The Path to Product Excellence: Avoiding Common Pitfalls and Enhancing Commun...
Taking the Creep Out of Scope Creep
1. Achieving business excellence
Webinar:
Taking the Creep out of Scope Creep:
Managing Project Scope
April 3, 2012
11:00 AM – 12:30 PM
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ITMPI005
2. Achieving business excellence
Janet Russac, CFPS, CSMS
Principal
Software Measurement Expertise, Inc. (SME)
jrussac@SoftwareMeasurementExpertise.com
Michael Milutis
Director of Marketing
Computer Aid, Inc. (CAI)
Michael_milutis@compaid.com
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3. Achieving business excellence
About
Software Measurement Exper tise, Inc.
(SME)
• Janet Russac, CFPS, CSMS – Principal/Owner
• Over 30 years experience as a programmer, analyst and
measurement specialist in software application
development and maintenance
• Leads a team of experienced consultants who offer
expertise in:
• Function Point Counting
• Software Measurement
• Estimation
• Auditing
• Training
• Mentoring
• Benchmarking 3
5. PDU CREDITS
FOR THIS WEBINAR
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has accredited this webinar with PDUs
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7. Achieving business excellence
Topics
• What is project scope, scope management
and scope creep?
• What causes scope creep?
• Is all scope creep bad?
• How can scope creep be avoided?
• How can scope creep be managed?
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9. Achieving business excellence
• Project Scope
• As defined by the Project Management Institute
Project Management Body of Knowledge
(PMBOK):
• The features and functions that are to be
included in a product or service.
• The work that must be done to deliver a product
with the specified features and functions.
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10. Achieving business excellence
• Project Scope Management
• As defined by the Project Management Institute
Project Management Body of Knowledge
(PMBOK):
• The processes required to ensure that the
project includes all the work required, and only
the work required, to complete the project
successfully.
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11. Achieving business excellence
• Scope Creep
• Also known as “scope change” or “scope
gallop”
• Definition according to the International Function
Point Users Group (IFPUG):
• Additional functionality that was not specified in
the original requirements, but is identified as the
scope is being clarified and the functions
defined.
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14. Achieving business excellence
• Poorly defined project scope in the Project
Statement
• Not clearly identifying what is in scope and
what is out of scope
• Poor requirements analysis
• Not spending enough time gathering
business requirements
• Assuming you know what is needed
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15. Achieving business excellence
• Poor project requirements
• Requirements are ambiguous or open to
interpretation
• Requirements not fully documented
• Poor project control / lack of change control
• Not having a process to manage changes
• Not following the process to manage
changes
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16. Achieving business excellence
• Underestimating the Complexity of the
Project
• Failure to use similar projects from the past
to estimate the current project
• Not Involving Users Early Enough
• Thinking you know what the users want or
need
• Not involving the users in both the
requirements analysis and design phases
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17. Achieving business excellence
• Indecisive project stakeholders
• Project stakeholders indecisive about the
functionality and scope they require
• Too many project stakeholders who have
differing priorities and objectives
• Multiple project stakeholders arguing over
prioritization of functionality to be delivered
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18. Achieving business excellence
• Gold Plating
• The practice of exceeding the scope of a
project in the belief it is adding value
• Developers add new features believing they
will increase customer satisfaction
• These changes consume time and budget,
and are not guaranteed to increase
customer satisfaction
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20. Achieving business excellence
• Unavoidable scope creep
• Market trends are continually changing.
• Changes to requirements are required to keep
abreast with competition.
• Government / Regulatory requirements could
change.
• These have to be implemented.
• Products out of your control with which your
project must interface could have changes to
them.
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22. Achieving business excellence
• Write an accurate and detailed Project
Scope Statement.
• Get the statement approved by all project
stakeholders during project initiation.
• Ensure that project requirements are
accurate, documented and approved.
• All of the project stakeholders must read and
approve the requirements.
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23. Achieving business excellence
• Good initial estimating and planning
• Well-written requirements are necessary for
good estimates!
• Requirements need to be complete,
unambiguous, detailed and sizable.
• Use historical data for similar projects to
generate the estimates.
• Utilize these estimates in your project plan.
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24. Achieving business excellence
• A Change Request Process must be
defined and adhered to by all.
• Assess the impact of the change request on
time, cost and schedule.
• Review this analysis with the project
stakeholders.
• Get approval of the change request from the
project stakeholders.
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26. Achieving business excellence
• Educate the customer / stakeholder.
• Make the customer aware of the implications
of the change request in terms of its impact
on time, schedule and costs.
• Establish a good rapport with the customer
and other project stakeholders.
• A good rapport leads to open discussions
and better problem resolutions.
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27. Achieving business excellence
• Actively manage expectations.
• Set project expectations with the customer
stakeholders and get the buy in from the
customer.
• Manage the project team.
• All team members should be fully aware of
the project scope and concentrate on
delivering it and nothing more.
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28. Achieving business excellence
• Have a formal change request process.
• The change request should be documented.
• The business benefit of any change request
should be assessed.
• Cost and time estimates as well as schedule
adjustments need to be done for each
change request so the customer is clear
about its impact.
• Approval from the customer is required
before including the change as addition to
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the scope.
30. Achieving business excellence
• Turn a potential negative into a positive!
• Project team and project stakeholders work as
a team to effectively manage the changes by
not affecting the project timelines and budget.
• Effectively managing scope creep means:
☺Successful delivery
☺Quality product
☺Improved customer satisfaction
☺Happy project team
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33. Achieving business excellence
Janet Russac, CFPS, CSMS
Principal
Software Measurement Expertise, Inc. (SME)
jrussac@SoftwareMeasurementExpertise.com
Michael Milutis
Director of Marketing
Computer Aid, Inc. (CAI)
Michael_milutis@compaid.com
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