traceability matrix that you prepared in the process of collecting requirements during the planning stage of the project. Finally, before you go through the process of scope verification, you should get all the deliverables validated through the quality control process. You can use inspection or auditing on the deliverables if necessary, even in the Verify Scope process.

The actual scope verification activity has different names in different organizations, such as audits, inspection, product review, and walkthrough. Nevertheless, the output of this activity is documentation of two kinds:

• Documentation of which deliverables have been accepted i.e., verified.
• Documentation of those deliverables that have not passed verification and therefore are not accepted.
• Also, documentation of the reasons why they failed the verification.

The scope verification process may also give rise to change requests, such as requests for defect repairs.

Trivia:
Don’t confuse scope verification with quality control. Quality control is primarily focused on checking the correctness of the deliverables and other quality requirements, whereas scope verification is primarily concerned with overall acceptance of the project deliverables. Quality control is usually performed before the project delivery while verification is done after the delivery is complete.

The project deliverables that have been accepted through the scope verification process still need to go through final acceptance by the appropriate party, such as the customer or the sponsor.

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Next: Performing Project Closure