Scope Validation in Project Sprints

With a scope management plan, project teams can create a structure to their work by documenting their required resources to then achieve their project objectives. Setting up a plan also can aid in the reduction of their being a chance of scope creep. Scope creep is when there is uncontrolled or unmanageable growth on a project’s scope once the project begins. This can force project managers to reallocate their resources to other areas and have to rewrite plans and schedules. This can lead to deadlines being missed, budgets being broken, and displeasure from investors of the project. Setting up a scope management plan will help make the project run much smoother.

2. Having Project Documents

It is important to hold onto project documents when working on any project. Theses documents are considered to be the major inputs into validating the scope of a project. There are numerous documents that should be obtained and held onto during the project to not only complete the given project but be used as reference sources to future projects as well. Documents such as “Lesson Learned” documents are important, which note lessons learned in a current project that can be implemented in later sprints or in future projects all together. Quality reports and requirement documentations are important to keeping track of quality of project areas and meeting the demands of investors. These are only some of the documents that should be obtained when working but they all provide a major part in the project’s scope validation.

3. Verified Deliverables

In project scope validation, there is a process known as verified deliverables. This process is when deliverables of the project are completed and checked internally for its correctness and its quality through the control quality process. This process evaluates whether the project is meeting the quality requirements specified by the investors. These deliverables being verified and accepted by the investors helps the project’s scope being determined and keep everything within the project in a certain way to fit what the goal of the project is.

4. Work Performance Data

With work performance data, project teams can include the data of the degree of compliance to the project’s requirements, as well as the total number of non-conformities within the project as well as their severity. This data can is analyzed by the project team and then turned into work performance information. This data is necessary to project teams as it helps project teams in making decisions on the status of the project and the workflow of the project as well. By also measuring the degree of compliance, project teams can identify how well in the project’s scope they are remaining and if they are still meeting all requirements set for themselves.

5. Change Requests

Should there be a need to make alterations to a project in order to remain within the project’s scope, change request forms is where this will occur. These forms are used to request, approve, and track project changes and theses change requests are made by the investors for many different reasons. Investors could be making these requests to meet different deliverables or to take less time on certain project activities or to even include new technology into the project.

From personal experience, scope validation is an absolutely necessary aspect of any project and should be taken very seriously. When working on projects in the past, it was necessary to know what is needed and what is not needed in the goal of completing the project with all requirements met as well. We as a group would list out what we believed would be needed to meet the projects necessities without doing more that would end up being not useful in time management and lower productivity. Throughout the project we would keep the scope in mind and focus on not straying from it as we completed the project. We held onto important information, made sure we were meeting the deliverables set up for us, addressing any changes we would need to make if necessary, and more to continue to validate the scope of the project. Once the project was completed, the goals of the project were all met and it was completed under the restrictions given. The creating and validating of the scope helped this be done and thus made completing the project that much more efficient.

Scope validation is what keeps a project on the right track. By identifying the goals of what is to come from a project, a laid-out guide of what to do and how to do things can be made for project teams so that they can begin to work as productively as they possibly can. Scope validation helps keep the project being worked on from not meeting its needed conditions or from possible issues of overspending or not meeting conditions of investors. While it is not perfect and changes and issues can always arise, scope validation can plan for those issues as well. It isn’t just meant to set up the path needed for a project to meet its goals but to also keep the path as straight forward as possible for project teams.

Work Cited

Asana. (2021, October 5). Scope Management Plan: What Is It and How To Create One • Asana. Asana. https://asana.com/resources/scope-management-plan

Brown, L. (2021, June 29). How To Validate Scope in a Project - Validate Scope Process. Invensis Learning Blog.        https://www.invensislearning.com/blog/validate-scope/

Validate Scope - Project Management Knowledge. (n.d.). https://project-management-knowledge.com/definitions/v/validate-scope/