The Importance of Scope Management In Construction

A project scope defines what work has to be completed to finish a project and, equally important, what work is not necessary. An effective scope management team, allows project managers to define and assign the right amount of work required to efficiently complete a project. Scope management often includes five steps to guide the process:

Step 1: Scope Planning

Scope planning is all about creating a plan where the scope management team’s decisions are documented. It is the collection of processes that details how the project scope will be managed and controlled throughout the life of the project. It also defines who is responsible for managing the project's scope and ascertains that the project has been successfully completed. 

Step2: Scope Defining

Scope definition is about creating a written scope statement which details the information related to project boundaries, acceptance criteria, assumptions, constraints, exclusions and major project deliverables. This helps project managers to make sure they are doing the needed work, but only the work included in the scope statement. 

Step 3: Creating The Work Breakdown Structure

A work break down structure is created by the project manager after recognizing the major functional deliverables by splitting them into smaller, better manageable units of work, called work packages. The work breakdown structure is an essential part of the scope management process by providing a record of all work packages needed to efficiently deliver the construction project.

Step 4: Scope Change Control

Scope change control is an organized way to control all changes that may be made to the project once it begins. The purpose is to avoid unnecessary scope changes that might interrupt the project and ensure all changes are documented, reviewed and approved before implementation. Scope change control is all about determining the factors that create project scope changes and controlling the impact of those changes.

Step 5: Scope Verification

At the end of scope planning,stakeholders validate the document and examine the deliverables against the requirements of these documents and approve if the scope has been met. Scope verification is the formal acceptance of the work by the client after ensuring all the tasks defined are completed.

As a leader in store, office and restaurant rollout management in Boston, Cornerstone’s expert project managers guarantee quality, consistency and speed-to-market no matter the scope of the project.