Project Scope Statement: How to Write One With Example

What is a Project Scope Statement?

As defined in the PMBOK Guide, "The process of describing project scope, boundaries, and deliverables as a form of documentation is called a Project Scope Statement." This documentation provides details of the project and its product scope-related tasks like, Project limitations, Project milestone, description about the designed project tasks and more. Not only does a project scope statement allow project managers to keep track of the project, but it also helps project stakeholders to stay updated about the deliverables and the changes made for the project.

A scope statement is used on multiple occasions for multiple clarifications. Your project scope statement acts as a key for understanding the elements of the project and the objectives for delivering the product. Project stakeholders use this as a tool of reference to measure the progress of the project’s succession.

Importance of Project Scope Statement

A significant insight encountered during the creation of the project scope statement are:

- Understanding in detail about the project and its connections with the company’s objectives.
- Completing the project deliveries within required time constraints and with efficiency.
- Ensuring that the resources are available for the required project.
- Seamless collaboration throughout the project.
- Managing the expectations of stakeholders and providing innovative constraints for the team members.
- Documenting assumptions and dependencies can help anticipate potential issues.

How to write your Project Scope Statement

Now that we know how important this project management document can be, let’s discuss how to design and write a project scope statement for your project from scratch. The following are a few steps project managers must consider when agreeing on the complete designing a project scope statement.

1. Derive Project Goals and Objectives

This might sound repetitive, but yes, that is how important it is to first derive the project objectives and goals before starting a project because these are what define a project. A Project Scope statement must be documented by first explaining these goals and objectives.

2. Concluding Project Requirements

Project managers and stakeholders must come to an agreement about deciding the project scope and project requirements. With them listing out all the requirements, the decision-making is left alone for the board members. These include quality, applications, and resources like tools and cost.

3. Describing the Project Scope

Now, here is where it all truly starts. This is a very important step that describes all the project tasks and activities that complete the project. Simply by following a few steps, the project manager can plan and describe the project scope, and following are a few of them:

– Visualizing project tasks, activities, deliverables, and resources is made easy by using the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS).
– Knowing what falls within the project scope and what falls outside is important. Listing all possible things can give a brief idea of what to consider in the project and what to exclude.
– Identify project constraints or limitations, like project cost and resources like time.
– Now, compare the project's overall progress when agreeing with the planned project scope and create a scope outline.

It should be noted that minimal things like project exclusions and project constraints should not be ignored since they play a major part in establishing boundaries.

4. Identifying Exclusions

As imperative as it is, setting boundaries for your project does not only include identifying what things to include; it is also equally important to list what not to include. Activities like including international application updates for later projects and rescheduled client or customer support can also be considered exclusions.

5. Deciding constraints

After understanding what to include and what to exclude, the project would now become an easy puzzle to solve. Now, it is time to manage the project constraints in order to make this happen as planned. Time, money, and project scope are interconnected and are called the triple constraints of project management.

Apart from these three, there are other project constraints like project method, project risk, project resources, and more. By listing all the constraints you can foresee in the project, you will have solutions ready in advance for any future instances and incidents.

6. Project Assumptions and Deliverables

In the majority, Project Assumptions would redirect to the same constraints like time and money. And it is very important to list out all the assumptions and constraints since it delivers insights by identifying the biggest risk factors and also reporting about the primary resources to the key stakeholders.

You might already know that deliverables are also as important as deriving the project constraints. Including a few key components like marketing guides, advertising operations, product installation guides, and more, you must list all deliverables that address your team members must produce.

Project scope statement sample

Understanding these concepts theoretically is as easy as reading Sprintzeal’s blogs, but the knowledge and experience for their practical applications only come from practicing. The following is a project scope example given as a visual template that can help you visualize and understand better "How to Write a Project Scope Statement."

This sample template was created in Microsoft Word. Utilizing a few software tools can also benefit a project management team in many ways. Project management tools like Kissflow, Trello, Projectmanager, and JIRA provide a very versatile interface and platform for all your project management tasks and activities. With this said, it not only saves time but also helps provide flexibility in editing, formation, tracking, and optimization when compared to doing it traditionally.

Benefits of Defining the Project Scope Statement Early

A Project Scope Statement is very crucial for Project Management, outlining the project's objectives, deliverables, and boundaries. These are some of the key  benefits:

- Provides complete information on the project's objectives, ensuring that everyone understands what has to be accomplished.
- Establishes the project's scope, reducing scope creep by specifying what is and is not included in the project.
- Ensures effective stakeholder communication by referring to the scope statement to address and explain project specifics.
- The scope statement aids in resource allocation by defining deliverables and objectives, ensuring that the proper amount of time, budget, and labor is provided.
- Aligns stakeholder expectations with project reality, preventing misunderstandings about what can be accomplished.

Conclusion

The process of defining the project scope, boundaries, and deliverables as a type of documentation is known as a project scope statement or project scope documentation. It serves as a guide for understanding the project's components and the goals for completing the product. This is used as a benchmark by project stakeholders to measure the success of the project's continuation.

This documentation helps offer details about the project and its product scope-related duties, such as project constraints and milestones, in addition to allowing project managers to keep track of the project. Managers may quickly create a scope statement with the aid of a project scope example.

You might as well consider reading the following blogs to under better about project management and project manager skills.

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FAQ’s

1)What are the components of Project Scope Statement?

- Derive Project Goals and Objectives
- Concluding Project Requirements
- Describing the Project Scope
- Identifying Exclusions
- Deciding constraints
- Project Assumptions and Deliverables

2)What is the Project Scope and example?
The scope of a project is the entire sum of all the work tasks and activities that must be executed within the project. A project scope document involves gathering all the data regarding the stakeholder’s requirements and demands that are required to get the project started.

3)What is the purpose of the Project Scope Statement?
A scope statement is used on multiple occasions for multiple clarifications. Your project scope statement acts as a key for understanding the elements of the project and the objectives for delivering the product. Project stakeholders use this as a tool of reference to measure the progress of the project’s succession.

4)What are the benefits of Project Scope Statement?

- Establishes the project's scope, reducing scope creep by specifying what is and is not included in the project.
- Ensures effective stakeholder communication by referring to the scope statement to address and explain project specifics.
- The scope statement aids in resource allocation by defining deliverables and objectives, ensuring that the proper amount of time, budget, and labor is provided.