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documented in the project charter. Depending on the detail of work completed during

the project Initiating process, the scope statement may also include a more detailed
analysis of the product, an additional cost-benefit analysis, and an examination of
alternative solutions. You may also find that much of the work required for scope
planning was already completed and documented in the business case and project
charter documents. If that’s the case, congratulations—you are now ahead of the game.

The processes to define the scope elements are iterative; that is, you will
continue to define and refine the project scope (and other planning elements),
going back over them several times until you and the team are satisfied everything
has been identified and documented.

The purpose of the scope statement is to document the project objectives, the
deliverables, and the work required to produce the deliverables. It is then used to
direct the project team’s work during the Executing processes and as a basis for future
project decisions. The scope statement is an agreement between the project team and

the project customer that states precisely what the work of the project will produce.
Simply put, the scope statement tells everyone concerned with the project exactly what
they’re going to get when the work is finished. Any major deliverable, feature, or
function that is not documented in the scope statement is not part of the project. There
isn’t a hard and fast rule on what to include in the scope statement. It can be as
detailed as needed depending on the complexity of the project. Typically, the scope

statement includes the project objectives, a project description, acceptance criteria, key
deliverables, success criteria, exclusions from scope, time and cost estimates, project
assumptions, and constraints. Chapter 3 covered some of these items in detail. Let’s
look at the others next.

You’ll find a sample scope statement, including most elements discussed

next, in the chapter’s final case study.

Project Objectives

Objectives describe the overall goal the project hopes to achieve. Objectives should be
measurable and verifiable, and they are often time-bound. For example, you may have
a final completion date for the entire project or for some of the project’s key objectives.
You can reuse the goals and objectives you documented in the project charter. If you’ve
learned new or more detailed information about the objectives since writing the
charter, be sure to include that here.

Project Description

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