Scope is EVERYTHING!

Scope Management.

It is important to understand that when we talk about the scope of a project it means EVERYTHING that is part of the project! There is nothing that can be produced by a project that is not part of the project’s scope. There could be activities that are deemed “out-of-scope” but if something is “out-of-scope” then it is not part of the project.

So… if I were to ask you if there is anything that can be produced as part of a project but is not part of the project's scope, the answer would be NO!

Also, the word Deliverable seems to give people some trouble. Deliverables are all those things that are produced as part of a project's scope.

Let’s go through an example:

Say you are the PM on a Software development project.

Is the code you are developing a deliverable? Yes

Let’s say you decide that to make things more efficient you are going to rent an office space and setup workstations. Is the plan for deploying those workstations a deliverable? Yes!  

You have a meeting with the team. Are the agenda and the meeting minutes deliverables? YES!

These things are all deliverables because they are part of the scope of the project.

 Let’s say the customer says they want an instruction manual and they want it translated into 5 languages. You review the contract and that is not listed. Is the instruction manual a deliverable? NO, because it is not “in-scope” for this project. If the customer wants this they would need to submit a change request and it would have to go through the approval process. Then, and only then, would it be part of the scope.