What is Project Planning and Scope?

Project management is the concept of guiding team members to perform all the needed tasks and activities to meet a common goal. The Project team needs to work within a specific set of parameters to keep from straying from the initial objectives.

Planning a project and communicating the plan and scope effectively will help keep the team focused on their initial tasks to make sure their contributions are within the boundaries of the plan. Before executing a project, the scope or parameters the team will work in needs to defined and communicated in the beginning and throughout the project.

Within the guidelines of the project, the executive team needs to ensure the following:

1. The mission of the project is clear and concise
2. The team understands the objective of the effort throughout the project
3. The overall timelines and schedules are established as part of the goals.

A seasoned project manager will help keep the team focused in meeting their tasks and activities, but the scope must not expand too far in order for the project teams to stay on task. Expanding the scope of the project increases the need for more resources with different skills and could derail the entire effort.

Here are some sample project objectives that could define a project scope:

1. Deliver a software enhancement that addresses AB and C in our market
2. Develop a new program to support the business strategy of XY and Z
3. Create a new XYZ that performs in extreme temperatures with less than a 5% failure rate

In summary, project plans and the parameters they work under should be established in the beginning and managed to those goals. Once the project begins to shift away from the initial objectives, timelines will increase and costs will soar. This in turn will set the project to run over budget and be considered a failure as it did not meet the original objectives.

A Project Plan/ Scope can keep the work effort on budget and much more manageable.

Find more info at http://gravitygarden.com/project101...