Effective Project Scope Management

Anyone who has ever had any experience with project management is certainly familiar with the importance of properly defining and controlling project scope.

In the real world, scope changes can be expected during the life cycles of most projects. Scope changes implemented once work has begun will have a greater effect on the project schedule and cost than changes implemented during the project initiation or planning phases. It is therefore imperative that project scope be well-defined before the work begins on a project.

The purpose of this paper is to help the reader better define project scope, with examples of some of the difficulties in managing project scope and the consequences and recommendations for dealing with those difficulties.