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222 CHANGE CONTROL AND SCOPE

The process is made much easier if we develop structures for the workscope
and the schedule at the start. We use a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to or-
ganize the workscope. This is essential if we are going to use the baseline plan for
EVA. For scheduling, it helps to develop a Project Milestone Schedule to identify
time objectives and constraints and to guide the process.

It is possible to conduct performance measurement operations without having
a project budget, but we assume that there is one for these illustrations.

Now, let’s look further into managing the project baseline and avoiding
scope creep.

Part 2—Managing the Baseline

(Note: Much of the material presented in Parts 2 and 3 of this chapter is also
included in Part 2 of Chapter 6.1, where it is discussed as a solution for
managing cost contingency. It is repeated here to maintain continuity and
flow, during this discussion on change control and scope management. Con-
tingency management and baseline management involve many of the same
concerns and practices.)

Avoiding Scope Creep

It is difficult to read stories about projects without coming across references to
scope creep. In the Information Technology area, especially, the stories tell of a
double loss. The project workscope keeps escalating (often without providing ad-
ditional funding or time) until the project runs out of time, money, or both—and
then gets delivered with even less than the original planned content.

So there are several reasons to control the baseline and the project workscope.
Even if we are not doing Earned Value analysis (EVA), we need to have some
means of containing the project workscope. This is not to say that additions to the
workscope are necessarily bad and must be forbidden. Rather, we must manage
the additions to scope, both for controlling project costs and to maintain a valid
baseline for earned value analysis. We all know that scope creep is something that
we wish to avoid. Here are some easy ways to deal with the problem.

Some Simple Scope Management Methods

Let’s look at a few examples for managing the workscope. This first example ad-
dresses issues associated with maintaining a valid baseline for EV measurements.

We assume that the project has been planned, and that a list of work items has