LESSON 3: SCOPE

Lesson 3 Overview

Introduction

Now that we've discussed what a project is and how it fits into the organizational system view, we can begin to define a project. A critical aspect is what the project will accomplish. In this lesson, we will discuss how to select projects carefully and define projects precisely. We will look to the scope of the project to meet these needs.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

Reading Assignments

Please do the required readings before reading the online material. As you read, think about how the scope of a project will influence all other aspects of the project, including its cost, timing, quality and risk. The readings for this week are:

Writing Assignments

This week you are assigned the task of creating a project charter and writing a peer review of one of your classmate's reports (Assignment 1). The peer review is diue at the end of this week's lesson (see "Deliverables" below). The project charter (Assignment 2) is due at the end of Lesson 4, but you will have an additional assignment due from Lesson 4 at the same time. So to keep from falling behind, you may want to work on the project charter assignment this week.

  1. Assignment 2 - Create a project charter for the Philadelphia pole database design project. The charter will be written as if you are an employee of a consulting firm interested in doing the project.
  2. Peer Review #1 - Write a peer review of the report written by one of your classmates during Lessons 1 & 2 (Assignment 1).

Deliverables

This week, you are to complete a peer review of one of your classmate's reports from Lessons 1 & 2 (Assignment #1). Detailed information about these assignments can be found at the end of this lesson. Also, your first quiz is included in this lesson, so pay particular attention to techniques discussed in the readings listed above.

  1. Write a peer review of the report written by one of your classmates during Lessons 1 & 2 (Assignment 1).
  2. Lesson 3 Quiz

Questions?

If you have any questions now or at any point during this lesson, please feel free to post them to the Lesson 3 Message Board.(That message board can be accessed at any time by clicking on the In Touch tab, above, and then scrolling to the Message Boards section.)

LESSON 3: SCOPE

Strategic Planning

Before we begin discussing what the scope of a project is and why it's important, let's discuss how an organization may identify potential projects.

In the previous lesson, we discussed the mission statement, which can be thought of as the reason an organization is in business. To stay in business, however, an organization must implement its vision, beginning with creating a strategic plan.

The strategic plan involves looking at long-term objectives, and tying a business strategy to achieve these objectives to the organization's mission. Strategic planning also may attempt to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of an organization, an important step in identifying a business strategy to get the organization to where it wants to be.

LESSON 3: SCOPE

Project Selection

Armed with a viable strategic plan, an organization can then use the plan to aid in selecting potential projects. This allows the organization to go beyond a simple selection strategy such as "What projects will make us the most money the soonest?" and address such issues as "What projects will be profitable and advance our organization towards its long-term objectives?" Four strategies for selecting projects are:

  1. Focus on broad organizational needs
  2. Categorize projects
  3. Perform financial analyses
  4. Use weighted scoring models

Focus on broad organizational needs

Focusing on broad organizational needs means keeping the big picture in mind.With Assignment 1 you looked at details of a particular project, but you also looked at how the project fit the overall vision of the organization.

Categorize projects

Categorizing projects can aid in selection. A broad categorization would be whether a project addresses a problem, provides an opportunity, or is a directive. For example, an organization may undertake a project serving maps on the internet even if their organization has no previous experience, because they see many future opportunities for doing projects with internet mapping applications.

Perform financial analyses

Financial analyses can take many forms. In general, they address not just the inflowing and out-flowing amounts of money associated with a project, but also the time value of money. Suppose your invest $1,000 in a savings account that pays 3% interest, compounded annually. In a year's time you would have $1,030 ($1,000 * 1.03 =), in two year's time $1060.90 ($1,030 * 1.03 ), etc. This idea of time value of money is the basis for financial analysis.

Net Present Value (NPV) applies discount rates to all future expenditures so that amounts can be compared to the present value of the money available to the organization. Usually discount rates are tied back to some prediction of inflation or desired profitability. With NPV analysis, it is best to spend small quantities of money far in the future to earn large quantities of money as soon as possible. As you may suspect, such opportunities are rare. Often, money needs to be spent up front or invested in an attempt to achieve inflow of money sometime in the future. NPV allows a quantitative comparison among various projects.

Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of a project is the discount rate that results in an NPV of zero. In the savings account example above, the IRR is 3%. Higher IRR is desirable, but best utilized with other metrics such as NPV. For example, consider two projects, both lasting two years and with an IRR of 10%. The first has a total cost of $10,000, and an NPV of $1,000. The second has a total cost of $500,000, and an NPV of $50,000.

Payback period is also critical from the time perspective of money. Because most projects involve some costs upfront and benefits are not reaped until later, there can often be a time period before the cumulative monetary benefits of the project is greater than its cumulative monetary cost. Both cumulative cost and benefits can be charted; the point at which cumulative benefits equal costs is called the payback period. Shorter payback periods are generally desirable, but again IRR and NPV should also be considered. Figure 4-5 from Schwalbe shown below illustrates a project with a payback period of one year.

Contact your instructor if you are unable to see or interpret this graphic.

This image is used in conjunction with Information Technology Project Management, Third Edition 3rd edition by SCHWALBE, © 2004 published by Course Technology, a division of Thomson Learning. All text and images from Information Technology Project Management, Third Edition are used with the permission of the publisher. They may not be cut, pasted, altered, revised, modified, scanned, or adapted in any way without the prior written permission of the publisher. www.thomsonrights.com. Copyright © 2004 Course Technology, a division of Thomson Learning, and its licensors. All rights reserved.

Use weighted scoring models

Weighted scoring models are used to compare projects using various criteria, including the ones listed above. The weights assigned to each criteria are subjective, but add up to 100%. The advantages of a weighted scoring model are many. Ranges of values can be used as weights to see the variability of scores. Different individuals in an organization can subjectively assign various weights, and scores can be averaged. Many different types of criteria from profitability to meeting business objectives can be included in the same model. Also, minimum score thresholds can be applied to any criteria or to the final weighted score to cull projects not appropriate to the organization.

LESSON 3: SCOPE

Scope of a Project

Once a project is identified as something that an organization would like to pursue, the first step it to define the scope. The scope refers to all work that will be done to complete the project and what processes will be followed to accomplish this work. Clearly defining the scope is a critical component of successful project management. Poorly defined scopes can result in clients getting less than they expected, project workers doing more than they expected, clients being unable to use the results, or project workers being unable to achieve the required results.

Deliverables are products that are outlined in the scope of work and delivered from the project workers to the client. A deliverable can range from a product to a process to a philosophy, but it is always the result of project work that must be supplied to the client.

Managing the scope of a project involves all of the process groups we discussed in Lesson 2 -- initiation, planning, definition, controlling, and closing. In this lesson, you will initiate the scope by creating a project charter, which we will discuss next. In the following weeks, you will plan and define the scope of the project for this class. An important aspect of this will be to create a detailed Work Breakdown Structure, which we will discuss and you will create in Lesson 5. Some of the most notorious problems in project management are changes or requests for changes to scope that occur during the implementation phase of a project. Change control is vital with such issues.

LESSON 3: SCOPE

Change Control and Scope

The easiest way to control change of scope during a project would be to have no changes required. To this end, many organizations seek formal acceptance of the scope of a project from all interested stakeholders, a process called scope verification. This can work well if all stakeholders can be identified, and all of their potential needs documented. Important stakeholders, and the true clients of the project deliverables, are the end users. As with system design and analysis, special care should be taken to get input from users, include users in scope definition, work closely with users, and query users upon delivery to improve future scoping work.

System boundaries are important to keep in mind when controlling the scope of a project. For example, suppose a consulting firm is doing a project for a client. The organizations and the project could be thought of as a Venn Diagram, two circles with an area of overlap near the edge. Contact your instructor if you are unable to see or interpret this graphic.

As the project progresses, additional work may be recognized that could be beneficial to the client, the consulting firm, or both, but is not within the scope of the project. Although human nature often urges us to do the work because it is important, it is vital to keep the organizatio's' and project's system boundaries in mind.

The additional work can be included by formally changing the project boundaries or scope. Change request forms can used to redefine the scope, with corresponding changes in compensation and resources. Alternatively, a new project could be proposed by the client or the consultants to define and complete the additional work. In both cases, new system boundaries between the organizations have been drawn.

Other times, additional work is completed in addition to the original scope of work during a project. Project managers should be vary careful about doing any work outside of the original scope. Sometimes, "low hanging fruit" can be identified, products that are useful to the client with very little additional work required by the consultant. Such efforts can be a feather in the consultant's cap, especially worth considering if future work is available from the client. Project managers, however, should be wary of scope creep, the tendency of projects to grow out of control as the result of such efforts that are neither required nor documented.

With these warnings in mind, let's discuss the project charter and its role in defining the scope of a project.

LESSON 3: SCOPE

The Project Charter

A project charter is a document that formally recognizes a project and begins to define the project's objective and management. Some organizations may create a project charter from a standardized template, while other organizations may take a more free-form and adaptable approach. A project charter can contain:

Examples of project charter templates can be found on Schwalbe's companion website in Appendix D.

Not all organizations use a project charter. In some organizations, a verbal go-ahead to create a response to a Request for Proposal may fill a similar role. The advantage of a formal project charter, especially to larger organization managing multiple projects or potential projects, it that the commitments of the organization in general and individuals in particular are documented. This can help to avoid confusion or unexpected conflicts for resources.

Now that we've talked about a project plan, you will have an opportunity to create one! The following Web page in this lesson contains Assignment 2, where you will find out the background information you will need to do it.

LESSON 3: SCOPE

Assignment 2

Overview

Assignment 2 is to create a project charter. In this class, we will expand upon your design of a geodatabase for poles and pole attachments for the city of Philadelphia. Although you have already done part of this project as a series of activities in GEOG 583, you will assume for the sake of planning that none of this work has been done. It may help to think of your database design and analysis experience in GEOG 583 as work on a similar project completed by your organization. This experience should help you to scope out at least part of this project!

The scenario

You are a GIS project manager working for a private consulting firm. The City of Philadelphia has put out a request for proposal (RFP) for a project to design a geodatabase in ArcGIS and to migrate current shapefiles into the new geodatabase. In reading the RFP, it is clear to you that the city of Philadelphia is requesting a project plan that will accomplish the following summary tasks:

  1. Look at the existing shapefile data and their design
  2. Define a business logic and associated design requirements
  3. Design a geodatabase to meet these requirements
  4. Migrate data from existing shapefiles into the new database format

Your manager knows managers and GIS professionals at the city of Philadelphia, is interested in the proposal, and has agreed to be the project sponsor. She has requested that you write a project charter in response to this RFP. Concentrate on the information in the RFP in sections I (Generan Information), II (Background and Project Information) and III (Scope of Work), and don't be as concerned with the information in sections IV - X at this time.

Your manager is also keen to show the City of Philadelphia how financially beneficial its conversion from a shapefile to a geodatabase format will be. Your company has cost information on a number of similar projects it has completed. Additionally, it has documented the benefits of these projects by distributing annual questionnaires to clients willing to share information on cost savings. She asked the information technology department to output this cost/benefit information in a spreadsheet format. Costs and benefits have already been discounted to present values. She asks that you find the average cumulative cost and benefit of these ten projects from years zero to five and graph this information. You should include this graph in your project charter and clearly state in your charter when the clients may expect payback from their investment.

Your task

Create a charter for a project to design and migrate existing data of poles and pole attachments for the city of Philadelphia into a geodatabase. Use the four fundamental tasks outlined above as a general guideline:

Your project charter should include all of the components listed under "Lesson 3 > The Project Charter." as well as a payback analysis graph. The detail of the geodatabase design will be similar to the Class diagram of the Pole and Attachment Database presented as the ATS UML design solution in Lesson 10 of GEOG 583. Although part of this project is to define what a pole is, it is safe to estimate that the number of poles will be similar to the Tabular analysis of the shapefile and database, also presented as the ATS UML design solution in Lesson 10 of GEOG 583. Your manager has assured you that your organization has completed similar tasks with a project manager, a senior GIS analyst, and a GIS analyst.

You will not actually be doing all of this work (again!) as part of this class. You are simply taking the first step in creating a project plan. The experience you gained through the series of activities in GEOG 583 should prove quite helpful in determining the time and resources necessary to complete this project. For some parts of the project, however, you will simply have to make best guess estimates. For example, you did not migrate the data from shapefile to geodatabase format in GEOG 583, which is a large component of this project!

In addition to the documents mentioned above, you may also want to take another look at the minutes from two meetings that you first saw in GEOG 583, those of June 3, 2003 and July 29, 2003.

Using the cost/benefit spreadsheet, you will first calculate the yearly average of each cost and benefit for the ten projects, then find the cumulative average costs and benefits. You will then need to summarize these costs and benefits by year at the bottom of the spreadsheet to create a payback analysis graph.

Deliverables for Assignment 2

The deliverable described below is due at the end of Lesson 4.

Grading

This assignment is worth 50 points, and I will evaluate it based on the following rubric:

Exemplary (10 points) Accomplished (8 points) Developing (6 points) Beginning (4 points)
Ideas Excels in responding to assignment. Picks a relevant example and demonstrates sophistication of thought. Clearly states objective. Understands and critically evaluates sources, appropriately limits and defines terms. Responds appropriately to assignment. Picks an appropriate example, but may have minor lapses in development. Statement of objective present but lacks necessary clarity. Shows careful reading of sources, but may not evaluate them critically. Adequate but weaker and less effective, possibly responding less well to assignment. Shows basic comprehension of sources, perhaps with lapses in understanding. If terms are defined, often depends on dictionary definitions. Does not have a clear objective or does not respond appropriately to the assignment. Central idea may be too vague or obvious to be developed effectively. Paper may misunderstand sources.
Organization and Coherence Uses a logical structure appropriate to assignment's subject, purpose, audience, and disciplinary field. Sophisticated transitions develop one idea from the previous one or identify their logical relations. Organization guides the reader through the chain of reasoning or progression of ideas. Shows relevance to the audience. Shows a logical progression of ideas and uses fairly sophisticated transitional devices. Some logical links may be faulty, but each idea clearly relates to assignment's central idea. May arrange ideas randomly rather than using any evident logical structure. Transitions are sequential rather than logic-based. Logic is not always clear. Ideas may be overly general, and arrangement of ideas may lack coherence. May have random organization, lacking internal coherence and using few or inappropriate transitions. Objectives may be lacking, or may be too general or too specific to be effective. Ideas may not all be relevant to the assignment.
Support Uses evidence appropriately and effectively, providing sufficient evidence and explanation to convince. Brings together information from several sources. Cites all appropriate sources. Begins to offer reasons to support ideas, perhaps using different types of unrelated evidence. Begins to interpret the evidence and explain connections between evidence and main ideas. Examples are somewhat relevant but not optimal. Often uses generalizations to support ideas. May use obvious or irrelevant examples. Often assumes that evidence speaks for itself and needs no application to the main idea. Often has lapses in logic. Cites insufficient sources to support ideas. Depends on overgeneralizations for support, or offers little evidence of any kind. May be irrelevant to main ideas, or summary rather than analysis.
Style Chooses words for their precise meaning and uses an appropriate level of specificity. Style fits assignment's audience and purpose. Format is clearly structured and carefully focused. Style not clipped or rambling. Generally uses words accurately and effectively, but may sometimes be too general. Format is generally clear, well structured, and focused, though at times it may be awkward or ineffective. Uses relatively vague and general words, may use some inappropriate language. Format is generally correct, but style may be wordy, unfocused, repetitive, or confusing. May be too vague and abstract, or very personal and specific. Format contains aspects that make it awkward or difficult to decipher. Style is overly simple or monotonous.
Mechanics Almost entirely free of formatting, spelling, punctuation, grammatical and numerical errors. May contain a few errors, which may annoy the reader but not impede understanding. Usually contains several mechanical errors, which may temporarily confuse the reader but not impede the overall understanding. Usually contains either many mechanical errors or a few important errors that block the reader's understanding.

LESSON 3: SCOPE

Peer Review #1

Before you proceed to the lesson quiz, you have one more task...

Write a peer review of the report written by one of your classmates during Lessons 1 & 2 (Assignment 1).You should review the report of the person immediately after you in the alphabetical listing of the class.(Loop around to the top of the list if necessary). You should write your review from the perspective of an employee of the organization about which the report was written. Your review should be at least one page double-spaced (approximately 250 words). The review should also be in the format of a memo. Below are a list of resources to help those looking for memo writing resources:

  1. Purdue Online Writing Lab (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/pw/p_memo.html)
  2. RPI's writing center (http://www.rpi.edu/dept/llc/writecenter/web/memos.html)
  3. University of Toronto (http://www.ecf.utoronto.ca/~writing/handbook-memo.html)

NOTE: As part of your final assignment, Assignment 9, each of you will be asked to write a memo to the person who provided you with a peer review of your own work, explaining how his/her suggestions were incorporated into your final plan or why you chose not to include their suggestions. I suggest that you keep that in mind while reviewing the work of your peer (i.e., make sure your feedback is meaningful and clear) and also when receiving a review of your own work!

Grading

This peer review is worth 25 points. I will evaluate your work based on the following rubric, which is a similar format to but somewhat different than the rubric used for the assignments.

Exemplary (5 points) Accomplished (4 points) Developing (3 points) Beginning (2points)
Ideas Excels in responding to assignment. Review identifies key ideas and demonstrates sophistication of thought. Clearly states ideas that can be used by the project manager for improvement. Responds appropriately to assignment. Review identifies most key ideas and demonstrates some sophistication of thought. States some ideas that can be used by the project manager for improvement. Response to the assignment is weaker and less effective. Review identifies limited ideas and demonstrates limited sophistication of thought. Most ideas could not be used effectively by the project manager for improvement. Response to the assignment is weak and ineffective. Review identifies few or no ideas and demonstrates little sophistication of thought. Ideas in the review could not be used effectively by the project manager for improvement.
Organization and Coherence Uses a logical structure appropriate to a peer review. Organization guides the project manager through the chain of reasoning or progression of ideas. Clearly explains the relevance to the project manager. Shows a logical progression of ideas and methodology for critique. Some logical links may be faulty, but each idea clearly relates to the reviewer's critique of the project manager's main ideas. May arrange ideas randomly rather than using any evident logical structure. Logic is not always clear. Critique may be overly general, or may not address issues important to the assignment. May have random organization, lacking internal coherence. Reasons for change may be lacking, or may be too general to be effective. Ideas may not all be relevant to the assignment.
Support Supplies an appropriate and effective critique, providing evidence and explanation. Brings together information from experience or other sources. Supplies reasons to support ideas, perhaps using different types of unrelated evidence. Begins to support critique with evidence and explains connections between evidence and criticisms. Examples are somewhat relevant but not optimal. Often uses generalizations to support critique. May use obvious or irrelevant examples. Often assumes that the argument speaks for itself and needs no support. Often has lapses in logic. Cites insufficient examples to support ideas. Depends on overgeneralizations for critique, or offers little evidence of any kind. May be irrelevant to main criticisms, or emotional responses rather than analysis based assessments.
Style Review is written in a constructive and supportive style. Chooses words for their precise meaning and uses an appropriate level of specificity. Style fits the reviewer's role and the assignment's audience and purpose. Format is clearly structured and carefully focused. Reviewer is supportive, but may offer criticism without constructive suggestions. Generally uses words accurately and effectively, but may sometimes be too general. Style is generally appropriate for reviewer's role and the assignment's audience and purpose. Format is generally clear, well structured, and focused, though at times it may be awkward or ineffective. Reviewer is supportive, but often offers criticism without constructive suggestions. Uses relatively vague and general words, may use some inappropriate language. Style is somewhat appropriate for reviewer's role and the assignment's audience and purpose. Format is generally correct, but style may be wordy, unfocused, repetitive, or confusing. Reviewer is not very supportive, and offers criticism without constructive suggestions. May be too vague and abstract, or critical in a personal manner. Style is inappropriate for reviewer's role and the assignment's audience and purpose. Format contains aspects that make it awkward or difficult to decipher. Style is overly simple or monotonous.
Mechanics Almost entirely free of formatting, spelling, punctuation, grammatical and numerical errors. May contain a few errors, which may annoy the reader but not impede understanding. Usually contains several mechanical errors, which may temporarily confuse the reader but not impede the overall understanding. Usually contains either many mechanical errors or a few important errors that block the reader's understanding.

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