PMP Certification: Project Scope Management Terms (based on PMBOK® Guide, 6th Edition)


Project Scope Management Terms

by Project Management Process Group

1. Plan Scope Management


  • Product Scope. The requirements and functionalities of a product, service, or result.
  • Project Charter. A document that creates the project; it provides political and financial support for the project and authorizes project work to formally begin.
  • Project Scope. All the work performed to create the products, services, or results of the project and the processes used to develop them.
  • Requirements Management Plan. A component of the project management plan that specifies how project requirements will be collected, documented, and updated.
  • Scope Management Plan. A component of the project or program management plan that describes how changes to the project scope statement will be planned, executed, and controlled.
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Project Scope Management Terms

by Project Management Process Group

1. Plan Scope Management


  • Product Scope. The requirements and functionalities of a product, service, or result.
  • Project Charter. A document that creates the project; it provides political and financial support for the project and authorizes project work to formally begin.
  • Project Scope. All the work performed to create the products, services, or results of the project and the processes used to develop them.
  • Requirements Management Plan. A component of the project management plan that specifies how project requirements will be collected, documented, and updated.
  • Scope Management Plan. A component of the project or program management plan that describes how changes to the project scope statement will be planned, executed, and controlled.

2. Collect Requirements


  • Context Diagrams.  A method of diagramming the product scope by representing how people, processes, or systems interact with the product.
  • Facilitated Workshops. A  workshop directed by an independent party that brings together stakeholders to solicit information on a particular issue – i.e., joint application development (JAD) for improving software development process and quality function deployment (QFD) for determining critical characteristics of new product development.
  • pmp exam 2018 all-in-one free online prep tipsographicMulti-Criteria Decision Analysis. A decision matrix used to score and rank ideas in decision making based on conflicting criteria such as expected risk levels, time estimate, and cost and benefit estimates.
  • Prototypes. A technique of producing a working replica of the finished product, service, or result to help define user requirements.

3. Define Scope


  • Organizational Process Assets. Lessons learned from previous projects and formal and informal policies, procedures, plans and guidelines of any and all of the organizations involved in the project whose effects must be considered.
  • Project Scope Statement. Providing a basis to determine if changes in project scope lie within or outside project’s boundaries, it contains the following elements:
    • project’s deliverables and work required to create them
    • common understanding of scope among stakeholders
    • explicit scope exclusions.

4. Create WBS


  • Decomposition. A technique used for breaking down project deliverables into smaller pieces.
  • Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). A deliverable-oriented grouping of the project elements that organizes and defines the total scope of the project: work not in WBS is not in scope.
  • Work Breakdown Structure Templates. A work breakdown structure from a previous project with similar deliverables and project life cycle.

5. Validate Scope


  • Accepted Deliverables. A project deliverable formally accepted by the stakeholders, who – after validation and quality control – have acknowledged that the deliverable meets its requirements and specifications.

6. Control Scope


  • Corrective Action. An intentional change made to bring expected future performance of the project in line with the plan.
  • Performance Reports. Documents that provide organized and summarized work performance information, earned value management parameters and calculations, and analyses of project work progress status.
  • Scope Change. Any modification to the agreed-upon project scope, as defined by the approved WBS. Often a scope change requires adjustments to cost, time, quality, or other project objectives.
  • Scope Change Control System. Procedures by which project scope may be changed – i.e., paperwork, tracking systems, and approval levels necessary for authorization.

Click here for a detailed analysis of each project management process group and knowledge area.

SOURCES: Project Management Institute (2017). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide). 6th ed. Newtown Square: Project Management Institute.

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