Project management is no stranger to jargon. Project managers use terms which may not be familiar or regularly used by others. Definitions may be useful for you.
Basic Project Management Definition # 1 is “Project Scope”. Your project scope is, put simply, all the things your project will deliver. “Scope” means “extent” or “range”. Your project scope is the extent or range of your project.
One way to think about it is in relation to your work breakdown structure. If you are going to include a task in your project, it is in scope. If you will not complete a task as part of your project, it is out of scope.
For example, if you have a project to build a fence round a garden there will be plenty of tasks in scope including buying materials, digging post holes, and putting up the fence. Tasks unrelated to your project such as tilling the field, or painting the farmhouse are out of scope – they are not part of your project.
Seems easy, but many problems can arise if you are not specific about scope or do not define it clearly. If scope is not clear your customer, whoever has asked for the project, may expect one thing while you expect to deliver another. Let’s think about that fence again – is it in scope for you to paint that fence? Imagine what it will mean to your project, your costs, and the good will with your customer if they assumed you would paint, and you have no intention of painting? Pretty bad, right?
So be clear on what you will deliver. Go back to your work breakdown structure (link) to help you think through exactly what you will deliver – what is in scope. Make sure everyone on the project and your customers know what you have decided – it is better to find out you disagree before work has started than much later. If you find out early you can work through the options, change the scope and cost maybe, and get to a point where all agree what will be delivered.
Project scope: a simple term, but an important one.
