Requirements and scope

0:00Sara: Welcome to Project Management Exam Prep.

0:02This episode is about requirements and scope: what a project must deliver,

0:07and where it stops. Every project management exam tests it, because every plan is

0:12built on the scope.

0:14Leo: You will learn how the three bodies frame it, how to rank requirements,

0:18how to break the scope down, and how agile work changes it.

0:23We finish with a drill, so keep a pen ready.

0:26Sara: Let us start with the three lenses. What does IPMA® say?

0:30Leo: IPMA®, the International Project Management Association, sets out its standard in

0:35the Individual Competence Baseline, the ICB4.

0:39It gives this topic two elements. Requirements and objectives is the why:

0:44from the organisation's goals down to agreed requirements.

0:48Scope is the what: the deliverables, how the work breaks down,

0:52and keeping one agreed version.

0:54Sara: And PMI®?

0:55Leo: PMI®, the Project Management Institute, publishes the PMBOK® Guide,

1:00its guide to the project management body of knowledge.

1:04The eighth edition has a scope performance domain, from drawing out requirements

1:08to the formal acceptance of each deliverable.

1:12The outline of PMI®'s Project Management Professional exam, the PMP®,

1:17asks you to define the scope, get stakeholders to agree it, and break it down.

1:23Sara: And APM?

1:24Leo: APM, the Association for Project Management, publishes the APM Body of Knowledge.

1:30Its sections on requirements management and solutions development cover finding

1:35the best solution, then defining its scope.

1:38The syllabus of APM's Project Management Qualification, the PMQ,

1:42has objectives with the same names, and adds the minimum viable product.

1:47Sara: Where do the words differ?

1:50Leo: In three places. First, what scope covers.

1:54For the ICB4 and APM, it includes outcomes and benefits.

1:58For PMI®, it is the products and the work.

2:02Sara: Second?

2:03Leo: The breakdown. The ICB4 and APM add a product breakdown structure to the work breakdown.

2:11PMI®'s guide adds a value breakdown structure, which ties each deliverable to its

2:16value.

2:17Sara: And third?

2:19Leo: One agreed version. The ICB4 says scope configuration, and APM configuration management.

2:27PMI® speaks of the scope baseline, changed only through change control.

2:32Sara: What is the core, whichever exam you take?

2:36Leo: Three ideas. One: needs become requirements.

2:41People rarely say all they need, because some needs seem too obvious to mention.

2:46So you draw them out, in workshops, interviews and by watching the work.

2:52Write each requirement down, and trace it to the objective it serves.

2:56Test the objectives with SMART, after George Doran in nineteen eighty-one.

3:01A common version reads specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.

3:07And give each requirement acceptance criteria: the checks a deliverable must pass

3:13before it is accepted.

3:15Sara: Two?

3:16Leo: Scope sets the boundary: what the project delivers, the work that produces it,

3:21and, in writing, what it does not include.

3:24Every request is judged against that line.

3:27Sara: Does that change in agile work?

3:30Leo: Yes. In a linear project, you fix the scope early.

3:34In iterative work, the scope lives in a backlog, an ordered list of possible work,

3:39and each iteration takes the items at the top.

3:42The first release is often a minimum viable product: the smallest version real users

3:47can try. Time and cost are often fixed, so the scope flexes.

3:52Sara: And three?

3:53Leo: Change is normal; creep is not. Scope creep, as PMI® describes it,

3:59is scope that grows while time, cost and resources stay the same,

4:04often through small favours asked of one developer.

4:08So log each request, assess it, and let the right person decide.

4:12Change control has its own episode later in the series.

4:16Sara: Now the models, both on free sheets in the description.

4:19What if the requirements need more than the budget?

4:23Leo: A common method is MoSCoW. Dai Clegg described it with Richard Barker in nineteen

4:28ninety-four, and the agile framework DSDM, the Dynamic Systems Development Method,

4:34made it a core practice. Must have: without it, the result is useless,

4:38unsafe or illegal. Should have: it hurts to leave out, but a workaround exists.

4:45Could have: wanted, and the first to go.

4:48Won't have this time: agreed out for now, and written down.

4:52Sara: How do I stop everything becoming a must?

4:55Leo: Agree a test first. For example: if it were missing the day before go-live,

5:00would we stop the launch? DSDM also gives a guide: musts at most about sixty percent

5:06of the effort, and coulds about twenty, as the buffer that protects the date.

5:11The sponsor or the customer decides. You run the process, and turn each must into

5:16acceptance criteria.

5:17Sara: Once the scope is agreed, how do you break it down?

5:21Leo: With a work breakdown structure, or WBS: a tree that divides all of the project's

5:27work into smaller parts. Level one is the project, level two the main deliverables

5:33plus project management, and the lowest level the work packages.

5:38The ICB4 describes two ways to divide: by the stages of the work,

5:43or by the parts of the result. We prefer the parts, because a deliverable can be

5:48checked and accepted.

5:50Sara: How do I know nothing is missing?

5:53Leo: Use the hundred percent rule, credited to Gregory Haugan and named in the PMBOK®

5:57Guide. The parts under each element hold all of its work, no more and no less.

6:03Each work package has clear boundaries and one owner, and a WBS dictionary describes

6:09it. If its cost or duration is still unclear, the ICB4 calls it a planning package.

6:16In iterative work, keep the WBS shallow: a user story plays the part of a work package.

6:22Sara: How does this change between Mid-level and Senior?

6:25Leo: First, the two levels. They are this series' own labels.

6:30Mid-level means leading moderately complex projects, the level of IPMA® Level C and

6:36PMI®'s PMP® exam. Senior means leading complex projects and people,

6:42the level of IPMA® Level B and of APM's chartered status, Chartered Project Professional.

6:49At Mid-level, you hold the scope of one project.

6:52Take Parking Permits Online, a city project that moves resident parking permits

6:57online in eight months. The project manager, Anna, runs workshops with residents,

7:03service-desk staff and wardens. Her WBS fits on one page.

7:08Beside it sit the exclusions, such as the parking fines process,

7:12which stays as it is.

7:14Sara: And at Senior level?

7:16Leo: You design the scope system that others work in.

7:19Take One City Account, a thirty-month city project that brings fourteen online services

7:24under one login, led by Anna some years later.

7:28Each service owner wants their features first.

7:31So Anna agrees one set of MoSCoW tests with the steering board,

7:35which settles conflicts between services.

7:38Accessibility is a must everywhere, by law.

7:41Services that come later stay planning packages until their turn.

7:45Sara: So the Senior answer is about the system: who decides, and on what evidence.

7:50Sara: Now the drill. A city team has eight months to move resident parking permits online,

7:56before January, when most residents renew.

8:01The supplier's fixed price covers one hundred and twenty days of feature work.

8:05The workshops asked for one hundred and sixty.

8:08The sponsor marks one hundred of those days as musts, including a forty-day mobile

8:13app. How do you make the list fit?

8:17Leo: Pause and write your answer. You have forty-five seconds.

9:05Sara: First, the numbers.

9:08Leo: The list is forty days too long, and the musts fill over eighty percent of the days

9:13available. DSDM's guide says at most about sixty percent.

9:17So multiply the days available by point six: at most seventy-two days of musts.

9:24The musts must lose at least twenty-eight days.

9:27Sara: And the moves?

9:29Leo: Agree the test with the sponsor first. Would you stop the launch without the app?

9:34No: residents can use the service in a phone's browser.

9:38So the app is won't have this time. That removes forty days, and leaves sixty days

9:43of musts, half of the days available. You propose; the sponsor decides.

9:48Give each must an acceptance criterion, write the app into the exclusions,

9:53and have the steering group sign off the baseline.

9:56Sara: What lifts that to Senior?

9:58Leo: The date has no tolerance, so agree in writing that the scope flexes.

10:03Offer a real choice: the app after January, or now as a funded change,

10:08with its risk to the date. Set a rule: a new must pushes out work of the same size,

10:14or goes to the steering group. And tell service-desk staff and wardens early what

10:19waits.

10:20Sara: How do the exams ask this?

10:24Leo: IPMA®'s written exam asks for open answers; at Level B it may be oral.

10:29IPMA®'s certification also includes an interview, where assessors ask about your

10:33own projects, so note one scope you defended.

10:37The PMP® exam uses scenarios, and questions built on a case study or a chart.

10:43APM's PMQ asks for short written answers, such as the steps of requirements management:

10:49gather, analyse, justify and baseline.

10:53Sara: Let us recap.

10:55Leo: One. Draw needs out, write them as requirements, and give each one acceptance criteria.

11:01Sara: Two. Rank a long list with MoSCoW. Agree the test first, and keep the musts to about

11:07sixty percent.

11:08Leo: Three. Scope includes its exclusions. In iterative work, the backlog holds it.

11:16Sara: Four. A WBS breaks all the work into work packages, and the hundred percent rule

11:22keeps it complete.

11:24Leo: And five. Change is normal. Creep is change that nobody decided.

11:30Sara: The model sheets and the study handout are linked in the description.

11:34Next time: the schedule.