CAPM & PMP Exam Study Notes:
Project Scope Management
Written By: Alvin the PM | Last Updated: June 12, 2021
Topic: CAPM Exam & PMP Exam Certification Study Notes
Listed below are my CAPM Exam & PMP Exam Study Notes for Project Scope Management that I’ve used to pass my own CAPM Exam, and which I also intend to use for my 2021 PMP Exam Preparation.
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Please Note: These notes are meant to be a supplementary aid, and not as your primary study material for your CAPM Exam and/or PMP Exam. This is meant to help clarify any confusing topics and explain the most challenging concepts which are difficult to understand & remember. Please reference your own Exam Prep Book or your PMBOK Guide for further detail.
I’ve listed the Knowledge Area below, with an explanation of the following:
1) Overview of each Process Group associated with Project Scope Management
2) Reference Section & Page in PMBOK 6th Edition
3) ITTO Summary & Analysis (Input, Tool, Technique, Output)
>> Any items marked with an * asterisk are the unique ones & critical topics to master
4) Key Concepts & Helpful Exam Prep Information
Overview of Scope Management
Scope Management is split up into the following 6 Process Groups:
1) Plan Scope Management (PL)
2) Collect Requirements (PL)
3) Define Scope (PL)
4) Create WBS (PL)
5) Validate Scope (M&C)
6) Control Scope (M&C)
Purpose:
– Does our project include ONLY the work that is required to fully complete our project?
– Focus is on managing the scope of the project, and preventing gold plating & scope creep.
Master the ITTO Video Series
- Watch my MASTER THE ITTOs Video Series below to master the ITTOs for each Process within Scope Management:
>> MASTER ITTOs for Scope Management, Part 1: WATCH HERE
>> MASTER ITTOs for Scope Management, Part 2: WATCH HERE
Process #1: Plan Scope Management
1.1 Scope Management: Plan Scope Management (PL)
– Pg. 134, PMBOK 6th Edition
Purpose: Developing the Scope Management Plan that outlines our strategy for developing and validating our project scope and requirements
ITTO Analysis: Plan Scope Management
1) What do You Need? (Input)
– Project Charter, Project Management Plan, EEF/OPA
>> Project Mgmt Plan: Quality Mgmt Plan, Life Cycle Description, & Development Approach
2) What is the Result? (Output)
– *Scope Management Plan, *Requirements Management Plan
3) How Do You Accomplish It? (Tool/Technique)
-Expert Judgment, Meetings, Data Analysis
>> Data Analysis: Alternatives Analysis
Key Terms to Remember:
1. Scope Management Plan – This Plan includes the high-level strategy and process for controlling our project’s scope, creating a Scope Statement & WBS, maintaining our Scope Baseline, and obtaining approval of our Project Deliverables
2. Requirements Management Plan – Outlines how we will evaluate, record and capture our requirements
Process #2: Collect Requirements
1.2 Scope Management: Collect Requirements (PL)
– Pg. 138, PMBOK 6th Edition
Purpose: Determining stakeholder needs and project requirements
ITTO Analysis: Collect Requirements
1) What do You Need? (Input)
– Project Charter, Project Management Plan, Project Documents, Business Documents, Agreements, EEF/OPA
>> Project Management Plan: *Scope, *Requirements, & *Stakeholder Engagement Plan
>> Project Documents: Logs (Assumptions, Stakeholder Register, Lessons Learned)
2) What is the Result? (Output)
– *Requirements Documentation, *Requirements Traceability Matrix
3) How Do You Accomplish It? (Tool/Technique)
–*Context Diagram; *Prototypes; Expert Judgment, Meetings; Data Gathering, Analysis, & Representation; Decision Making, Interpersonal & Team Skills
Key Concepts:
1. Five (5) different ways to gather data / requirements:
– Brainstorming to collect everyone’s feedback
– Interviewing stakeholders to define and better understand what features need to be in the final product
– Conducting Focus Groups with stakeholders and experts to learn what everyone’s expectations are for the product and design
– Questionnaires & Surveys – Create a set of questions that you would send out to your customers to get their feedback on your prototype designs
– How do you compare your company’s products to those of your companies, which are best in the industry? By Benchmarking and creating a baseline to measure your performance against
2. Understand the differences between each Voting and Decision Making Technique
– Unanimous: Everyone agrees on a decision
– Majority – More than 50% of the team agrees on pursuing Option A, instead of Option B. In this case, there is a Majority vote to follow Option A.
– Plurality – The largest “subgroup” in your team decides.
– Autocratic – One person makes the decision for everyone
– Multi-criteria Decision Analysis – Systematically analyze and evaluate different criteria (for example, cost, benefits, time to develop, risk, etc) to determine which path to pursue
3. How is the Nominal Group Technique different than Brainstorming?
– Nominal Group Technique is a more structured version of brainstorming, because it includes a voting process to rank & prioritize everyone’s ideas
Key Terms to Remember:
1. Context Diagram – This is a visual diagram which shows what the scope of your product will be, and how it interacts with the business processes & users. It helps answer the following questions:
– Where does data flow inward? (Who are the internal users?)
– Where does data flow outward? (Who are the external users?
– What is the interaction between the business system/process and how will people interact with it?
2. Requirements Traceability Matrix – Think of this as your ‘excel sheet’ or ‘table’ that links each product requirement to the business goals and project deliverables.
– This is a document that Project Managers use to track and manage the product’s scope & requirements throughout the entire project life cycle
3. Requirements Documentation – This is different than the Requirements Traceability Matrix. Think of this as a list of requirements to fulfill for your project, and how they meet the goals of the organization. Unlike the RTM, this does not provide traceability or linkage to any of the project deliverables
Process #3: Define Scope
1.3 Scope Management: Define Scope (PL)
– Pg. 150, PMBOK 6th Edition
Purpose: Fully characterize the product’s scope and acceptance criteria, based upon the requirements captured in the previous process (Collect Requirements)
ITTO Analysis: Define Scope
1) What do You Need? (Input)
– Project Charter, Project Management Plan, Project Documents, EEF/OPA
>> Project Management Plan: *Scope
>> Project Documents: Logs (Assumptions, *Requirements Documentation, Risk Register)
2) What is the Result? (Output)
– *Scope Statement, Project Document Updates
3) How Do You Accomplish It? (Tool/Technique)
–*Product Analysis; Expert Judgment; Data Analysis; Decision Making, Interpersonal & Team Skills
Key Concepts:
1. This process chooses the final requirements and creates a detailed “statement” of the product/project’s final scope
**Remember, Defining the Scope of your project can occur in an iterative sequence... first, starting out with the high-level vision, and refining this in iterations (aka. rolling wave planning)
2. What is Product Analysis and how is this used to determine the final scope of your project/product?
– Examples: Requirements, System, & Value Analysis; Product Breakdown; Systems Engineering
– This technique involves continuously asking questions to determine the characteristics of your final product
– Translate this information and decompose this into the detail you need to create the final product requirements
Key Terms to Remember:
1. Scope Statement – This “document” outlines the ENTIRE scope of your project and product.
– What’s included in the Scope Statement: Scope Description, Key Deliverables, Acceptance Criteria, and Exclusions (what is outside the scope of the final product)
– The Scope Statement is important because it aligns all team members with an understanding of what the final product requirements need to be, and minimizes scope creep
Process #4: Create WBS
1.4 Scope Management: Create WBS (PL)
– Pg. 156, PMBOK 6th Edition
Purpose: Create a Scope Baseline (approved Scope Statement, WBS, and WBS Dictionary) by decomposing your project’s work into easy-to-manage “chunks”
Watch my Video Tutorials for how to create a WBS:
1) WBS Explained in 90 SECONDS: WATCH HERE
2) How to Create A WBS In 3 STEPS!: WATCH HERE
3) Ultimate Guide to the WBS: WATCH HERE
ITTO Analysis: Create WBS
1) What do You Need? (Input)
– Project Management Plan, Project Documents, EEF/OPA
>> Project Management Plan: *Scope
>> Project Documents: *Scope Statement, *Requirements Documentation
2) What is the Result? (Output)
– *Scope Baseline, Project Document Updates
3) How Do You Accomplish It? (Tool/Technique)
– *Decomposition, Expert Judgment
Key Concepts:
1. The Scope Baseline is the approved version of the Scope Statement, WBS, and WBS Dictionary
** Scope Baseline can only be updated through Change Requests and approval from the Change Request Board
2. The lowest level of a WBS is a work package.
– Each Work Package is a component of a higher control account
– The flow is like this: Control Account >> Work Package
3. A Control Account integrates the scope, schedule, and cost together for its constituent work packages
– Includes Planning Packages, which are a tier above the work package.
– The flow is like this: Control Account >> Planning Package >> Work Package
Key Terms to Remember:
1. 100% Rule- The WBS contains ALL OF THE WORK required to complete the project/product. Nothing extra, however, should be included.
2. WBS – Work Breakdown Structure is a visual hierarchical outline which breaks down the work required to complete the project.
**REMEMBER: The WBS is based on the project deliverables (the result of an activity)
Process #5: Validate Scope
1.5 Scope Management: Validate Scope (M&C)
– Pg. 163, PMBOK 6th Edition
Purpose: Obtain formal acceptance of project’s deliverables from customer
ITTO Analysis: Validate Scope
1) What do You Need? (Input)
– *Verified Deliverables, *Work Performance Data, Project Management Plan, Project Documents
>> Project Management Plan: *Scope & *Requirements Mgmt Plan, *Scope Baseline
>> Project Documents: *Requirements Documentation, *Requirements Traceability Matrix, Quality Reports, Lessons Learned Register
2) What is the Result? (Output)
– *Accepted Deliverables, *Work Performance Information, Change Requests, Project Document Updates
3) How Do You Accomplish It? (Tool/Technique)
– *Inspection, Decision Making (Voting)
Key Concepts:
1. In order to validate your project’s work, you need to obtain formal acceptance of the Verified Deliverables, which were obtained during the Control Quality process.
2. What is the difference between Control Quality & Validate Scope?
>> Validate Scope focuses on ensuring that the deliverables are accepted by the customer
>> Control Quality is focused on making sure that the deliverables are correct and that they meet all quality requirements, before they are presented to the customer.
3. Examples of Work Performance Data may include: number of nonconformances, number of tests completed, and “raw” compliance information
Key Terms to Remember:
1. Inspection- A key technique for validating the project’s scope – does the work that we completed meet all requirements and acceptance criteria?
Process #6: Control Scope
1.6 Scope Management: Control Scope (M&C)
– Pg. 167, PMBOK 6th Edition
Purpose: Monitoring & controlling the project’s scope to make sure it doesn’t change without being reviewed & approved by the Change Control Board through the formal Change Request process
ITTO Analysis: Control Scope
1) What do You Need? (Input)
– *Work Performance Data, Project Management Plan, Project Documents, OPA
>> Project Management Plan: Scope Baseline & Performance Measurement Baseline; Scope, Requirements, Change, and Configuration Mgmt Plan
>> Project Documents: *Requirements Documentation, *Requirements Traceability Matrix, Lessons Learned Register
2) What is the Result? (Output)
– *Change Requests, *Work Performance Information, Project Document Updates, Project Management Plan Updates
3) How Do You Accomplish It? (Tool/Technique)
– *Data Analysis: Variance & Trend Analysis
Key Concepts:
1. Al requested Change Requests for updating the project’s scope must go through the Perform Integrated Change Control Process (see Integration Management for detail)
2. Examples of Work Performance Data: number of change requests and number of verified & validated project deliverables
3. What is the difference between Variance Analysis & Trend Analysis?
>> Variance Analysis – Compares your initial baseline to the actual performance of your project. Depending on the magnitude of the variance, this will determine what type of corrective & preventive action needs to take place to steer the project back on track
>> Trend Analysis – Evaluates the project’s historical performance to see if the project’s performance will improve or get worse
4. It is during the Control Scope process that you are continuously evaluating updates to the following baselines: scope, schedule, and cost. If any updates are made, then your performance measurement baseline will be updated accordingly.
Key Terms to Remember:
1. Scope Creep – This is when your project’s scope is changed without being formally controlled through the Change Control Process, and as a result, updates to the project’s schedule/time, cost, and needed resources to compensate for these requests are not implemented. Essentially, adding additional features and requirements, and therefore, doing more work than what was initially agreed upon.
Test Yourself Quizzes – Scope Management
Quiz #1 Scope Management – WATCH HERE
Conclusion
I hope you found the above information helpful with your Project Management Exam Prep Journey! If you found this useful, please feel free to SHARE and RECOMMEND this website with a friend. My goal is to help other Project Managers pass their own CAPM and PMP Exam, and become Certified in Project Management.
Cheers, Alvin