Chapter 5

Project Scope Management

See the introduction to Chapter 5 in the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition.

5.1 Scope Planning

See Section 5.1 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition, with the following additions to better express the scope planning ground rules that are unique to public sector projects.

Whether the organization is setting initial scope, revising the scope after the project is underway, or deciding whether to authorize the next phase, all government entities are subject to two overarching controls: spending authority and public accountability. When planning and executing scope, government entities are expressly prohibited by law from: (a) spending in excess of the approved budget without additional spending authority; (b) spending budgeted program funds on something other than that for which they were intended/budgeted; and (c) fraud, waste, and abuse of program funds (for instance, spending to meet budget levels so as to avoid losing the unspent funds). Discussion of these controls provides a good transition to other chapters dealing with specific areas of project control, such as cost and risk management.

5.1.1 Scope Planning: Inputs

See Section 5.1.1 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition.

5.1.2 Scope Planning: Tools and Techniques

See Section 5.1.2 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition.

5.1.3 Scope Planning: Outputs

See Section 5.1.3 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition.

5.2 Scope Definition

See Section 5.2 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition, with the recognition that government projects are faced with unique scope definition challenges in the context of citizen-driven activity. Due to the presence of the general public as the ultimate stakeholder for government projects, the identification and conversion of stakeholders’ needs into specific project requirements might become a never-ending task.

When addressing essential services like fire and police protection, utilities, etc., the public sector project scope must include a requirement of continuous service delivery throughout the project implementation.

For both new products and the enhancement of existing product initiatives, scope definition methods, such as packaging sets of desired changes in releases or phases, are primarily driven by political or social criteria (e.g., the need to implement a law change in an existing system by a certain date), not by efficiency factors (as is usually the case in the private sector).

5.2.1 Scope Definition: Inputs

See Section 5.2.1 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition.

5.2.2 Scope Definition: Tools and Techniques

See Section 5.2.2 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition.

5.2.3 Scope Definition: Outputs

See Section 5.2.3 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition.

5.3 Create WBS

See Section 5.3 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition.

5.3.1 Create WBS: Inputs

See Sections 5.3.1.1 through 5.3.1.4 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition, with the addition of stakeholders’ analysis (see Section 5.3.1.5) as a specific WBS input for government projects.

• .5 Stakeholder Analysis
  While not regularly an input on projects undertaken in the private sector, stakeholder analysis has a definite impact in the definition of work packages for public sector projects, due to hard boundaries between executing organizational stakeholders. It is not unusual for multiple ministries or agencies to execute a joint project, but, in most cases, this will result in separate project teams within each organization that will only coordinate activities through a few predefined communication channels. By contrast, in a private sector project, a similar issue would usually be resolved by creating a single, cross-functional project team based on efficiency criteria.
       An additional consideration in a public sector project’s WBS is the involvement of “opposition stakeholder” analysis. Involvement of opposition stakeholders in this early creation of the WBS may assist in a more “positive outcome” for all stakeholders. An additional consideration in public sector projects is the involvement of regulators, opposition stakeholders, the press, etc. (see Section 2.2) in the creation of the WBS and definition of work packages.

5.3.2 Create WBS: Tools and Techniques

See Section 5.3.2 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition.

5.3.3 Create WBS: Outputs

See Section 5.3.3 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition.

5.4 Scope Verification

Section 5.4 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition describes Scope Verification as a stakeholders’ verification and acceptance of the level of completion achieved by a project’s deliverables. Since the ultimate stakeholder in a government project is the general public (which is not usually directly involved in the project), this verification is fulfilled through specific project controls such as compliance and public accountability. While each level of government may have unique characteristics, project controls that ensure governmental integrity are maintained across all public sector initiatives.

5.4.1 Scope Verification: Inputs

See Section 5.4.1 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition.

5.4.2 Scope Verification: Tools and Techniques

See Section 5.4.2 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition.

5.4.3 Scope Verification: Outputs

See Sections 5.4.3.1 to 5.4.3.3 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition, with the addition of communication artifacts (Section 5.4.3.4):

• .4 Communication Artifacts
  While project communications are mostly handled under communications management as described in Chapter 10 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition, scope verification can generate unplanned information flow, mostly external to the project. Governmental, parliamentary or public inquiries, audits and reviews (e.g., complaint-based or auto-initiated), and inspections from external funding organizations (e.g., World Bank, IMF, aid-giving countries, etc.) generate a variety of project reports, public communications, news conferences, mass-media interviews, and other communication artifacts not usually created during a private sector project.

5.5 Scope Control

See Section 5.5 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition, with the recognition that governmental projects are more exposed to external influences (e.g., political disturbances, program-level impacts, etc.) depending upon circumstances outside a project’s sphere of control or influence. Scope is always subject to change based on various influences—most of them sociopolitical—and these changes are usually reflected through budget adjustments based on priorities of the current political agenda.

5.5.1 Scope Control: Inputs

See Sections 5.5.1.1 to 5.5.1.7 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition, with the addition of external inputs (Section 5.5.1.8):

• .8 External Inputs
  Government projects are often subject to external scope control inputs, such as approvals of project scope and scope changes from authorities, external funding requirements, and conditions that may be attached to the allocated budget.

5.5.2 Scope Control: Tools and Techniques

See Section 5.5.2 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition.

5.5.3 Scope Control: Outputs

See Section 5.5.3 of the PMBOK® Guide—Third Edition.