PMBOK Chapter 5 - Project Scope Management

Question 1

What does the Project Scope Management knowledge area include?

Answer 1

The Project Scope Manageemtn knowledge area includes the processes we must perform to ensure that the project contains ALL THE WORK, and ONLY THE WORK, required to complete the project successfully. We are primarily concerned with defining what is and what is not included int he project.

Question 2

What is Scope?

Answer 2

In the project context, there are two categories of scope: - Product scope, which is the features and functions that characterize a product, service, or result. - Project scope, which is all the work needed to deliver a product, service, or result as defined in product scope.

Question 3

How is Project Scope different from Product Scope?

Answer 3

Project scope is the WORK that must be done to deliver a product with the specified features and functions. Product scope is the features and functions that characterize a product or service.

Question 4

How is Completion of scope measured?

Answer 4

Completion of the project scope is measured against the project management plan. Completion of the product scope is measured against the product requirements. So, clearly, product requirements are a key driver in project scope, and are the starting point for our scope work.

Question 5

What is Collect Requirements?

Answer 5

Collect Requirements is the process of defining and documenting stakeholders needs. How well we do this will have a direct influence on the success of the project, because it is central to properly defining scope. Requirements include the expectations of the sponsor, customer, and other stakeholders. They must be elicited from the stakeholders, then analyzed and recorded in adequate detail to be measured once we start the project.

Question 6

What are the Categories of Requirements?

Answer 6

It can be useful to define requirements in two categories, corresponding to our categories of scope: - Project requirements include business requirements, project management requirements, delivery requirements, etc. - Product requirements include information on the technical requirements, security requirements, performance requirements, etc.

Question 7

What are the INPUTS of the Collect Requirements process?

Answer 7

1. Project charter, which has a high-level definition of project requirements, and serves as a starting point for requirements collection. This is an output of the process called Develop Project Charter. 2. Stakeholder register, which is used to identify stakeholders that can provide information on detailed requirements. This is an output of the process called identify Stakeholders.

Question 8

What are the OUTPUTS of the Collect Requirements process?

Answer 8

1. Requirements documentation 2. Requirement management plan 3. Requirements traceability matrix

Question 9

What are the TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES of the Collect Requirements process?

Answer 9

1. Interviews 2. Focus Groups 3. Facilitated workshops 4. Group creativity techniques 5. Group decision making techniques 6. Questionnaires and surveys 7. Observations 8. Prototypes

Question 10

Define the Tools and Technique - Interviews

Answer 10

Interviews are used to discover information by talking directly to stakeholders. Usually involves both prepared questions, as well as questions that arise as the interview progresses. Usually done “one-on-one”, but may involve more than one stakeholder, which can help the stakeholders “cross-fertilize” their discussions as they hear each other’s input.

Question 11

Define the Tools and Technique - Focus Groups

Answer 11

Focus Groups are where stakeholders and subject matter expects join in discussing expectations and attitudes about a proposed product or service. This requires a trained moderator.

Question 12

Define the Tools and Techniques - Facilitated Workshops

Answer 12

Facilitated workshops are focused sessiosn that bring multiple stakeholders together to discuss requirements. Particularly valuable for eliciting cross-functional requirements. When facilitated well, these sessions build relationships and trust, which fosters teamwork among stakeholders.

Question 13

Define the Tools and Techniques - Group creativity

Answer 13

Group creativity techniques include: - Brainstorming - Nominal group techniques, which adds a voting process to brainstorming to rank the most useful ideas - Delphi technique, which uses secret ballot techniques to get the response of experts individually and independently, the provides feed back for requested rounds of input to reach consensus. Participants do not see responses from other stakeholders except in summary. - Idea/Mind Mapping uses the ideas generated by individual brainstorming and consolidates them into a single map to show commonality and differences in understanding, leading to additional ideas. - Affinity diagram sorts large numbers of ideas into groups for review and analysis

Question 14

Define the Tools and Techniques - Group Decision Making Techniques

Answer 14

Group decision making techniques help in reaching agreement among stakeholders: - Unanimity - everyone agrees - Majority - support from more than 50% - Plurality - largest block controls if no majority - Dictatorship or Decision Conference - One individual makes the decision after getting input.

Question 15

Define the Tools and Techniques - Questionnaires and Surveys

Answer 15

Questionnaires and Surveys are useful for large number or geographically dispersed stakeholders.

Question 16

Define the Tools and Techniques - Observations

Answer 16

Observations are watching how someone does a task or carries out processes; also known as job shadowing.

Question 17

Define the Tools and Techniques - Prototypes

Answer 17

Prototypes are where a working model is used to elicit comments from stakeholders to drive refinement of the model. This approoach embodies progressive elaboration, and allows for quick and early correction of an erroneous direction. After enough cycles, requirements are dequate to proceed to design and build. A prototype is usually not robust enough to become the final product, and is discarded once requirements are finalized.

Question 18

Describe Requirements Documentation

Answer 18

• Describes how requirements meet the identified business needs. Requirements may start out high-level, then be refined though progressive elaboration. - The requirements must be unambiguous, measurable and testable, traceable, complete, consistent, and acceptable to key stakeholders. - Format of this document can range from a simple list, to elaborate forms containing multiple sections and attachments. The format may be dictated by the requirements of the project management methodology in use for the project.

Question 19

What is the Potential Contents of Requirements Documentation?

Answer 19

• Business Need - Business objective for traceability - Functional requirements - Performance and service - Quality requirements - Acceptance criteria - Business rules - Impacts on other organizational areas - Impacts to other entities, inside or outside - Support and training - Assumptions and constraints for requirements

Question 20

What is a Requirements Management Plan?

Answer 20

A Requirements Management Plan documents how requirements will be analyzed, documented, and managed: - How requirements activities will be planned, tracked, and reported - Configuration management activities - Requirements prioritization process - Product metrics to be used and why - Traceability structure

Question 21

What is a Requirements Traceability Matrix?

Answer 21

A Requirements Traceability Matrix is a table linking requirements to their origin and tracing them throughout the project. This ensures that a requirement adds value by linking it to the project objectives.

Question 22

What can the Requirements Traceability Matrix trace?

Answer 22

The traceability matrix can trace: - Requirement to business need, opportunity, goals, or objective. - Requirement to project objective. - Requirement to project scope and WBS deliverable. - Requirement to product design - Requirement to product development - Requirement to test strategy and scenarios - High-level to detailed requirement

Question 23

Describe the process Define Scope

Answer 23

Preparation of a detailed project scope statement is critical to project success and builds upon the major deliverables, assumptions, and constraints that are documented during project initiation and the requirements collected during Collect requirements process. During planning the scope is defined more completely as more information about the project is known. Constraints and assumptions are analyzed for accuracy and completeness.

Question 24

What are the INPUTS of the process - Define Scope

Answer 24

1. Project Charter 2. Requirements documentation 3. Organization process assets

Question 25

What are the OUTPUTS of the process - Define Scope

Answer 25

1. Project scope statement 2. Project document updates (Stakeholder register, requirements documentation, requirements traceability matrix)

Question 26

What are the TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES of the process - Define Scope

Answer 26

1. Expert judgement 2. Product analysis 3. Alternatives identification 4. Facilitated workshops

Question 27

What is Product Analysis?

Answer 27

Product Analysis is based on product application area, including: - Product breakdown - Systems analysis - systems engineering - Value engineering - Value analysis - Functional analysis

Question 28

What is Alternatives Identification?

Answer 28

Alternatives identification is identifying alternatives to generate different approaches to perform the work of the project. A variety of techniques are included here, the most common being brainstorming, lateral thinking, and pairwise comparisons (also called paired comparison, used for ranking between alternatives)

Question 29

What is the Output - Project Scope Statement?

Answer 29

Project scope statement defines the project’s deliverables and the work required to create them, in detail. This document may also include specific exclusions from the scope. Forms the basis for subsequent planning. Includes the product scope description, acceptance criteria, project deliverables, and project exclusions. Project constraints and assumptions may be listed in the scope statement, or may be maintained in a separate log.

Question 30

Define the process - Create WBS

Answer 30

The WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) is a deliverable-oriented hierarchical decomposition of the work to be executed by the project team, to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables. Each descending level represents an increasing detailed description of the project work. The planned work is contained within the lowest level WBS components, which are called Work Packages. Work packages can be scheduled, cost estimated, monitored, and controlled. In the WBS context, the word “work” refers to work products or deliverables that are the result of effort, and not to the effort itself.

Question 31

What are the INPUTS of the process - Create WBS

Answer 31

1. Project scope statement, from the Define Scope process 2. Requirements documentation, from the Collect Requirements process 3. Organizational process assets

Question 32

What are the OUTPUTS of the process - Create WBS

Answer 32

1. Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) 2. WBS Dictionary 3. Scope baseline 4. Project document updates

Question 33

Describe the Tool and Technique - Decomposition

Answer 33

Decomposition is the subdividing of deliverables into smaller, more manageable components until the they are defined at the work package level. This produces the WBS.

Question 34

What activities are performed during Decomposition?

Answer 34

1. Identifying deliverables and related work 2. Structuring and organizing the WBS 3. Decomposing the upper WBS levels into lower level components 4. Developing and assigning identification codes to the WBS components 5. Verifying that the degree of decomposition of the work ins necessary and sufficient Rolling Wave Planning is also used for deferring developing WBS details of future deliverables or subprojects until clarification.

Question 35

What forms can a WBS take?

Answer 35

The WBS structure can take a number of forms: - Using phases of the life cycle as the first level of decomposition, with the product breakdowns beginning at the second level. - Using major deliverables as the first level - Using subprojects, perhaps subcontracted work. The WBS can be presented as an indented list, an organization chart, a fishbone diagram, or whatever.

Question 36

What rules should each WBS element follow?

Answer 36

Each element should be: 1. Manageable, in that specific authority and responsibility can be assigned. 2. Independent, or with minimum interfacing with and dependence on other ongoing elements. 3. Integrable so that the total package can be seen 4. Measurable in terms of progress

Question 37

What should a WBS contain?

Answer 37

• The WBS represents all the product and project work, including project management work. Because of the necessary and sufficient rule applied, the roll up to the top defines all the project work. This is called the 100% rule. - The WBS may include control accounts for the work packages. A control account is a control point where scope, cost, and schedule are integrated for performance and reporting. - The WBS may include identifiers from the code of accounts.

Question 38

What is a WBS Dictionary?

Answer 38

A WBS Dictionary includes work package details such as statement of work, code of account identifier, schedule dates, cost budgets, staff assignments, quality requirements, acceptance criteria, technical references, and schedule milestones and is cross reference to other components as appropriate.

Question 39

What is a Scope Baseline?

Answer 39

A Scope Baseline consists of the approved Project Scope Statement and associated WBS and WBS Dictionary. This becomes part of the project management plan.

Question 40

WBS - Nouns or Verbs?

Answer 40

WBS deals with nouns and not verbs. Verbs are activities. Nouns are deliverables.

Question 41

Define the process - Verify Scope

Answer 41

Verify Scope is the process of obtaining the stakeholders’ formal acceptance of the completed project scope and associated deliverables. It includes reviewing deliverables to ensure that each is completed satisfactorily. Memory Hint! “Verify” = “Accept”

Question 42

How does Verify Scope compare with Perform Quality Control?

Answer 42

• Verify Scope is the process of obtaining stakeholders’ forma acceptance of the completed project scope and associated deliverables. - Verify Scope is concerned with ACCEPTANCE of the deliverables, while Perform Quality Control is concerned with meeting the quality requirements specified for the deliverable (i.e., CORRECTNESS) - Perform Quality Control is generally performed before Verify Scope, but these two processes can be performed in parallel.

Question 43

What are the INPUTS of the process - Verify Scope

Answer 43

1. Project management plan, which contains the scope baseline 2. Requirements documentation, which lists the requirements, along with acceptance criteria 3. Requirements traceability matrix, which links requirements to their origin. 4. Validated deliverables, which have already been through Perform Quality Control

Question 44

What are the OUTPUTS of the process - Verify Scope

Answer 44

1. Accepted Deliverables, which are formally accepted (signed off) and approved by the customer or sponsor. 2. Change requests, which are for those deliverables that have not been accepted, along with the reason for rejection. These request are process through Perform Integrated Change Control. 3. Project document updates, possibly to the requirements documentation or traceability matrix to track completion.

Question 45

What are the TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES of the process - Verify Scope

Answer 45

1. Inspection

Question 46

Describe the Tools and Technique - Inspection

Answer 46

Inspection includes activities such as measuring, examining, and verifying to determine whether work and deliverables meet requirements and product acceptance criteria. It is often called reviews, product reviews, audits, and walk-throughs.

Question 47

Describe the process - Control Scope

Answer 47

Control Scope is concerned with influencing the factors that create project scope changes and controlling the impact of those changes. - Assures that all requested changes and recommended corrective/preventive actions are processed through the Perform Integrated Change Control Process. - Also used to manage the actual changes when the occur and is integrated with the other control processes.

Question 48

What are the INPUTS of the process - Control Scope?

Answer 48

1. Project management plan, which contains the scope baseline, the scope management plan, the change management plan, the configuration management plan, and the requirements management plan. This is the what and how of scope management. 2. Work performance information, so that we know the status of deliverables 3. Requirements documentation 4. Requirements traceability matrix 5. Organizational process assets, including existing formal and informal scope control related policies, procedures, and guidelines, along with monitoring and reporting methods to be used.

Question 49

What are the OUTPUTS of the process - Control Scope?

Answer 49

1. Work performance measurements, for communication to stakeholders. 2. Organizational process assets updates, including causes of the variance, corrective action to be taken, and any lessons learned. 3. Change Requests, which go to the Perform Integrated change Control process for approval 4. Project management plan updates to the baselines 5. Project document updates related to requirements.

Question 50

What are the TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES of the process - Control Scope?

Answer 50

1. Variance analysis, in which project performance measurements are used to assess the magnitude of variation from the scope baseline. This will determine whether corrective action is required.