Improving Your Project Management Skills, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 3Collecting Requirements and Defining Scope

COLLECTING REQUIREMENTS AND DEFINING your project’s scope are critical to planning a successful project. The PMBOK^® Guide offers two related definitions for scope. Project scope includes “the work that needs to be accomplished to deliver a product, service, or result with the specified features and functions.” Because projects often create products, you may also have to define the scope of a product. Product scope includes “the features and functions that characterize a product, service, or result.”*

Clearly defining a project’s scope is not merely good theory and common sense. Project schedules and budgets overrun when the scope is unclear and when the scope is not aligned with enterprise goals, ...