Notes Column: Soft Exam – Advanced – Information Systems Project Management – Review notes

Project scope Management

In popular terms, scope management refers to the need to confirm the requirements and the scope and boundaries of the project before the implementation of the project, so as to avoid the risk of various delays and deliverables.

To put it simply, it is to solve the problem of “what does the project do?

So the core of this chapter is how to do requirements and analysis, create WBS, and build scope benchmarks

However, how to identify requirements and track the whole process of the project life cycle requires a management plan at the beginning, and then continuously talking with users (stakeholders) about requirements, confirming requirements, analyzing requirements, and then starting to disassemble and analyze user stories to create WBS, or scope benchmarks. Finally, it is necessary to compare and confirm the scope benchmark with the deliverables before submitting for acceptance.

1. Planning scope management

[In] : Project management plan, project charter, enterprise environmental factors, organizational process assets

[Out] : Scope management plan, requirements management plan

[Tech] : Expert judgment, conference

1. Process description

Almost every management area begins with a management plan for that area.

Scope management is to manage the scope and requirements of the project, so the input basis is the project management plan and project charter, according to the actual demand, will produce two plans, one is the scope management plan, the other is the demand management plan.

2. The ITO

2.1 Input Input

  • Project management plan, project charter, business environmental factors, organizational process assets
  • Memorization: Preparation planning The collection, analysis, and validation of requirements phase, there are not many other process products to refer to, so only the project management plan and project charter can be used as input

2.2 the Output Output

  • Scope management plan content:
  1. How to prepare and revise the project scope statement
  2. How do I create a WBS from the project scope statement
  3. How are WBS maintained and approved
  4. How are completed deliverables validated and formally accepted
  5. How to handle project scope specification changes

All involved! It’s about how to manage the whole range!! In the follow-up process are involved!!

So content memory can be inferred from the whole scope management process

  • Contents of demand management plan:
  1. Define requirements (throughout the process, the most basic task)
  2. Establish requirements baselines (so that the project management team and users can reach a consensus)
  3. Establish requirements tracking capability links (to ensure that requirements are properly used during implementation)
  4. Control area of influence
  5. Always maintain consistency between product and requirement

Closely related to the next “requirements gathering” process, the emphasis is on reaching consensus with users and tracking requirements

2.3 Technology:

  • Expert judgment, meeting

How can you make a plan without experts and meetings

2. Collect requirements

[In] : Scope management plan, Requirements Management Plan, Stakeholder management Plan, Stakeholder Register, project Charter

[Out] : Requirements file, requirements tracking matrix

[Tech] : Interviews, focus groups, guided seminars, group innovation technology, group decision making technology, questionnaire, observation, prototype method, benchmarking, system interaction graph, document analysis

1. Process description

From the previous process, the “requirements Management plan” was generated, and now you need to start gathering requirements

Since the demand is closely related to the stakeholders (namely, our customers, Party A and users), it must be understood and confirmed with the stakeholders through a large number of meetings or research methods. Therefore, in addition to the scope management plan and requirements management plan, there are also stakeholder management plans and stakeholder registers in the input part.

According to the requirements management plan content, after collecting the requirements, the output should be the requirements document that describes the requirements clearly, and the requirements tracking matrix that tracks the requirements during the implementation process

All kinds of Tech in this process are also very important. It is necessary to know the contents and general differences between group innovation technology and group decision technology.

2. The ITO

2.1 Input Input

  • Scope Management Plan: The plan from the previous process
  • Requirements Management Plan: The plan from the previous process
  • Stakeholder management plan and Stakeholder register: Since gathering requirements necessarily requires in-depth discussions with stakeholders, it is necessary to include stakeholder content here
  • The articles of association of the project

2.2 the Output Output

  • Requirements document: Describes how the various single requirements will meet the project-related business requirements. The main content includes business requirements, stakeholder requirements, solution requirements, transition requirements, project requirements, requirements related assumptions, dependencies, constraints, and so on.
  • The requirements tracking matrix (to know what the diagram looks like) traces the dependencies and logical connections between individual requirements and other elements.

Supplementary: Classification of requirements

  1. Business needs: high-level needs across the organization (implementation reasons)
  2. Stakeholder needs: Stakeholder group needs
  3. Solution requirements: Required features, functions, and features
  4. Transitional needs: Temporary capabilities needed to move from the “present” to the “future”

2.3 technology Tech

  • Interviews: Direct conversations with stakeholders, preset and off-the-cuff questions (1:1,1:n)
  • Focus group: Moderator, selected stakeholders, interactive discussion (1:n)
  • Guided seminar: focus discussion among key stakeholders to reach consensus
  • Group innovation technology:
    1. Brainstorming: Collect ideas, pursue the number of ideas, not necessarily reach a certain conclusion, divergent discussion
    1. Nominal group: Brainstorming + voting ranking
    1. Mindmap: To find commonness and difference between ideas, new ideas can be stimulated
    1. Affinity diagram: Creative + grouping helps build WBS
    1. Multi-criteria decision analysis: multi-criteria + weight + evaluation + ranking
    1. Derfel Technology: Expert + anonymous + multiple rounds + elimination of bias (process is complicated)
  • Group decision making techniques:
    1. Agreed to
    1. Majority principle
    1. Principle of relative majority
    1. dictatorship
    1. The questionnaire survey
    1. To observe the
    1. prototyping
    1. Benchmarking against

3. Define scope

[In] : Scope management plan, project charter, requirements document, organizational process assets

[Out] : Scope specification, project file update

[Tech] : Expert judgment, Product analysis, Alternative solution generation, guided seminar

1. Process description

Defining scope can be understood as identifying scope boundaries to avoid project creep and scope creep later on. That is, to produce the scope specification as a prerequisite for breaking up the WBS.

In simple terms, this process is to explicitly collect requirements that fall within the scope of the project

2. The ITO

2.1 Input Input

  • Take previous outputs as input to this process: scope management plan, project charter, requirements document

2.2 the Output Output

  • Scope specification
    1. Product Scope Description
    1. Acceptance criteria
    1. Deliverables
    1. Exclusions for projects
    1. Restricting factors
    1. assumptions

The core of the scope specification is the scope description of the product, which records the scope content in detail

2.3 technology Tech

  • Product analysis: effective for projects that use products as deliverables
  • Alternative plan generation: Specify as many potential alternatives as possible (these alternatives will be analyzed during schedule Management – Estimating activity resources)
  • Guided seminar: many experts and stakeholders gather to discuss and reach consensus
  • Expert judgment

4. Create the WBS

[In] : Scope management plan, scope statement, requirements document, enterprise environmental factors, organizational process assets

[Out] : Scope benchmark, project file update

[Tech] : Decomposition, expert judgment

1. Process description

WBS can be understood as a requirements/task breakdown structure, which facilitates the later arrangement of tasks in the project and is layered.

This process is based on the previous requirement documents and scope specifications, and in order to facilitate the implementation of subsequent projects, layers of decomposition is carried out to construct WBS. Scope benchmarks (one of the three benchmarks in the project management plan)

In that case, the technology used must be “decomposition technology.”

2. The ITO

2.1 Input Input

  • Scope management plan, scope statement, requirements document: The preparation and collection of requirements and scope products from the first several processes are the foundation for creating WBS

2.2 the Output Output

  • Scope criteria: Can be simply understood as WBS, here you need to understand WBS, WBS dictionary, control accounts, planning packages and other details, which are explained in detail below

2.3 technology Tech

  • Decomposition: How to create a WBS by decomposition. The specific decomposition principles and methods are explained below

3. Concepts related to this process

3.1 the WBS

  1. Full participation, top-down decomposition step by step

  2. Form of expression:

  • Tree: Clear hierarchy, suitable for small projects
  • Table type: reflect all elements, suitable for large projects
  1. The work package:
  • Located at the bottom of WBS
  • Very specific and easy to assign completely to different people/organizational units
  1. Control account:
  • A node for management control that contains multiple work packages
  • It can be a work package or one level above it
  1. Planning package:
  • A special work package under a control account whose work is known but whose detailed progress is missing
  1. The WBS dictionary:
  • A detailed description of each element in WBS

3.2 the WBS decomposition

  1. Decomposition principle:
  • Functional or technical principles (split according to different people or situations)
  • The structure of the organization
  • System/subsystem
  1. Decomposition method:
  • Layer 2: life cycle stages; Tier 3: Products and deliverables
  • Level 2: Major deliverables
  • Integration outsourcing: The seller also needs to write the WBS for the outsourcing part

3.3 Process of creating WBS

  1. Identification work: Identify and analyze deliverables and related work
  2. Determine choreography: Determine the WBS structure and choreography method
  3. Step by step decomposition: Top-down decomposition step by step
  4. Identity coding: Identifies and assigns identity codes to WBS components
  5. Verify results: Verify that the deliverables are properly decomposed

3.4 Precautions for Creating a WBS

  1. Decompose towards deliverables
  2. Conform to project scope
  3. Support planning and control
  4. Elements are the responsibility of a single person
  5. Generally decomposed into 4~6 layers
  6. Including project management, subcontracting content
  7. Compilation requires full participation
  8. Not always the same (may still need to be modified after compilation)

5. Identify scope

[In] : Scope management plan, requirements document, requirements tracking matrix, verified deliverables, job performance data

[Out] : Acceptance deliverables, change requests, work performance information, project document updates

[Tech] : Inspection, group decision making technology

1. Process description

The key to scoping is to validate and verify the deliverables against the scope benchmarks (requirements) to obtain “accepted deliverables.”

This needs to be distinguished from the “scoping” process, which can be understood as a pre – and post-process

There is also a distinction to be made between “product verification” and “scope of verification”, which are not the same: one for product, one for deliverables

You also need to compare “validation scope” with “project closure.

2. The ITO

2.1 Input Input

  • Project scope management plan
  • Requirements document: Output from the “requirements gathering” process
  • Requirements tracking matrix: Derived from the “requirements gathering” process, used to track the execution of requirements during the execution process
  • Verified deliverables: used for comparative analysis of the process and requirements to determine whether the acceptance criteria are met
  • Job performance data

2.2 the Output Output

  • Acceptance deliverables: The verified deliverables are confirmed to be accepted by comparison audit
  • Change request: During the comparison inspection process, a new change request may be made and the change control process must be returned
  • Job performance information: it can be understood as the output of job performance data
  • Project file update

2.3 technology Tech

  • check
  • Group decision making techniques (you can learn about this technique in “Gathering requirements” above)

3. Concepts related to this process

3.1 Verify the product and scope of confirmation

  1. Verification of product: The completion of the product is verified by the customer/sponsor at the end of the project, emphasizing the integrity of the product
  2. Scope of validation: For deliverables, is at the end of the phase, acceptance by the customer/sponsor, with emphasis on deliverables

3.2 Confirm scope and project closure

  1. Identify scope: Highlight deliverables and that the process is a monitoring process throughout the project
  2. Project closure: the product itself is emphasized during acceptance and exists at the end of the project

3.3 Procedure for confirming scope

  1. Confirm the time for scope confirmation
  2. Confirmation input (identification input)
  3. Identify acceptance criteria and elements
  4. Confirm meeting organization steps
  5. Organize confirmation meetings

6. Scope of control

[In] : Project management plan, requirements document, requirements tracking matrix, job performance data, organizational process assets

[Out] : Work performance information, change request, project management plan update, project document update, organizational process assets update

[Tech] : Deviation analysis

1. Process description

The scope control process is to monitor the scope status of projects and products and manage changes to scope benchmarks

In the process of controlling XX, there are often results of performance data being turned into performance report, new change request, management plan/document/organization process asset updating

2. Concepts related to this process

2.1 Reasons for the project scope change

  1. Changes in the external environment (scope spread)

2.2 Scope change control work (important)

  1. Influence the factors that cause the scope to change, and make them more favorable than possible
  2. Determine whether the scope change has occurred
  3. When scope changes are made, manage the actual changes and ensure that they are handled in accordance with the change control process