Create your Project Scope Statement
The first step in creating a project plan is to write your project scope. Your project scope will become the foundation that will help you to later create your project’s schedule. Developed by the whole project team, it will ensure that everyone in your team has the same understanding of your project objectives. We know that project team members often have different views of what the project scope is and so can end up doing unnecessary work and not meeting their client’s expectations. Taking time to create a Project Scope Statement for your project will help get everyone on the same page for your project. The following format can be used to describe your project scope. Your team should discuss it in a team meeting. You might be able to complete it in one meeting, or you may be uncertain about some sections and need to gather more information from your client (or others) in order to complete it.
The Project Scope Statement Example
Here is an example of a completed Project Scope Statement for the installation of a fast-food restaurant automated ordering system.
Project Objectives: What are the results that the project should deliver? What is considered in scope, what is considered out of scope?
To implement an automated ordering system that will reduce staff costs and increase the speed of accepting customer orders. The project will be implemented within 3 weeks of the project start and will not increase customer complaints received in the restaurant.
Constraints and Boundaries: What are the important limitations that will influence how you conduct the project?
Although this project will increase restaurant food preparation and serving capacity it is not intended to increase restaurant seating capacity. This may be the subject of a subsequent project.
The restaurant will remain open throughout the project period. It will not close to accommodate project activity and the project plan should take this into account.
Assumptions: What are you assuming about the project that will influence how you conduct it?
It is assumed that the automated ordering system has been designed well and that most customers will find it easy to use.
Cost Summary: How much will the project cost to complete and what are the main elements of the cost?
This project should not exceed $120,000, including system and equipment costs. Financial decision making power for the project is held by the Regional Manager. The Restaurant Manager can approve expenditure up to $750.
Project Milestones: What are the main sections of work that will be done on the project?
It is expected that the main milestones for this project will be:
- Complete Planning,
- Installed System,
- Employees and Customers Prepared,
- Initial Operations Support Completed, and
- Handover to Restaurant Manager Completed.
Approval: Who do you need to approve the project plan and the project results?
The project scope and the deliverables should be approved and accepted by the Regional Manager and the Restaurant Manager.
The Project Scope Statement
Complete the Project Scope Statement by downloading the worksheet or completing the interaction and exporting your work.
Identify Project Stakeholders
Project stakeholders can have an immense impact on a project. Project teams often fail to understand this. In their focus on delivering the project results they concentrate on directing and managing the project resources, the project team, contractors and others.
Stakeholders in a project include everyone who may have an interest in or be affected by the project execution or outcomes. For example, the stakeholders in the Fast Food Restaurant Automated Ordering System would include:
- Customers: Who would be concerned about how easy the system would be to use?
- Everyone working in the restaurant: Concerned about the impact on their jobs
- The restaurant management: How would they manage the new system, its impact on performance?
- Regional management: Would the new system positively impact performance?
- The neighbours of the restaurant: May be impacted by increased restaurant customers.
- Restaurant suppliers: Would the restaurant’s order and delivery requirements change?
- Corporate Human Resources: The impact on employee relations, the need to upgrade job descriptions and pay.
- Providers of the new technology: Customer requirements and simplicity of implementation. How easy will it be to support?
- Other businesses in the local area: Will their business be impacted?
- A nearby school: Safety of the children with increased traffic.
- A local leisure centre: Impact on health of patrons.
All of these stakeholders would have the ability, to a greater or lesser extent, to affect the outcomes of the project. Human Resources may add requirements that will constrain the management of the project team or the new working practices of the restaurant employees. Local neighbours might complain to their elected councillors about increased noise and car exhaust fumes and lead to local officials limiting the opening hours of the restaurant. Restaurant suppliers may have good ideas that will help reduce the resources needed to implement the project.
Your project team should spend time identifying who your stakeholders will be for your project. In small projects this may be fairly straightforward – they may be able to easily talk with everyone impacted. However, in larger projects there may be multiple stakeholders with a variety of interests in the project and a range of power that can impact the outcome of the project. Once your team has identified the stakeholders for your project, it may be wise to consult with the project client to ensure that your list of stakeholders is comprehensive and complete. Most project teams do not include enough stakeholders.
Once your stakeholders have been identified, the following model can be used to classify each stakeholder according to their level of power and their level of interest so that your team can consider the communication strategies and/or tactics that would be appropriate for each. The stakeholders with the most power and the most interest in your project will need to be managed more closely than those with less interest and less power. Stakeholder engagement is a critical project management activity that is usually neglected. Using this simple model to help your team develop an effective stakeholder engagement plan will increase the probability that your project will be a success!
© Course Author(s) and University of Waterloo
Graph with four quadrants. On the X axis is Power, and the Y axis is Interest. The top left 'Keep Satisfied' quadrant (high power, low interest) contains neighbours and corporate HR. The top right 'Manage closely' quadrant (high power, high interest) is customers, restaurant workers, restaurant manager, and regional manager. In the bottom left 'Monitor' quadrant (low power, low interest) is local leisure centre. In the bottom right 'Keep Informed' quadrant (low power, high interest) is school, suppliers, technology providers, and other businesses.
Set Your Project Milestones
The Project Scope Statement gives a description of what the project is intended to do. Organising the work to achieve it will require your team to break it down first into Milestones and then into tasks that can be completed by members of your project team or others who may be assigned or contracted. Once your team has identified the tasks, you then can determine the order that they should be completed in and create a schedule.
Milestones in this project will represent the major steps that are involved in completing the project. Most projects can be divided into sections of work that, when combined, complete the project. It is important to understand that Milestones should describe the point at which these sections of work are completed. Being clear about where work activity begins and ends allows you to identify the tasks that are needed.
For example, the Milestones that are described in the Project Scope Statement for the Fast-Food Restaurant Automated Ordering System include Installed System. This Milestone is complete when the system is in place and able to function as intended. Milestones are often represented in a flow diagram:
- 1. Complete Planning
- 2. Installed System
- 3. Employees and Customers Prepared
- 4. Initial Operation Support Completed
- 5. Handover to Restaurant Manager Completed
Create a Work Breakdown Structure
Next, your team will want to create a Work Breakdown Structure (or WBS) as it will describe the tasks that will be required to achieve each of the project milestones. The tasks should be units of work that we will be allocated to individuals or groups of people for completion. For example, the tasks that are associated with the completion of the Installed System milestone might be:
2. Installed System
- Plan equipment layout
- Order system from vendor
- Make counter alterations
- Locate equipment in restaurant
- Set up system
- Test system functionality
- Agree on support contract with vendor
Tasks for the other milestones are determined and then the resources that are needed for each task and the time that will be needed can be identified. Times for tasks should be based on your best understanding of the likely time that will be needed to complete them. You can base this on knowledge from previous projects, by taking advice from experts, by using industry standard times, by estimating based on similar activities, etc. Your team may find it helpful to consult with your client before moving onto the step of creating your project’s schedule.
Create a Project Schedule
The Project Schedule tells everyone when the tasks will be performed. To create it you need to know all the tasks that are needed to complete the project and the relationships between them. Some will need to be completed before others can begin and some will only be able to start once others have started. Your team will need to understand these relationships before the schedule can be prepared. They are known as task dependencies.
Your team should also consider the resources that will be needed to complete each task. The information that you now have can be entered into a table that can be consulted as you create your schedule. The following example is for the Installed System milestone. A full schedule would include information from all milestones.
| Task | Predecessor | Duration | Resources |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Plan equipment layout | 5 days | Judith, Restaurant Manager | |
| 2. Order system from vendor | 1 | 1 Day | Ammar |
| 3. Make counter alterations | 1 | 4 Days | Lingling, Construction contractor |
| 4. Locate equipment in restaurant | 1, 2, 3 | 1 Day | Bill, Vendor |
| 5. Set up system | 4 | 2 Days | Tom, Vendor |
| 6. Test system functionality | 5 | 2 Days | Tom |
| 7. Agree on support contract with vendor | 1, 2 | 1 Day | Ammar |
There are various methods for creating a schedule. A commonly used project management tool for schedules is called a Gantt Chart. There are others that are more complex and use more advanced techniques. Software, like Microsoft Project, and other cloud-based tools can be used to schedule a complex project. They require you to know the relationship between the tasks and will provide you with a suggested schedule after you provide these to the system.
The schedule is used to guide the work of the project team and others involved in the project and can be used by the project manager to keep the project on track. In your team, develop a Schedule for your project, using a Gantt chart. Use the schedule to manage your project and review your progress with it in your project team meetings.
This is an extract from the Gantt chart that has been created using the data above:
© Course Author(s) and University of Waterloo