Planning the Scope
The first step in planning the scope of a project is to identify the requirements.
Let’s take an office building. The customer [user] wants to hold its
important meetings in the building (obviously). So, we need to have a
conference room. What are the requirements for the room? For example,
what’s the required capacity?
Then, we have to identify the building elements of the product. My preferred way is to use a mind-map.
It starts with the final product, and then shows the main elements of
the product in the next level. Those elements are broken down into
smaller ones, and so on.
This is a great way to identify the
scope, because that breakdown helps you find the gaps. You don’t have to
use a mind-map (though I highly recommend it), but whatever you do use
should be a hierarchical list. That hierarchical list of the building
elements (deliverables) is called a WBS.
WBS stands for Work Breakdown Structure,
and it is a terrible name for this concept! It’s misleading because of
the word “work”. Most people think it’s a grouping for project
activities, but that’s not right. If you see it like that, and probably
deal with a WBS only in the scheduling software, please stop. Just try
it once. Identify the building elements of a product with a mind-mapping
software in a facilitated workshop. You’ll be amazed by the number of
problems you prevent.
So, to understand the product, we need to define its scope and quality. How should we plan quality?
