Scope Management Plan in Project Management

Scope management plan is a project artifact that is used as a part of;
A scope management plan is created during plan scope management process. It is an important document that you may come across in
project management exams that describes how to define, develop, measure, monitor, control, and verify the scope. It is also one of the 18 components of the project management plan.
The scope management plan describes how to manage the scope of the project and how to transfer scope changes to the project plan. The scope management plan should also include the possibility of changing the scope of the project.

All scope management plans should contain the following information. 

  • Procedures for ensuring and approving the process of creating a project scope statement. In the scope management plan, the format in which the scope notification will be created, by whom, what tools and techniques will be used and the necessary approval procedures should be explained.
  • Procedures for the process of creating a work breakdown structure, and the integrity of the work breakdown structure. The format and procedures of creating WBS should be defined.
  • Processes related to the creation of the scope baseline, the process of formal acceptance of project deliveries by the customer, and the evaluation or approval of change requests and documenting them in a change log.
  • By whom the content of the project scope notification will be created in accordance with what format,
  • How to create a organizational breakdown structure using the scope management plan,
  • Procedures for the formal acceptance of project deliveries by the customer
  • Procedures for evaluating or approving requests for changes should be included in detail.
  • Organizational process assets and enterprise environmental factors that may affect the scope of the project should be evaluated.

Plan Scope Management Process

Plan scope management process is a part of the planning process group and scope management knowledge area.

Plan scope management is the process where we determine how to define the scope of the project, what tools and techniques to use, how to approve the scope of the project team, and how to follow an approach to make changes to the scope of the project.

Plan scope management process is a project management process in which five other processes in the information field are considered with a holistic approach and how these processes are planned to be implemented. 

Plan scope management is simply the process of creating a scope management plan.  Scope management plan documents how the project scope will be defined, managed and controlled. Therefore, the key benefit of this process is that it provides you the guidance and direction on how the scope will be managed throughout the project. In PM exams, you don't need to remember all the inputs, outputs, tools, and techniques of the plan scope management process. Instead, we recommend you learn the fundamentals and the essence of these tools, inputs, and outputs. Therefore, it is %100 that you will be successful in PM exams for the questions about plan scope management.

Planning scope management guides a project manager on how to define a scope and how the defined scope will be managed and controlled throughout the project right.  Therefore we may claim that the most important benefit of planning scope is preventing scope creep. Scope creep basically refers to continuous uncontrolled changes in project scope. Scope creep may happen at any point after the project begins.

The main reason that scope creep occurs is when the scope of the project is not properly defined or documented or controlled right.  Therefore, we can conclude that if scope management is properly planned and controlled then it is easy to prevent scope creep.

Along with scope creep, there is another very popular definition of scope problems. It is called gold plating. Whenever a project manager intentionally adds features in the product scope which not there in the project scope statement that is what you call gold plating. Gold plating is simply giving more than the formal requirement. 

Process group: Planning Process Group

Knowledge Area: Scope Management Knowledge Area

Inputs used in plan scope management process

Tools and Techniques used in scope management process

Outputs created in plan scope management process

  • Scope management plan
  • Requirements management plan

See Also: