Scope and Requirements – Examples, Comparison

This is a tricky one, and often many tend to confuse. Further, many think scope and requirements are one and the same. We shall see in detail what are the differences between scope and requirements first, and then their respective management plans.

What is Scope?

In simple terms, scope is the details of the work that needs to be done or achieved.

PMBOK defines scope as the sum of the products, services, and results to be provided as a project.

Check Project Scope VS Product Scope for more clarity.

What is Requirement ?

General meaning of requirement is ” a thing that is needed or wanted; a necessary condition”.

PMBOK defines Requirement as a condition or capability that is required to be present in a product, service, or result to satisfy a contract or other formally imposed specification.

Requirements are what stakeholders need from or intend to get out of the project or product. Requirements should relate to solving problems or achieving the objectives outlined in the Project Charter.

Requirement Example 1

Take a situation (Project): A pipeline built from a nearby canal to a field for proper water supply to the field.

Here, Requirement = Proper Water supply to the field

Product = Pipeline

Scope = All the material required, processes involved to lay down the pipeline from the canal to the field for proper water supply.

Requirement Example 2

Requirement: Passing PMP Exam

Scope: Studying PMBOK, reference book, posts on this website :-),  giving mocktests, practicing hard etc

It should be clearly understood that (Scope VS Requirement)

Requirements indicate what the user intends to achieve or what use the user intends to have from the product.

Scope indicates the various activities that should be done in order to develop the product that satisfies the requirements.

Now that we have understood clearly what Requirements are and what scope is now we shall look into what their respective management plans are

Requirements Management Plan 

It describes how project requirements will be analyzed, documented and managed.

Some organizations refer to it Business Analysis plan.

Components of Requirements Management Plan

• How requirement activities will be planned, tracked and reported
• How requirements are prioritized
• Traceability structure to reflect which requirements will be captured in the traceability matrix
• Configuration management activities

Scope Management Plan

It defines how scope will be defined, developed, monitored, controlled, and verified.

The components of a scope management plan include various processes such as

• Process for preparing a detailed project scope statement;
• Process that enables the creation of the WBS from the detailed project scope statement;
• Process that establishes how the WBS will be maintained and approved;
• Process that establishes how scope will be managed and controlled;
• Process to control how requests for changes to the detailed project scope statement will be processed; and
• Process that specifies how formal acceptance of the completed project deliverables will be obtained.

Remember

Both Requirements Management Plan and Scope Management Plan are

• Part of Project Management Plan;
• outputs of “Plan Scope Management” Process.